The Salafi movement or Salafism is a revival movement within Sunni Islam, which was formed as a socio-religious resistance to European imperialism during the late 19th century and has remained influential in the Islamic World for over a century. The name "Salafiyya" refers to advocacy of a return to the traditions of the "pious predecessors", the first three generations of Muslims, who are believed to exemplify the pure form of Islam. In practice, Salafis maintain that Muslims ought to rely on the Qur'an, the Sunnah and the 'Ijma (consensus) of the salaf, giving these writings precedence over later religious interpretations. The Salafi movement aimed to achieve a renewal of Muslim life and had a major influence on many Muslim thinkers and movements across the Islamic world.
Mappila Muslim, in general, is a member of the Muslim community of same name found predominantly in Kerala and Lakshadweep Islands, in southern India. Muslims of Kerala make up 26.56% of the population of the state (2011), and as a religious group they are the second largest group after Hindus (54.73%). Mappilas share the common language of Malayalam with the other religious communities of Kerala.
Muhammad Rashid Rida was a prominent early Salafist Sunni Islamic scholar, reformer, theologian, and Islamic revivalist. As a Salafi scholar who called for the revival of hadith studies and a theoretician of an Islamic state, Riḍā condemned the rising currents of secularism and nationalism across the Islamic world following the abolition of the Ottoman sultanate and championed a global pan-Islamist program aimed at re-establishing an Islamic caliphate.
Mohammedali Shihab Thangal, known with the honorific prefix Sayed, was an Indian community leader, Islamic scholar and politician from Kerala. He is sometimes regarded as "the most important Mappila leader" of modern Kerala.
Islam arrived in Kerala, the Malayalam-speaking region in the south-western tip of India, through Middle Eastern merchants. The Indian coast has an ancient relation with West Asia and the Middle East, even during the pre-Islamic period.
E. Moidu Moulavi (1886–1995) was an Indian National Congress (INC) leader,Islamic scholar, one of the Salafi movements reformers, scholar and educationist of Malabar District, born at Maranchery in Ponnani. He was a supporter of the Islahi movement in Kerala and a co-worker with leaders like K. M. Maulavi, Sayyid Sanaulla Makti Thangal, Mohammed Abdul Rahiman and K. M. Seethi Sahib
Vakkom Majeed was an Indian freedom fighter, politician and a former member of the Travancore-Cochin State Assembly. He was born into one of the most prominent aristocratic Muslim families in Travancore. Influenced by the works of his uncle, Vakkom Moulavi, he became involved in social and political reform movements. Majeed was one of the early architects of the Indian National Congress in Travancore, eventually becoming the Member of the Legislative Assembly for Attingal constituency (1948–1952). Regarded as one of the great Indian nationalists of 20th century, Majeed belonged to a tradition of politics that was intrinsically value-based, secular and humanistic.
Islamic modernism is a movement that has been described as "the first Muslim ideological response to the Western cultural challenge," attempting to reconcile the Islamic faith with modern values such as democracy, civil rights, rationality, equality, and progress. It featured a "critical reexamination of the classical conceptions and methods of jurisprudence", and a new approach to Islamic theology and Quranic exegesis (Tafsir). A contemporary definition describes it as an "effort to re-read Islam's fundamental sources—the Qur'an and the Sunna, —by placing them in their historical context, and then reinterpreting them, non-literally, in the light of the modern context."
The thangals are a social group among the Muslims of Kerala, south India. The thangals are often regarded as roughly equivalent to the more general Sayyids or Sharifs, or the descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, of the wider Islamic culture. Most members of the community practices endogamy and rarely marry outside from their community.
Vakkom Mohammed Abdul Khader Moulavi, popularly known as Vakkom Moulavi was a social reformer, teacher, prolific writer, Muslim scholar, journalist, freedom fighter and newspaper proprietor in Travancore, a princely state of the present day Kerala, India. He was the founder and publisher of the newspaper Swadeshabhimani which was banned and confiscated by the Government of Travancore in 1910 due to its criticisms against the government and the Diwan of Travancore, P. Rajagopalachari. He was an avid reader of Rashid Rida’s Islamic magazine, Al-Manar. Vakkom Moulavi is known as the father of Islamic renaissance in Kerala.
Mohammed Abdur Rahiman Sahib was an Indian freedom fighter, Muslim leader, scholar, and politician from Kerala. He served as president of Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee(Malabar) in 1939.
Sanulla Makti Thangal was the renaissance leader of Muslim society in Malabar of British India and the advocate of western education among the backward community of Mappila. He was notable as the first Muslim scholar to bring various reforms in Kerala Muslim Society
Moulana Chalilakath Kunhahammad Haji was a Malayali Sunni scholar and Islamic educationalist. He is known for his special attention on the reformation of orthodox Muslims and as father new Madrassa system in southern Indian state of Kerala. scholar and Islamic educationalist. He is known for his special attention on the reformation of orthodox Muslims and as father new Madrassa system in southern Indian state of Kerala.
Fazal Pookoya Thangal, also known as Sayyid Fadl and Fadl Pasha, was a Yemeni Islamic missionary and political activist who played a prominent role in the Mappila community of Kerala, India. He was the spiritual leader of Kerala Muslims as well as one of the pioneers of the Indian freedom movement. He belonged to a family of Sayyids who traced their lineage to Ali ibn Abi Talib through Mamburam Sayyid Alavi Mouladhavila. His father was Mamburam Sayyid Alavi Thangal, a Muslim mystic and political leader who had migrated from Hadramaut in Yemen to Malabar in 1798 CE to spread Islam. After his father's death in 1845 CE, he succeeded him as the spiritual leader of Kerala Muslims.
Varakkal Mullakoya, honorific Thangal, born Abd ur-Rahman Mullakoya, was an Islamic scholar from Calicut in Malabar District, Madras Presidency.
Kaathib Thayyil Mohammed Kutty Musliyar, popularly known as K. M. Moulavi or K. M. Maulavi, was an Indian revolutionary. He was a leader of the Indian independence movement, Khilafat Movement, Muslim League and Islahi Movement from Malabar district. He was a religious scholar who promoted modern education, the Malayalam language, and Muslim women's education. He worked to uplift the Mappila community after the Malabar rebellion.
C. N. Ahmad Moulavi was an Indian writer of Malayalam literature, best known as the translator of the first complete publication of Quran in Malayalam. He was the author of a number of books on Islam and was reported to have contributed to the propagation of education among the Muslims of Malabar region. A member of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi during the period 1959–64, Moulavi was honoured by the academy with the distinguished fellowship in 1989.
Pukkoya Thangal, full P. M. S. A. Pukkoya Thangal, of the Pukkoya family of Panakkad, south Malabar, was an Indian sayyid (thangal) community leader and Indian Union Muslim League politician from Kerala. He served as the Kerala State President, Indian Union Muslim League and the President, Samastha Kerala Jam'iyyat al-'Ulama'.
Dakshina Kerala Jami-yyathul Ulama is the principal Sunni-Shafi'i and Hanafi scholarly body in central and southern Kerala. The council administers mosques, institutes of higher religious learning and madrasas in central and southern Kerala.
