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Konkani Muslims (or Kokani Muslims) are an ethnoreligious subgroup of the Konkani people of the Konkani region along the west coast of India, who practice Islam.[1][2] Nawayath Muslims from the North Canara district of Karnataka have similar origin as Konkani Muslims, but show a distinct ethnolinguistic identity due to geographical isolation of the Canara coast from the Konkan coast.[3]
The Konkani Muslim community forms a part of the larger Konkani-speaking demographic and are predominantly located in the Konkan division of the Indian state of Maharashtra.[4] This includes the administrative districts of Mumbai, Mumbai Suburban, Palghar, Thane, Raigad, Ratnagiri, and Sindhudurg.
There is a diaspora Konkani Muslim community based in Persian Gulf states,[5][6] the United Kingdom,[7][8] and South Africa.[9][10] Some Konkani Muslims migrated to Pakistan during the Partition of India in 1947, and are presently settled in Karachi,[11] as part of the larger Muhajir community.
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 traders from Hadhramaut (in Yemen or South Arabia),[12] the North of Indian (Haryana/Punjab) and other parts of Arabia and the Middle East,[13] who visited the Konkan coast between the seventh and eighth centuries AD and fled persecution in North India, during the rule of the Chalukya and Rashtrakuta dynasties.[14] Some Konkani Muslim settlements between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries at the former ports of Dabhol and Chaul have been documented by chroniclers such as Ibn Battuta and Firishta.[15] 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.[16]
Saadatullah Khan I, a Konkani Muslim born into a family of Nawayaths, was the Nawab of the Carnatic under the Mughal Empire.[17]
Ancestry formed the basis for social stratification: Konkani people are direct descendants of Arab traders formed an elite class over those who had indirect descent through intermarriages with local women converts to Islam. The Konkani people have a varied ethnic backgroud as most Muslims within the region [18][19][20] are descendants of people who migrated from the Delhi region, Hadhramaut (in Yemen or South Arabia),[12] Iran and other parts of Arabia and the Middle East. [21]
Konkani Muslims follow the Sunni Islamic jurisprudence with some following the Shia and Sufi demographic. This is in contrast to the Deccan regions, where Muslims adhere to the Hanafi school.[22][23]
Konkanis speak a variety of dialects of Marathi collectively called Maharashtrian Konkani.[22] 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 the Konkani language in regions around Goa.
Almost all Muslim Konkanis speak Urdu with some who migrated to Pakistan speaking various dialets of Punjabi. In addition, the Muslims from Sindhudurg, near Malvan, and the former princely state of Sawantwadi speak the Malvani Konkani dialect of the Konkani language, but most Muslim Konkanis opt to speak Urdu.
The cuisine of Konkani Muslims is meat anx seafood. Its staple food is rice and bread made of rice (preferred at dinners) with meat/fish and lentils or vegetables. It is mainly influenced by Kashmiri people who settled in the late 1800s fleeing tensions in the North of India.[24] The southern portion of Konkan region has Malvani cuisine which overlaps with Maharashtrian and Goan cuisines.
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