maritime activities economy and social customs of the muslims of ...

The worship that takes place in these shrines tended to draw upon the local religious
vocabulary and local style of verse, music etc.. transmitting Muslim teaching in a
form which can most easily transcend the frontal boundaries of the sect and community.
Many such cluster of dargahs are found along the coastal town of Coromandel
as well as in the hinterland; among which the dargahs at PortoNovo, Nagore,
Karaikal, Muthupet, Kilakkarai. Ervadi and Kayalpattanam are very sacred to the
Muslims as well as the Hindus. Some of the earliest dargahs in places like
PortNovo, Kovalam and Kolachal are associated with the contemporaries and
companions of Prophet Mohamed.
The dargahs are revered as a place of power , a repository of barakath
(blessing) and boons and a source of miraculous cure and a resort of pilgrimage. The
Awlia entombed in a particular shrine may be a learned man, a scholar, a teacher,
a missionary, a polemicist, a poet or a Sufi, whose original teaching place became
a place of devotion and pilgrimage after his death. It was believed that apart from
being a learned holy man and the missionaries such saints were also great hakims
(physicians) and masters in accult science and had powers to perform Karamath
(miracles). The character of such saints attracted the masses.
Most of these dargahs are recent foundations. But the pirzadas (trustees) of
the shrine claim a long antiquity and have created thirteenth or fourteenth century
date of foundation, in order to link the shrines to one of the great founder figures
of Sufism such as Jalaludin Rumi or Ibn AI Arabi. Most of the region's historical
Sufis were from Deccan who fled to the Tamil region following the collapse of
Deccani Sultanates. But all the tomb shrines in Coromandel coastal towns do not
belong to such Sufis. Majority of them were Muslim saints of Tamil origin and they
were literary laurates and missi~naries~~.