By Ranga Jayasuriya
In the ruins of Moor town in Jaffna, there is no mood for celebration. The majority of over thousand residents are taking shelter in abandoned schools and shacks put up next to the ruins of their old homes.
Twenty years after the LTTE chased the northern Muslims, including 75,000 from Jaffna, the displaced want to return. But, even for those who returned, it is an unhappy homecoming.

In Sri Lanka's ethnic cocoon, the minority Malay population is searching for more political space to voice their socio-economic rights.

Nine years sounds quite a long period, but not when it comes to Ashraff. It seems only yesterday that he took off without bidding us farewell. Aman his only son, a young man with his adorable Zahara, by his side brings but Ashraff to life. The humility, genuine warmth, and secrecy in generosity in abundance, is truly Ashraff in Aman.

M.M. Zuhair P.C.

King Senerath, who in 1626 settled nearly 4,000 Muslims in the East of Sri Lanka following their expulsion from the island’s Western coastal belt by the Portuguese led by Captain de Saa, must be the most delighted to hear, if the dead king could, that the descendants of those whom he settled in the then Batticaloa regions had reciprocated to their motherland his benevolent gesture.

by Saybhan Samat

The recent killings of Muslims of the underworld like Amanula Imtiaz, Mohammed Nisthar, Mohammed Anwer an accomplice of Maligawatte Faji who is on the run and the existence of the underworld & Muslim anti-social elements have shocked the Muslim community in the island. In addition dozens of other groups calling themselves "Jihad" bearing arms have surfaced in the Eastern province, they too are involved in extortion, kidnapping, robbery and other anti –social practices. Very fortunately the police are on a drive to eliminate such a criminal groups. To compound matters the community is now facing sectarian strife in the Eastern province and last week, the strife spread to the South where 2 Muslims were killed and 40 injured in a clash in Beruwela.

It is true that the name Musali fails to ring a bell to an overwhelming majority of Sri Lankans. The only Muslim majority division in the entire Northern Province for some reason had been out of the limelight for nearly two decades despite having a big story to tell.

Sri Lankan Muslims are definitely at a disadvantage when it comes to their identity. While a Muslim in Kashmir is called a Kashmiri and those in Kosovo are referred to as Albanians, Turks or whatever, the Muslims in Sri Lanka are always referred to as Muslims – the term used for both ethnic and religious identities. As such there are no Kattankudiyans, Muturians or Eravurians in Sri Lanka.

The Indian government's "war against terror" may cost the Congress party dearly in the election. Arrests and alleged extrajudicial killings of Muslim youths have angered many in the Islamic community.

"People in power have branded us as terrorists and used us as a vote bank, this cannot go on," said the all-powerful cleric of Delhi's Jama Masjid mosque, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, in a recent press conference.

By M. I. M. Mohideen

Muslims were living in more than 153 locations in fairly large numbers in the Jaffna District. Jaffna town had the largest concentration of nearly 90 percent of the total Muslims in the peninsula. Moor Street of Jaffna was an educational and cultural centre of the Muslims.

 

When the former LTTE ideologue Anton Balasingham tendered an apology to Northern Muslims for the LTTE eviction in 1990, twelve years after the episode; many doubted the genuineness of his declaration.