Marakkar

The Marakkars}} are of diverse origins with some tracing their ancestry to Arab traders with historical presence across the Indian Subcontinent and Indonesian Archipelago. Their contemporary populations are primarily concentrated in the Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the Republic of Maldives, as well as the Western, Central, and Southern provinces of Sri Lanka. Within Southeast Asia, prominent Marakkar communities exist in Malaysia and Singapore.

The Marakkars have maintained their traditional role as a mercantile community from their historical origins to the present day. They are a multilingual community with language use varying by region. In Kerala, they predominantly speak Malayalam, while Tamil Nadu's Marakkar population speaks Tamil. In Sri Lanka, community members are conversant in both Sinhala and Tamil. Religiously, the Marakkars are adherents of Sunni Islam.

The Marakkars achieved particular prominence in the early modern period as the first Indian mercantile community to establish settlements in British Malaya. However, their most significant historical impact was during medieval India. Before the Portuguese Armada's arrival on Indian shores in 1497, the Marakkars exercised substantial control over Indian Ocean trade networks. They later gained distinction as the first Indic ethnic group to mount sustained military resistance against European colonial expansion, engaging in a hundred-year conflict with the Portuguese from 1520 to 1619. This resistance was notably led by Admiral Kunjali Marakkar IV, whom some regard as "the first Indian freedom fighter."

Scholars also suggest that the Marakkars played a very significant role in the spread of Islam throughout the Indonesian Archipelago. Their maritime trade networks and established presence across multiple regions facilitated this religious diffusion, though the exact extent of their influence remains a subject of academic discussion. Provided by Wikipedia