Konkani Muslims (also known as Kokani Muslims or कोकणी मुसलमान) are an ethnoreligious subgroup of the Konkani (Kokani) people primarily living in the Konkan region of western India, who practise Islam.[1] Indigenous Muslims from the districts of Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri, Raigad, Mumbai (Bombay) city and suburb, and Thane are generally regarded as Konkani Muslims.[2] Karwari Konkani Muslims of Bhatkal, situated at the southern border of Konkan in North Canara district of Carnatica are known as Nawayaths[3]
Since antiquity, the Konkan coast has had mercantile relations with major ports on the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Konkani Muslims can trace their ancestry to Arab traders who visited the coast in the medieval era.[12] Ancestry formed the basis for social stratification: direct descendants of Arab traders formed an elite class over those who had indirect descent through intermarriages with local converts to Islam.[13][14][15]
Many have Hindu surnames as a result of entitlement or area they belong.
Religion
Konkani Muslims follow the Shafi'i school of Sunni Islamic law. This is in contrast to the rest of North India and Deccan regions whose Sunni Muslims adhere to the Hanafi school.[16][17]
Language
Konkani Muslims speak a variety of dialects of Marathi collectively called Maharashtrian Konkani.[16] Some of the dialects include Parabhi, Kunbi, Karadhi, Sangameshwari and Bankoti. These form a gradual linguistic continuum between standard Marathi in regions around Mumbai and Konkani language in regions around Goa.
In addition, the Muslims from south Sindhudurg, near Malvan, and the former princely state of Sawantwadi speak the Malvani Konkani dialect of the Konkani language.
Cuisine
The cuisine of Konkani Muslims is non-vegetarian, mostly seafood. Its staple food is rice and bread made of rice (preferred at dinners) with fish and lentils or vegetables. It is mainly influenced by Maharashtrian cuisine.[18] The southern portion of Konkan region has Malvani cuisine which overlaps with Maharashtrian and Goan cuisines.
^Deshmukh, Cynthia (1979). "The People Of Bombay 1850-1914 (An approach paper)". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 40: 836–840. JSTOR44142034.
^Gogate, Sudha (1991). Rao, M. S. A.; Bhat, Chandrashekar; Kadekar, Laxmi Narayan (eds.). "Impact of migration to the middle east on Ratnagiri". A Reader in Urban Sociology. New Delhi: Orient Longman: 371–388.
^Green, Nile (2008). "Islam for the Indentured Indian: A Muslim Missionary in Colonial South Africa". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 71 (3): 529–553. doi:10.1017/s0041977x08000876. JSTOR40378804.
^ abNasiri, Md. Jalis Akhtar (2010). Indian Muslims: Their Customs and Traditions during Last Fifty Years (Ph.D.). New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University.
^Dandekar, Deepra (2017). "Margins or Center? Konkani Sufis, India and "Arabastan"". In Mielke, Katja; Hornidge, Anna-Katharina (eds.). Area Studies at the Crossroads: Knowledge Production after the Mobility Turn. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 141–156.