The chapter describing the Prophet’s daughter Fatima’s wedding to Ali seems very similar to Tamil verses describing Sita’s wedding to Ram, with women in Medina overflowing on balconies to catch a glimpse of the handsome groom.
Mecca is even described as beautiful as the gem on the hood of Adi Sesha.
The city of Mecca is described as how Tamil Poets would describe Mithila or Madurai: full of lakes where lotus flowers bloom. There is the traditional description of how clouds from the sea hover over mountains (of Arabia?) and burst into torrential rains, giving rise to a river full of sparkling gems and fragrant sandalwood whose water is collected in ponds to nourish all of life. The influence of Tamil Hindu literature is obvious, especially in the use of figures of speech. The ‘shahada’ or declaration of Islamic faith is called mula-mantra or the seed-hymn of Hindus. In fact, four Muslim Vedas are referred to: Torah given to Moses (Musa in Islamic mythology), Zabur given to David (Dawood), Injil (Gospel) given to Jesus, and Purukan (Quran) given to Muhammad. Here we find Allah being referred to using the honorific ‘Thiru’ which is the Tamil equivalent of the Sanskrit ‘Shri’. The word ‘Cira’ is from the Arabic ‘sirah’, referring to traditional hagiographies on the life of the Prophet. In the 17th century, Umaru Pullavar, which means Omar the Poet, wrote the Cirappuranam, a Puran of approximately 5,000 verses written in Tamil for Muslims about the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Of course, much of this is changing in recent times because of a highly intolerant and puritanical Wahabi form of Islam emerging from Arabia. The close integration of local communities means that it is not uncommon to find an Amman shrine of the mother goddess in a Tamil village by whose side stands a Muslim warrior, usually on a horse, known as Muttal Ravuttan. The local Muslims of Indonesia and Malaysia used Hindu and Buddhist cultural symbols in their social life. In all these places, local traditions thrived simultaneously. The traders went as far as Malaysia and Indonesia, which is why these countries have a high Muslim population. Unlike Islam in the North that spread through warfare, Islam in South India spread via traders. They speak Tamil using loan words not only from Sanskrit but also from Arabic and Persian. They believe their ancestors were Arab sea merchants who took Tamil wives, or Tamil men who converted to Islam following contact with Arab merchants. Many Muslims in Tamil Nadu call themselves Marakkayar, which means seamen, a word that is derived from the Arabic ‘markab’. Published on 30th July, 2017, in Mid-Day.