All
feedback, particularly constructive critique, is gratefully
received
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The
following feedback was received from Abdullah Waheed,
MD, son of Athiragey Ali Manikfan and Dherhinaagey Fathimah
Didi. Dr Waheed is currently based in New Delhi in India.
He is commenting on my page headed Myth
of Portuguese Rule (Disgraced Hilaalys Rule by Proxy).
Friday
1 June 2001 7:06:47pm New Zealand Standard
Time
Your
article on Portuguese rule is most interesting. Actually
the Portuguese myth is also one of my pet theories. I
have always felt that Andhiri Andhirin was a character
fabricated to cover the fact that the so-called Christian
rulers were in fact Maldivians.
Having
said the above, I must also reiterate that there is an
inescapable need to be objective and evidence based, particularly
since it would be an uphill task to convince the public
opinion in Malé that their cherished history is a myth.
So, let me raise the following points, not so much to
discredit your theory, but to play the devil’s advocate,
so that we could anticipate the sort of objections that
conservatives might come up with, and prepare ourselves.
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Why
do you think the man’s name was Andhiri Andhirin and
not Mohammed? He was supposed to have a brother called
Mathukkala. Why do you think his Muslim father gave
HIM an Arabic name and his Muslim brother a Dhivehi
name? Why couldn’t it have been the other way round?
Is it not conceivable that historians have tried to
hide the fact that it was actually the half-Maldivian
boy who later became the Christian ruler?
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You
say no record exists in Portuguese archives. Have you
actually checked? I ask this because Salih and I are
also planning to check them. If you have already checked,
there is no need for us to duplicate the effort.
-
You
state that ‘Farangi’ is ‘Frank’. As a matter of fact
‘firangi’ is a term still used in India to describe
Europeans in general, though originally it might have
denoted the French. Since the Maldivian and Indian words
are almost identical, we can safely assume that we borrowed
it from India. It is therefore possible that when we
borrowed it the word had already acquired the current
meaning it has in India.
-
Buraara
Koi’s story is, after all, a myth. Myths tend to change
over time in line with people’s thinking. Unpleasant
facts tend to go out and wishful dreams come in. You
can see in the story such wishful stuff like the miracles
that have come in. Unfortunately it is not so easy to
find out what was purged out. We could only guess. One
definite candidate for the censoring scissors is the
inconvenient fact that most of the Christians and even
their leader were Maldivian.
-
Considering
the inevitable process of adaptation of myths to politically
correct forms Buraara Koi is an unreliable source without
independent corroboration.
-
You
do consider Taareekh as an independent source. But it
may not have been. There is a strong reason to believe
that Tajuddeen himself has drawn from the same source
as Buraara, which is oral tradition. Consider this:
Taareekh has very little to say about Kalafan’s relatively
long reign, apart from general praise, which anybody
could guess. Obviously there were no records that Tajuddeen
could refer to. So how can we assume that there could
have been records for an earlier period? Interestingly,
the only thing Tajudeen details, Kalafan’s “martyrdom”,
also happens to be the stuff popular myths are made
of.
-
Tajudeen’s
sources regarding the “Furethikeysin” incident may have
been more reliable. Though he was not born by that time,
there is a distinct possibility that he had the chance
to hear this from old men who were eyewitnesses to the
incident. (From my own experience: I was born several
decades after Ibrahim Dhorhimeyna Kilegefan's death.
But I got pretty reliable stuff about him from Bodufenvalhugey
Seedhi, with whom I lived for about 5 years). The definite
description may thus have been the result of more accurate
knowledge.
-
The
Christian rule and Malabar (Holin) rule were not described
in the Tareekh by the same person. Tajudeen died before
the latter incident, which was described by his successors.
We cannot therefore take any differences in their choice
of words too seriously.
-
Even
today Maldivian nationalism is often equated with Islam.
So there is no surprise that the Portuguese/Christian
incident was described as Islamization. Since the Malabars
themselves were Muslims their defeat could obviously
not have been described as Islamization.
-
While
there may not have been many blacks in Portugal, there
could have been considerable numbers in their colonies.
History records that unlike their English and French
counterparts, the Portuguese were not totally averse
to marrying their colonial subjects.
-
You
say that according to Buraara there were Frenchmen in
Malé. But had this been true, wouldn’t Pyrard have mentioned
this fact? This would have been of considerable importance
to him as a fellow Frenchman, and also to the readers
of his French publication. Pyrard describes the period
as one of unparalleled prosperity. Why wouldn’t he have
been keen to give credit to his fellow countrymen, had
they been there?
-
Viyazor,
as you say, may have been derived form ‘vedor’, which
makes it a title. What was the actual name of the man?
Did oral tradition leave it out because it was an Arabic
name?
-
The
same also goes for Andhiri Andhirin. There is one particular
oral tradition which has a prominent Maldivian saying,
‘how does it matter to us whether the king is Ali (which
also means light) or Andhiri (dark).’ Is it not a bit
too convenient that the Muslim king’s name meant light
and the Christian ruler’s name meant dark? Obviously
some smart Alec was attempting word play with ‘Ali’.
Isn’t it plausible that the ‘name’ Andhiri Andhirin
ultimately derived from the above saying?
-
While
the scenario you describe about religion in Europe is
true, it is a bit far fetched to imagine that Pope Paul
IV could exert any control over the actions of Viyazaoru
in such a distant corner of the world as the Maldives.
Incidentally, since Buraara does not say Kamba Aisha
converted to Christianity, how did she ‘marry’ Viyazoru?
-
Mohammed
Ameen was an interesting case. He
blatantly fabricated stuff, like his own French
genealogy and the stuff he put in Pyrards mouth about
Kalafan. What made him tick? Perhaps, in his time the
rest of Maldivians were so backward that he may never
have imagined a time would come when guys like us would
be dissecting his statements.
Abdullah
Waheed
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