South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c9.s2.16.2

c9.s2.16.2

Under these charters traders were not only relieved from this disability, but were also offered special advantages by way of excuse from all port dues excepting the customs duties (Kūpaśulka).² It is this that made the eastern ports such welcome places to foreign merchants from China and the east on the one side, and the western traders on the other. Hence the name Ma'bar (Arabic for passage) for the Coromandal coast. The same policy seems to have been adopted by the rulers of the Malabar coast also as far north as Canara. Hence at the time that we have come to, that is about A.D. 1290, there were a number of flourishing ports on the east coast, of which the principal ones were Moṭupalli in the Kākatiya dominions in the north near the mouth of the Krishna, and the well-sheltered port at the mouth of the Tamaraparani in the Gulf of Mannar in the south, called Kāyal, not far from the far famed Korkai (Kolkhoi of the classical geographers). Of a number of trade settlements, enjoying the special protection of the rulers, that probably were in existence in all these ports there was one in Kāyal which has come in for prominent mention. This was the agency established at Kāyal by an Arab chieftain who is described by the Muhammadan historians as Maliku-l-Islam Jamalu-d-din ruler of Kis, and later the farmer-general of Fars. Such an agency was required because of the vast trade in horses.