Arabi-Malayalam: Linguistic Cultural Traditions of Mappila Muslims of Kerala

This work is a sociolinguistic study of a locally devised language called ArabiMalayalam of Mappila Muslims of Kerala, which is on the verge of extinction. Besides covering many interesting linguistic issues, this work documents a vast array of oral and written traditions in this language. There are a number of rituals, lifecycle events and performative occasions in which the oral literary tradition in ArabiMalayalam finds its expression. One of the major concerns of this work is to analyze the pragmatic working of language and literary genre adjusted structurally to such occasions. The development of literature in ArabiMalayalam reflects a trade and faithinduced cosmopolitanism with its effects spread across farflung regions like Southern Yemen, East Africa and South East Asia. This work is, therefore, an attempt to reposition the history of ArabiMalayalam with a thoughtful consideration of movements of peoples, cultures and goods across boundaries of space and culture. Within the realm of 'secularnational' literature there was a pronounced skepticism towards ArabiMalayalam literary works which have often been seen associated with the less prestigious genre of 'religious literature' or 'vernacular community literature'. This work also makes an enquiry into why Arab Malayalam literature was gingerly accepted or held out at an arm's length by the literary theorists.

M.H. Ilias is Professor at the IndiaArab Cultural Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia. Areas of his research interest include South Asian Islam, Society and Culture in the Gulf States, Hadrami migration on the Malabar Coast and film and popular culture in West Asia. Ilias' recent publications include IndiaWest Asia Relations: Understanding Cultural Interplays (coedited); Space Memory and Jewish National Identity; Society and Change in the Contemporary Gulf (coedited) and OffCampus Orientalism: Western University Branch Campuses in the Gulf. Shamshad Hussain K.T. is Associate Professor at the Depar tment of Malayalam, Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kerala. Her research, teaching and writing focused on Islamic Feminism, Feminist Theories, South Asian Islam and History of DeColonization Movement in Malabar. Shamshad' s most recent works are Between Feminism and Minority Status and Neither Islam nor Women.