Sri Lankan Moors
Sri Lankan Moors (Tamil: இலங்கைச் சோனகர் colloquially referred to as Muslims) are the third largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka, comprising 9.23% of the country's total population. They are native speakers of the Tamil language and predominantly followers of Islam. The Tamil term for Muslims in Sri Lanka is சோனகர் (Sonakar), சோனர் (Sonar) or சோனி (Sooni) probably derived from Sunni. While some sources describe them as a subset of the Tamil people who had adopted Islam as their religion and spoke Tamil as their mother tongue, which they continue to do so, other sources trace their ancestry to Arab traders (Moors) who settled in Sri Lanka some time between the 8th and 15th centuries. Moors today use Tamil as their primary language, with influence from Arabic. The population of Muslims are the highest in the Ampara and Trincomalee districts respectively.
History
Origins theories
Tamil origin
Throughout history, the Tamils of Sri Lanka have tried to classify the Sri Lankan Moors as belonging to the Tamil ethnic group. Their view holds that the Sri Lankan Moors were simply Tamil converts to Islam. The claim that the Moors were the progeny of the original Arab settlers, might hold good for a few families but not for the entire bulk of the community. This is evidenced by the fact that, the Moors's Islamic Cultural Home, Colombo were unsuccessful in digging up the genealogical history of Muslim families with Arab descent, in any great numbers. I.L.M. Abdul Azeez (of the organization) seemed to have accepted the idea, when he observed that:
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (/sriːˈlɑːŋkə, -ˈlæŋkə/ or 
i/ʃriː-/;Sinhalese - ශ්රී ලංකාව, Tamil Ilaṅkai), officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and known from the beginning of British colonial rule until 1972 as Ceylon (/sᵻˈlɒnˌ seɪ-ˌ siː-/), is an island country in South Asia near south-east India.
Sri Lanka has maritime borders with India to the northwest and the Maldives to the southwest. Its documented history spans 3,000 years, with evidence of pre-historic human settlements dating back to at least 125,000 years. Its geographic location and deep harbours made it of great strategic importance from the time of the ancient Silk Road through to World War II.
A diverse and multicultural country, Sri Lanka is home to many religions, ethnic groups, and languages. In addition to the majority Sinhalese, it is home to large groups of Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils, Moors, Burghers, Malays, Kaffirs and the aboriginal Vedda. Sri Lanka has a rich Buddhist heritage, and the first known Buddhist writings of Sri Lanka, the Pāli Canon, dates back to the Fourth Buddhist council in 29 BC. The country's recent history has been marred by a thirty-year civil war which decisively ended when Sri Lankan military defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009.
Sri Lankan
Sri Lankan can refer to:
- Sinhalese people, an ethnic majority
- Sri Lankan Tamil people, an ethnic minority
- Sri Lankan Moors, an ethnic minority
- Sri Lankan Malay people, an ethnic minority
List of Sri Lankan Moors
This is a list of Sri Lankan Moors, Arab traders who settled in Sri Lanka between the 8th and 15th centuries and now comprise 8% of the Sri Lankan population. They speak Tamil and Sinhalese and mainly live around the coastal areas of the island.
Musicians
Politicians
Moors
The Moors were Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily, and Malta during the Middle Ages. The Moors were initially of Berber and Arab descent, though the term was later applied to Africans, Iberian Christian converts to Islam, and people of mixed ancestry.
In 711 the Moors invaded the Iberian Peninsula from North Africa and called the territory Al-Andalus, which at its peak included most of modern-day Spain, Portugal, and Septimania. The Moors occupied Mazara on Sicily in 827, developing it as a port, and they eventually consolidated the rest of the island and some of southern Italy. Differences in religion and culture led to a centuries-long conflict with the Christian kingdoms of Europe, which tried to reclaim control of Muslim areas; this conflict was referred to as the Reconquista. In 1224 the Muslims were expelled from Sicily to the settlement of Lucera, which was destroyed by European Christians in 1300. The fall of Granada in 1492 marked the end of Muslim rule in Iberia, although a Muslim minority persisted until their expulsion in 1609.
Moor
Moor may refer to:
