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apenitentialprayer · 4 years

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Martyr Veneration and Māppiḷa Muslim Militancy

At the Kūttāyi nercca the unnamed Ṣūfī buried there seems to have been primarily important as a pretext for holding a festival in which the Islamic element was subordinate to the actual ceremonies. In contrast, the nerccas at Malappuram and Pūkkōttūr celebrate events which are an important part of the Māppiḷas’ heritage as Kerala Muslims. These nerccas are held to honour shahīds, or martyrs, who were killed in battles against a Hindu feudatory, at Malappuram, and opposing British troops, at Pūkkōttūr. Religious martyrdom is an especially immediate and vivid aspect of the Māppiḷas’ Islamic faith; there are graves of shahīds found throughout the Muslim areas of northern Kerala. At Kondōtti there is even an offering box for the Badr shahīds, Muslims killed in one of Muhammad's earliest battles in Arabia. This tradition originally arose in Kerala as a result of the centuries-long wars fought out along the Malabar coast against the European powers, following the Portuguese arrival in 1498. This struggle bequeathed a tradition of religious militancy to the Māppiḷas which was expressed in all types of disputes, whether in trade, politics, or agriculture, and with kāfirs or unbelievers of any persuasion, whether Christians, Jews, or Hindus. At present the pervasive influence of the tradition can be traced most easily among the Māppiḷa songs, the overwhelming majority of which are concerned with war and martyrdom. The environment of the Malappuram nercca is very similar to that of Kondōtti, but with one important exception. While both are primarily agricultural centres, cultivating rice and coconuts, the Māppiḷas of Malappuram were not landowners, but feudatories and tenants of a Hindu chieftain known as the Para Nambi. This relationship and the tensions it created are the immediate background of the Malappuram nercca, for in 1728-9 a conflicted occurred between the Para Nambi and some of the Malappuram Māppiḷas, many of whom were tenants and military retainers of this chieftain. The dispute eventually produced a pitched battle before the Malappuram mosque in which at least 44 Māppiḷas were killed. The slain came to be regarded as shahīds by the Muslim population and the Malappuram nercca is held to honour their memory. [...] The subject of the Malappuram nercca is a good deal more important than its crude ceremonies, for the honouring of the shahīds reveals an important aspect of Kerala Muslim culture which is scarcely hinted at in the festivals at Kondōtti and Kūttāyi. Not only does the nercca illuminate the continued existence of a militant tradition which can be traced back to the sixteenth century, but it reveals how this tradition was perpetuated over time. That is, the Malappuram nercca itself helps to perpetuate the idea of the shahīd among the Māppiḷas, and it does so not only through the annual celebrations, but in the songs and legends written about the original shahīds. During the nineteenth century there were a number of songs written to commemorate these martyrs, and by the end of the century these were being circulated in printed editions. In one instance in 1896 the songs evidently helped to inspire a Māppiḷas attack against neighbouring Hindus - one of many such outbreaks led by the Māppiḷas during the nineteenth century in Malabar District. [...] At Malappuram the nercca has ritually preserved the memory of an important historical event for local Māppiḷas. At Pūkkōttūr it is possible to see another such ritual in the process of formation, and like the Malappuram nercca it celebrates an event of major importance to the Māppiḷas as Kerala Muslims. The Pūkkōttūr nercca commemorates an important battle of the Māppiḷa rebellion of 1921-2, one of the largest and most serious military uprisings against British rule in twentieth-century India. The Mappila rebellion was produced by the interaction of national Muslim politics in the form of the Khilafat Movement with local social and economic tensions and the inherited militancy of several hundred years of Māppiḷa history. It began, almost spontaneously, as a revolt against British rule and although later much of the violence was directed against upper-caste Hindus the rebellion can be interpreted as an attempt to establish Māppiḷa political and economic dominance within the area now designated as Malappuram District. The Pūkkōttūr nercca began to be celebrated only in 1972. During the 1971-2 the fiftieth anniversary of the Māppiḷa rebellion was celebrated in the state of Kerala, and the rebels or near relatives of rebels who had suffered imprisonment or other punishment at the hands of the British were given pensions as 'Freedom Fighters' by the State Government. The nercca at Pūkkōttūr began to be celebrated in this jubilee year to honour the martyrs who had fallen in battle between Māppiḷas and British troops on 26 August 1921, the first serious battle of the rebellion. The battle occurred as a result of a decision by the British in Calicut to relieve a garrison of troops which had been isolated at Malappuram since the outbreak of the rebellion on 20 August 1921. More than 1,000 Māppiḷas attempted to ambush this relief column of almost 200 British troops and police, and this developed into a five-hour battle in which Māppiḷas made several suicidal charges against the British forces. Over 400 Māppiḷas are estimated to have been killed, and these were buried in graves along the roadside. The British Government never permitted any kind of special attention to be paid to these graves, but after independence in 1947 the burial places were specially marked with fencing, and the dead rebels began to be revered as shahīds by the surrounding population. [...] The Pūkkōttūr nercca, like that at Malappuram, is more interesting for the event it commemorates than for the ceremonies of the festival itself. It is most intriguing, though, as a contemporary example of the development of a nercca, showing that the deification of shahīds is a continuing process within the traditional framework of local festivals. It is a contemporary contribution to the evolution of the militant, heroic heritage of the Māppiḷas of this area, and probably in time the nercca, like that in Malappuram, will spawn its own popular literature.

- Stephen F. Dale and M. Gangadhara Menon (“Nerccas”: Saint-Martyr Worship Among the Muslims of Kerala)

#Islam #India #saints #martyrs #history #colonialism #jihad #folk religion

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