South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c9.s2.16.4

c9.s2.16.4

The wealth of the islands of the Persian Gulf in particular and in part the beauty and adornments of other countries, from 'Irak and Khurasan as far as Rum and Europe, are derived from Ma'bar, which is so situated as to be the key of Hind.'² This description is supported in full by what Marco Polo has to say of the eastern ports both of Kāyal and of Moṭupalli. It was from one of these ports that an embassy went to China sometime about A.D. 1297 under Fakhru-d-din Ahamad bin-Ibrahim-ut-Thaibi. This ambassador was the son of Jamalu-d-din. He returned after a stay of four years in China and died on board when two days distant from Ma'bar about the end of A.H. 704 (A.D. 1305). ‘His tomb is in Ma'bar, near that of his uncle,’ the Marzaban, who died two years before. It seems likely there were other settlements of these Muhammadans even in the interior of the country. In the course of his description of the campaign of Malik Kafur in the Tamil country, Amir Khusru says ‘Thither (to Kandur) the Malik pursued the ‘yellow-faced Bir’, and at Kandur was joined by some Mussalmans who had been subjects of the Hindus, now no longer able to offer them protection. They were half Hindus, and were not strict in their religious observance, but, ‘as they could repeat the Kalima (the Confession of Faith of the Muhammadans), the Malik of Islam spared their lives.