Tuhafat Ul Mujahideen

'Tuhfat al-Mujahidin fi ba‘d Akhbar al-Burtughaliyin' (Arabic:تحفة المجاهدين في بعض اخبار البرتغاليين , often shortened as 'Tuhfat al-Mujahidin') is a historical work by Zainuddin Makhdoom on the struggle between the Mappila Muslims of Malabar and Portuguese colonial forces in the 16th century. It is the first historical work of Kerala to be authored by a keralite. The book describes the resistance put up by the navy of Kunjali Marakkar alongside the Zamorin of Calicut from 1498 to 1583 against Portuguese attempts to colonize the Malabar coast . Along with chronological events of the era, the book also provides an analysis of the events, as well as the lifestyle, customs and family structure of the people of the time.

Shaikh Zainuddin Makhdum, born in 1517 AD, was a historian, and a religious scholar from Ponnani. Completed in 1583, his work Tuhfat is one of the few Asian sources that narrate the reaction of the Muslim populations of the Malabar coast to the Portuguese colonial expansion into the south west of India. It is also important as a pioneering work about the origins of the Mappila community in modern-day Kerala and has been reviewed as "a study in liberation theology of Islam". The work was translated into many European languages, notable among which are "História dos Portugueses no Malabar", by David Lopes in 1898 and the English translation by S. Muhammad Husayn Nainar, titled "Tuhfat al-Mujāhidīn: A Historical Epic of the Sixteenth Century" published in 1942 by the University of Madras. Another translation into Malayalam was written by C. Hamza, in 1995.

This is called by many as a source book of struggle against European colonial history. It also is the oldest historical book on Kerala. It details the history of Kerala, on the arrival of Islam in Kerala through Malik ibn Dinar and the accompanying merchant caravan and the establishment of local Muslim communities headed by the jurists (qaadi) in various settlements from Tuticorin in the south to Bhatkal in the north. It also expounds the extent of good relations between the Zamorins of Calicut and between the Muslims. It traces the socio-cultural decay of the Muslim community and the consequential Portuguese piracy and occupation in Malabar. It prays for the prosperity of the Zamorins and exhorts for the struggle (jihad) of Muslims under the banner of the Zamorins of Calicut, against the Portuguese.

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