Kerala: How Portuguese find shelter?

Before thousands of years Keralites had a well and healthier relationship with the Arabs. Arabs reached here and engaged in exchanging their goods so that they acquired the ability to maintain the mutual relationship between the two groups well. In reality, it paved the way for the emergence of Calicut as an international market for a number of individuals and sections of people from varied communities and platforms.

Hitherto, the arrival of Portugese totally changed the situations. Even though Birthala Meo Dias returned from cape of ‘good hope’, Gama found another way by the assistance of Ibn Maja. As history quotes Ibn maja was the leader of the army. But Muslim scholar and historian PMK Faizy states that he was being compelled to perform it. Although he was a Sufi saint they gave him toddy, misleading him it was tea. By this Gama exploited the unconscious mind of Ibn MAja.

At last in 1948 Gama’s brutal feet touched the landscape of Kappad. Regarding the people of Kerala, they were the new comers landed in Kerala with the intention of marketing. So they were welcomed with well greetings and wishes. Firstly, they didn’t outrage the problems on Indians, but later they captured the market of Kerala and the dominance over the sea routes and basins. Moreover they intended to eradicate the Muslims and to reduce their number. But for Zamorin, it was quite important to keep Muslims safe, for the victory and existence of his kingdom. Thus we can explicitly read the reality that the existence of Muslims was mandatory for the non Muslims. But according to a country like Portugese, Muslims were one of their major enemies. Many ships and equipments of Muslims suffered from the cruelty of Portugese.

In his second arrival he fired one of the ships, coming from the holy land, Mecca. The Muslims surrendered only after a major war which was later came to be known as the eighth war of crusades. Zainudheen Makhdoom, the prominent muslim scholar had well described all this brutalities of portugese in his famous write up “Thuhfathul Mujahideen”. He summarizes these attacks as a well planned step to eradicate Muslims from the whole world. Khaja Ambar and Khaja Kasim were the eminent Muslim leaders who stood powerfully against their enemity and suppressive policies. But they were distressed by the changing attitude of Zamorin. After a while, Zamorin passed away in 1524. After his demise, Menessus came into the power. He started the harassment by killing Kutti Hassan. But the arrival of veteran scholars like Zainudheen Al Makhdoom, Syed Alavi Mampuram, Umar khasi and Abdul Azeez created drastic changes in the conditions. Their active participation influenced the whole Muslims especially the Arakkals and Marakkars who later led the popular movements against the Portugese. Even though the power of portugese diminished in the country, the alliances of Zamorini generated great crisis between the societies. The defeated Porugese side again came with signs of war. But they were badly defeated by the troop led by Ali Marakkar and the Dutch merchants who were the next to reach after the Portuguese. Slowly portuguese lose their territories one by one. The period of Potugese was very important for the Kerlites as it demolished the calm atmosphere of secularism in the state.

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