Islam in Sri Lanka

right|thumb|180px|The [[Jami Ul-Alfar Mosque in Pettah area is one of the oldest mosques in Colombo]]

Islam is the third largest religion in Sri Lanka, with about 9.7 percent of the total population following the religion. About 1.9 million Sri Lankans adhere to Islam as per the Sri Lanka census of 2012. Most Sri Lankan Muslims primarily speak Tamil, though it is not uncommon for Sri Lankan Muslims to be fluent in Sinhalese.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, Javanese and Malaysian Muslims brought over by the Dutch and British rulers contributed to the growing Muslim population in Sri Lanka. Their descendants, now the Sri Lankan Malays, adopted several Sri Lankan Moor Islamic traditions while also contributing their unique cultural Islamic practices to other Muslim groups on the Island.

The arrival of Muslims from India during the 19th and 20th centuries has also contributed to the growth of Islam in Sri Lanka. Most notably, Pakistani and Indian Muslims have introduced the Hanafi school of thought into Sri Lanka. Most Muslims on the island adhere to the traditional practices of Sunni Islam.

The majority of Sri Lankan Muslims adhere to Sunni Islam. Within the Sunni community, several Sufi orders (turuq) have historically played an influential role. The Fassiya ash-Shazuliya tariqa, headquartered at Ummu Zavaya on M. J. M. Laffir Mawatha in Colombo and associated with scholars linked to the Al-Fassi family since the 1870s, has been one of the most historically influential Sufi orders among Sri Lankan Sunni Muslims, alongside the Aroosiyathul Qadiriyya. In addition to these Sufi traditions, non-Sufi Islamic revivalist and reformist movements such as the Deobandi-oriented Tablighi Jamaat, Jamaat-e-Islami, and Thawheed Jamath also maintain centers in Colombo.[1] The Sunni scholar Muhammad Abdul Aleem Siddiqi, associated with the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence, established the Hanafi Masjid in Colombo for the Muslim community.[2]

In modern times, Muslims in Sri Lanka are handled by the Muslim Religious and Cultural Affairs Department, which was established in the 1980s to prevent the continual isolation of the Muslim community from the rest of Sri Lanka. Muslims of Sri Lanka, mostly continue to derive from the Moor and Malay ethnic communities on the island with smaller numbers of converts from other ethnicities, such as the Tamils.

In recent years, Sri Lankan Muslims have become more affected by the growing influence of Salafism; due to investment from Saudi Arabia, Sri Lankan Sufi Muslims have been wary of increasing Wahhabism among Sri Lankan Muslims. The brutal 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings revealed that the radical National Thowheeth Jama'ath, a Salafi influenced organization, was behind the bombings, leading to increasing censorship of the Salafi movement in Sri Lanka.

In April 2020, the Sri Lankan government made COVID-19 cremations mandatory, saying that burying bodies could contaminate groundwater and spread the disease. Islam prohibits cremation and Muslims make up 10% of the population in Sri Lanka.

In late February 2021, after intense objections from human rights groups, including Amnesty International and the United Nations, the Sri Lankan government decided to allow burials to take place for Muslims. They were to be done on Iranathivu island, a remote island in the Gulf of Mannar. It lies 300 km (186 miles) away from the capital, Colombo, and was chosen because of its low population density.

Population

thumb|Islam in Sri Lanka 2012 Census

{| class="wikitable"

! Census !! Population!! Percentage

|1881 || 197,800 ||

|1891 || 212,000 ||

|1901 || 246,100 ||

|1911 || 283,600 ||

|1921 || 302,500 ||

|1931 Estimate || 354,200 ||

|1946 || 436,600 ||

|1953 || 541,500 ||

|1963 || 724,000 ||

|1971 || 901,785 ||

|1981 || 1,121,717 ||

|2012 || 1,967,523 ||

The districts of Ampara (43%), Trincomalee (42%) and Batticaloa (26%) in Eastern Province have the highest share of Muslims in Sri Lanka, followed by Puttalam (20%), Mannar (17%), Kandy (14%) and Colombo (12%).

Sri Lankan Moors

right|thumb|250px|Typical early 20th century Moor gentlemen

The Sri Lankan Moors are mostly native speakers of the Tamil language while a few of them speak Sinhala as primary language, and follow Islam as their religion. Sri Lankan Moors comprise 9.30% (2012 Census) of Sri Lanka's population, and constitute the largest ethnic group within the Muslim community in the country.

Islam was spread to Sri Lanka by contacts with the merchant ships operated by the Moor traders between Serendib (Old Persian / Arabic name for Sri Lanka), and various ports in the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa. As per scholars, Sri Lankan Moors are descendant of the Marakkar, Mappilas, Memons and Pathans of South India.

Education

There are 749 Muslim schools in Sri Lanka, 205 madrasas which teach Islamic education, and an Islamic university in Beruwala (Jamiya Naleemiya). Al Iman Schools in Colombo was the first organization of Islamic schools of its kind, teaching an integrated Islamic curriculum since 2008. In the early 20th century there were few Muslim professionals in accounting, medicine, engineering, etc., but at present they are exceeding the national average. Due to the lack of opportunity in Sri Lanka, many Muslim professionals are emigrating to get jobs abroad, such as to the Middle East, United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe. The Moors have had better social and economic mobility, thanks to the historic head start they had in getting education and government jobs under the British colonial rule.

East Coast Moors

In the eastern provinces of the country Muslims are predominant. These Muslims were settled on land given by the Sinhalese King Senarat of Kandy after the Muslims were persecuted by the Portuguese.

West Coast Moors

Many moors in the west of the island are traders, professionals or civil servants and are mainly concentrated in Colombo, Kalutara, Beruwala, Dharga Town, Puttalam, Jaffna, Kandy, Matale, Vavuniya and Mannar. Moors in the west coast trace their family lines through their father. Along with those in the Central Province, the surname of many Moors in Colombo, Kalutara and Puttalam is their father's first name, thus retaining similarity to the traditional Arab and middle eastern kinship system.

The Malays

left|thumb|200px|Sri Lankan Malay Father and Son, 19th century

thumb|250px|[[Mosque in Galle, Sri Lanka ]]

The Malays of Sri Lanka originated in Southeast Asia and today consist of about 50,000 persons. Their ancestors came to the country when both Sri Lanka and Indonesia were colonies of the Dutch.

The Dawoodi Bohras and the Khoja are Shi'a Muslims who came from western India (Gujarat state) after 1880; in the 1980s they collectively numbered fewer than 2,000.