Note 31 — Chapter IX · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN INDIA.

The traditionary account of the introduction of Islam into Malabar, as given by a Muhammadan historian of the sixteenth century, represents the first missionaries to have been a party of pilgrims on their way to visit the foot-print of Adam in Ceylon; on their arrival at Cranganore the Raja sent for them and the leader of the party, Shayk͟h Sharaf b. Mālik, who was accompanied by his brother, Mālik b. Dīnār, and his nephew, Mālik b. Ḥabīb, took the opportunity of expounding to him the faith of Islam and the mission of Muḥammad, “and God caused the truth of the Prophet’s teaching to enter into the king’s heart and he believed therein; and his heart became filled with love for the Prophet and he bade the Shayk͟h and companions come back to him again on their return from their pilgrimage to Adam’s foot-print.”31 On the return of the pilgrims from Ceylon, the king secretly departed with them in a ship bound for the coast of Arabia, leaving his kingdom in the hand of viceroys. Here he remained for some time, and was just about to return to his own country, with the intention of erecting mosques there and spreading the faith of Islam, when he fell sick and died. On his death-bed he solemnly enjoined on his companions not to abandon their proposed missionary journey to Malabar, and to assist them in their labours, he gave them letters of recommendation to his viceroys, at the same time bidding them conceal the fact of his death. Armed with these letters, Sharaf b. Mālik and his companions sailed for Cranganore, where the king’s letter secured for them a kindly welcome and a grant of land, on which they built a mosque. Mālik b. Dīnār decided to settle there, but Mālik b. Ḥabīb set out on a missionary tour with the object of building mosques throughout Malabar. “So Mālik b. Ḥabīb set out for Quilon with his worldly goods and his wife and some of his children, and he built a mosque there; then leaving his wife there, he went on to Hīlī Mārāwī,32 where he built a mosque”; and so the narrative continues, giving a list of seven other places at which the missionary erected mosques, finally returning to Cranganore. Later on, he visited all these places again to pray in the mosque at each of them, and came back “praising and giving thanks to God for the manifestation of the faith of Islam in a land filled with unbelievers.”33