Sri Lankan Moor
| இலங்கைச் சோனகர் | |
|---|---|
20th century Sri Lankan Moors
|
|
| Total population | |
| 1,869,820 (2012 census) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Province | |
 Eastern
|
569,182 |
 Western
|
450,505 |
 North Western
|
260,380 |
 Central
|
252,694 |
| Languages | |
| with dialects | |
| Religion | |
| Islam (mostly Sunni) | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| , | |
Sri Lankan Moors (Tamil: இலங்கைச் சோனகர்; formerly Ceylon Moors; colloquially referred to as Muslims) are the third largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka, comprising 9.23% of the country's total population. They are native speakers of the Tamil language and predominantly followers of Islam. The Tamil term for Muslims in Sri Lanka is சோனகர் (Sonakar), சோனர் (Sonar) or சோனி (Sooni) probably derived from Sunni. While some sources describe them as a subset of the Tamil people who had adopted Islam as their religion and spoke Tamil as their mother tongue, which they continue to do, other sources trace their ancestry to Arab traders (Moors) who settled in Sri Lanka some time between the 8th and 15th centuries. Moors today use Tamil as their primary language, with influence from Arabic. Those in the Southern, Western and Central regions of the country are also fluent in Sinhalese, the majority language of Sri Lanka. The population of Moors are the highest in the Ampara, Colombo, Kandy and Trincomalee districts.
Throughout history, the Tamils of Sri Lanka have tried to classify the Sri Lankan Moors as belonging to the Tamil ethnic group. Their view holds that the Sri Lankan Moors were simply Tamil converts to Islam. The claim that the Moors were the progeny of the original Arab settlers, might hold good for a few families but not for the entire bulk of the community. This is evidenced by the fact that, the Moors's Islamic Cultural Home, Colombo were unsuccessful in digging up the genealogical history of Muslim families with Arab descent, in any great numbers. I.L.M. Abdul Azeez (of the organization) seemed to have accepted the idea, when he observed that:
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