European writers called the east coast of peninsular India as the Coromandel coast. The name has been adopted by European trading companies in their official documents. It was narrated that the Portuguese were the first to apply the term “Charamandal” to the coast of present-day Tamil and Telegu regions. The etymology of Coromandel is Cholamandalam, the country of the Cholas. The Coromandel can stretch to as far north to the coast of Orissa.

The east coast of South India was already known to Arab geographers, travellers and traders as Mabar – in Arabic it means a ferry or a crossing place. Here all vessels seem to have habitually touched the ports of the coast before crossing over to Sri Lanka and the the east. The word mabar was first used in the 12th century by an Arab geographer to denote the east coat of peninsular India, so writes J. Raja Mohamad in the Maritime History of the Coromandel Muslims (2004).

Porto Novo, known earlier as Mohamed Bandar with its present Tamil name of Perangipettai is a port city having the character of an urban metropolis with shipbuilding and repair yards. Kadir Mohideen Marakayyar/Merican (of the Kapitan Keling mosque in Tanjong) was said to have departed from the port to Kedah/Pulau Pinang. Continuing my essay on the martime history of the Tamil Muslims, Porto Novo, as it was known then, was favored by the Portuguese, Dutch and English. It was also frequented by native vessels. Commodities of export were rice, padi, groundnut oil, other oil seeds, textiles and indigo. The imports were fine grass mats from Acheh. Another important port is Nagore.

According to J Raja Mohamad, Nagore was the home of large Indian merchant fleets ranging from one masted small vessels to ships of three tonnes with rice, textiles and sea products as chief exports. Meanwhile import were spices, metals, areca, Pegu ponies and a variety of consumables. Nagore was an important port of the South Indian trade with Ceylon then. Most of the merchants in Nagore were Marakayyars. The place was regarded holy because of the presence of the dargah (tomb/shrine) of Shahul Hameed Aulia, popularly known as Nagore Andavar. The Muslim traders of Nagore had depots in Acheh, Pegu and Ceylon. In Pulau Pinang, there is the Nagore Durgha Sheriff, located at the junction of Chulia Street and King Street, dedicated to Shahul Hameed, a 13th century saint, built around the 1800 by Tamil Muslim traders from Thanjavur. Darghas of Muslim saints and mystics in coastal towns and port were considered holy. Many settled in the proximity to do their trade.

Marakkayar traders operating from Nagore exported groundnut tobacco, cattle and sheep, ghee, silk and hide to Ceylon, Pulau Pinang, Singapura and and other ports in the Malay Archipelago. J. Raja Mohamad writes that the settlement in almost all the ports of the Coromandel coast were the stronghold of the Muslims, particularly the Marakayyars and the Labbais. The ports became urban metropolises due to their settlement and trading activities. The concentration of the Muslim maritime community induced the process of urbanization.

English eighteenth century records described places like Nagore and Nagapattinam as “Moor Ports” or “Marakayyar Ports.” A large number of Marakayyars and Labbais were engaged in maritime trade till the second quarter of the nineteenth century. They were merchants, ship owners, nagudhas (nakhodas), sailors, boatmen and ship employees of different descriptions, pearl divers and fisherman.

The concentration on trade and commercial maritime activities by the Coromandel coast Muslims sociologically indicate a significant peculiarity. If we trace from the time of the coming of Islam to the region, the Coromandel coast Muslims were not participants in political activities. These have allowed them to take a leading part in long distance trade, coastal trade and other maritime and economic activities without any ambition for political prominence. J. Raja Mohamad describes them as “passive spectators of all the political disturbances and whenever they were not able to bear the political onslaught they simply migrated to territories favourable to their commercial activities” (p.53).

It was further argued that the Coromandel Muslims, who largely stood outside politics, had no ethnic or kinship connections with any of the ruling houses of peninsular India. Instead, they had developed political connections far from their homeland – at the terminal point of trade in the Malay Archipelago, such as Kedah, Perak, Johore and Acheh.

Furthermore, the European colonizers were unfriendly to the Coromandel Muslims. Hence the latter adjusted and reallocated and relocated their economic activities. By accident or by design, they chose to be isolated from other groups with regard to the political sphere.