Identity Crisis Of Sri Lankan Muslims

Muslims are one of the important constituents of the plural society of Sri Lanka, inhabiting the island with the majority Sinhalese and the minority ethnic-Tamils for centuries, while maintaining a religious identity of their own. However, when the Tamil tribe to prove the Muslims, whose mother-tongue is also Tamil, were Tamil-converts to Islam, the Muslims feared being merged in the Tamil-stream. Consequently, and for political reasons, they broke away from the Tamils and as Independence approached, threw their lot without the Sinhalese. Such a decision did not, however, make things easy for the Muslims. They could neither erase the Tamil culture ingrained in them over the centuries nor could adopt Sinhala as the mother-tongue. To set themselves apart, the Muslims chose to build up a distinct identity for themselves, based on their claim of Arab-descent. This work deals with the dynamics of Muslim ethos in the multi-racial society of Sri Lanka and is the first of its kind on the subject.