Malabari's shrine famed in Kerala, India

ONE fine day last November, an hour after Asr, I finally reached the outskirt of the town of Ponnani, Kerala State, India. I had come to Kerala looking for the tomb of one Syeikh Zain ad-Din al-Malibari al-Funnani who passed away between 970-990 H.

Syeikh Zain ad-Din al-Malibari, other than his Arab descent is not from the family of the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace), although known as Makhdum Thangal. The Keralites normaly assigned the title Thangal — the equivalent of South and South East Asia's Syed and Yemen's Habib — to scholar-descendants of the Prophet. However, Syeikh Zain ad-Din's case is an exception. He is locally known variably as Zain ad-Din Makhdum, Zain ad-Din Thangal and Makhdum Thangal, reflecting his high standing and the deep religious respect and devotion of the local people to him.

His family left Arabia to land in the Coromandel Coast, known to the Arab as Ma'bar, quite the opposite of Kerala — the Malabar coast — and for some time, before their migration to Kerala, all his scholarly ancestors were known as al-Ma'bari.

The inspiration to visit him sprang from the yellowy pages of Fath al-Mu'in, Syeikh Zain ad-Din's greatest legacy to the Shafi'i school of jurisprudence. I had learnt portions of it from my late teacher in Malaysia, whose exposition of the author filled me up with longing to meet the illustrious man. There is a saying, inspired from one of the Prophetic Canonical Sayings, that those who visit the scholars in their graves, it is as if they have visited the scholars when they were alive.

Ponnani as I saw it was a busy middle size rural town. The streets were crowded and bustled with activities; it was modern but the religious ambience of the land was effortlessly palpable. After all, this is a town that prides itself as the Mekah Minora — the Lesser Mekah.

Together with local Keralite friends, Shamoon and Basheer, I made my way to the Ponnani Grand Mosque. It was first constructed by Makhdum Thangal's grandfather, who was known as Zain ad-Din the First, or the Elder, also a great Shafi'i scholar.

The mosque, like many other local mosques I have seen and visited along the way from Kochi where I arrived by plane, follows the triangular shape of the local Hindu temple architecture. This is not surprising as the Islam that came here from Arabia following the sea route had come peacefully and was well-received by the local Hindu kings. In contrast to the form of Islam that had spread through other parts of India via military conquests, in Kerala, and also in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, the Muslims had chosen the path of assimilation, adopting the local style of building, dress and food and adjusting it to their need. Another example is the way to tie up the cotton cloth mundu, known elsewhere in India as dhoti, appearing in colourful forms as lungi in Bangladesh and sarong in South East Asia.

Both the Muslims and the non-Muslims of Kerala and Tamil Nadu states have an inherent preference for the white mundu To differentiate between themselves, the Muslims will tie their dhoti to the right side while the non-Muslims tie it to the left. This kind of wisdom is what gives Islam in the southern parts of India a strong connection and roots to the local culture. In the latter part of my journey through Kerala, I often heard the term "organic Islam" proudly mentioned by my Keralite contacts.

The tomb of Syeikh Zain ad-Din al-Malibari is located on the left side of the mosque as one enters through the main archway. There was only a small window through which one could peep through and see the tombstone. The wall was marbled and decorated with surah Yaasin in full, which turned out to be convenient to visitors unable to rely on their memory of the surah in the midst of all that emotion, excitement and occasional commotion.

It is not difficult to be overwhelmed by one's feeling at the tomb of such a great figure. Years ago when I first heard his name, I could not imagine that one day I will actually reach his final resting place. The man was himself a great traveler. He had gone to Egypt in his youth to learn from the great Shafi'i jurist Ibn Hajar al-Haytami. When he returned to Kerala he found that the Portuguese had started making incursions into the Keralites' sphere of life. The Muslims had been the worst benefactors of this latest incursion. In his effort to keep the fighting spirit of the people high, Syeikh Zain ad-Din not only wrote fiqh treatises, but also tasawwuf tracts, history books, and poems. Among the famous extant manuscripts still in use are Fath al-Mu'in (the Opening of Assistance), a commentary to his earlier work called Qurrat al-'Ayn; Hidayat al-Azkiya ila Thariq al-Auliya (Guidance to the Path of the Saints); Irsyad al-Ibad ila Sabil ar-Rasyad (Manual for the Worshipper to the Way of the Guided); Tuhfat al-Mujahidin (The Tribute to the Holy Warriors) and a 177-line poem called Tahridh ahli al-iman. (Rousing the Believers). In between his career as a teaching scholar, he was also the court advisor and royal diplomat to the local Hindu Zamorin of Calicut, entrusted as carrier of royal letters to various Indian and Arabian kings who respected him for both his religious and political authority.

In his works, he boldly reprimanded the Muslim Kings of India and Arabia for not paying attention to the plight of Kerala. The sole exception was the ruler of Bijapur, Adil Shah, who had responded to his call by moving an army against the Portuguese in Goa. Syeikh Zain ad-Din spared no praise for this king whom he looked upon as patron, and to whom he attributed the sirah work, Tuhfat al-Mujahidin, calling him "a zealous monarch, hearty and persistent in his endeavour to propagate the Faith and root out the enemy of Islam". The fact that this praise was addressed by a leading Sunni scholar to a King of Shiite sect is a valuable history lesson to all Muslims.

In view of the help received by the Muslim community and the steadfastness of the Calicut Zamorin in retaliation to the Portuguese attacks, Syeikh Zain ad-Din addressed him in his poem as "the rain-bearing cloud that can quench the thirst of the Muslim subjects. He prays to God to make his poem the cause for such a rain". In this he had given credit where credit was due, in stark contrast to current-day Muslims who prefer to divide men according to race and religion, not according to the values of good and justice.

I left the mosque after Maghrib, to continue further up north to Mahe where local historians maintain is the actual position of his tomb. I had the opportunity to stop by the Markaz Tsaqafah as-Sunniyyah, a distinguished Islamic school in Calicut, where I met a descendant of Syeikh Zain ad-Din working as a teacher. He kindly ushered me into his simple office and over a cup of tea, customary of Muslim hospitality, showed me the genealogy tree of the Malibari family and presented me his own manuscript on logarithms. I made a point of asking the family's stand on the location of Syeikh Zain ad-Din Makhdum's tomb. He said it very firmly that the syeikh was in Ponnani.

I spoke to a few more scholars at the school before I left for Mahe. One of them addressed me with the following, "He who writes travelogue is on the coat-tails (dhayl) of Ibn Battuta, and he who researches the history of Kerala is on the coat-tails of Zain ad-Din Makhdum of Malibar". It was honour enough for me even if I were only a tail of the scholar's cloak!

The Brunei Times