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

indigenous languages can understand if anything is expressed in the indigenous
langauge written in Arabic script. Thus the use of Arabic script to write the
indigenous language helped both the scholars who wanted to convey the ideas and
the people for whom these ideas were meant. In the Coromandel region, thus
grew, the Arabic Tamil.
The origin of Arabaic Tamil goes beyond eighth century A.D. and it fills the
vacuum found in the literary history of Tamil speaking Muslims. The Arabs who
stayed in the coastal region consorting with native women and learnt to speak
Tamil, might have started to write Tamil in Arabic character for the purpose of
their trade and accounting. This helped the local merchants to communicate with
their Arab counterparts.
Though Tamil was the mother tongue of the converts to Islam, most of them
from the middle and lower strata of the society, were illiterates. To them anything
written in Arabic script was sacred. Because of their practice to read the Holy
Quran they could understand Tamil in Arabic script. Thus they were able to
understand the lslamic theology written in Arabic script. Islamic Tamil literatures
at the earlier stage were also written in Arabic Tamil. Tamil had it's own script and
Ara,bic Tamil did not replace it, but existed side by side. Whenever the Arabic
letters were lnadequate to express in Tamil, new letters and consonants were
devised to enrich the Arabic Tamil writings. Thus a person who is familiar with the
reading of the Holy Quran and at the same time understand Tamil will be able to
understand the themes of lslamic Tamil literatures written in Arabic Tamil.
Many of the lslamic Tamil works now in Tamil script might have been in
Arabic Tamil. Later on when necessity arose, they were originally produced in
Tamil itself. A large number of literary master pieces on lslamic themes,
commentaries on Holy Quran, dictionaries, poetry, prose works on Islamic mysticism
can be seen in Arab Tamil character even to this day.