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 Muslim traders who visited the Konkan coast between seventh and eighth centuries AD, during the rule of the Chalukya and Rashtrakuta dynasties.[12] Some Konkani Muslim settlements between thirteenth and eighteenth centuries at the former ports of Dabhol and Chaul have been documented by chroniclers such as Ibn Battuta and Firishta.[13] In the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Konkani Muslims became influential sailors, merchants and government employees as the port city of Bombay (present Mumbai) began developing.[14]
Demography
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.[15][16][17]
Religion
Konkani Muslims follow the Shafi'i school of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence. This is in contrast to the rest of North India and Deccan regions whose Sunni Muslims adhere to the Hanafi school.[18][19]
Language
Konkani Muslims speak a variety of dialects of Marathi collectively called Maharashtrian Konkani.[18] 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.
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.[20] 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). "Impact of migration to the middle east on Ratnagiri". In Rao, M. S. A.; Bhat, Chandrashekar; Kadekar, Laxmi Narayan (eds.). A Reader in Urban Sociology. New Delhi: Orient Longman. pp. 371–388. ISBN9780863111518.
^ 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.
