History along the Indian Ocean was rarely calm. It moved with the monsoon winds, carrying merchants, scholars and sailors from one shore to another. For centuries before European intervention, Muslim trading communities had established themselves along the coasts of South India and Sri Lanka. Among them were the Nainars of Kochi, a distinct Muslim group whose later migration to Sri Lanka appears closely tied to the upheavals of the Portuguese age.
By the fourteenth century, Muslim families of Yemeni origin, many associated with Hadrami mercantile and religious networks, were already active along the Tamil coast, particularly at Kayalpattinam. From there, some branches moved northwards to Kochi, entering the political and commercial world of the Kingdom of Cochin. In Kochi they became known as Nainars, a title remembered as an honour conferred in recognition of service and status. Over time, they formed a close-knit, endogamous Muslim subgroup centred in Fort Kochi and Mattancherry, maintaining Shafi religious practice and strong maritime connections.
The sixteenth century transformed this world. The arrival of the Portuguese at the close of the fifteenth century disrupted long-standing Muslim trading networks across the Arabian Sea. Their objective was not simply commerce but monopoly. Muslim merchants were regarded as rivals and, increasingly, as enemies. Ships were seized, ports were blockaded and coastal settlements were drawn into the wider conflict between European imperial ambition and established Indian Ocean powers.
Resistance along the Malabar Coast was organised most visibly under the naval commanders known as the Kunjali Marakkars. Serving the Zamorin of Calicut, the Marakkars led sustained maritime warfare against Portuguese fleets throughout the sixteenth century. They relied not only on formal naval command but also on networks of Muslim shipowners, sailors and merchants who shared both commercial interests and political opposition to Portuguese control.
It is within this climate of war and shifting loyalties that the movement of Nainar families must be understood. Kochi, which aligned itself early with the Portuguese for protection against Calicut, became an increasingly complex environment for Muslim communities whose commercial ties and sympathies extended beyond Portuguese authority. If sections of the Nainars were connected to the broader Marakkar maritime sphere, whether directly in naval service or indirectly through trade and supply, their position in Portuguese-influenced Kochi would have been precarious.
Across the Palk Strait, the political landscape offered an alternative. The Sinhalese kingdoms, particularly in the interior, were themselves resisting Portuguese expansion. Rulers who lacked strong naval forces had clear reasons to seek experienced Muslim sailors and maritime traders from the Malabar and Coromandel coasts. These men understood shipbuilding, navigation, monsoon patterns and coastal warfare. They possessed commercial links stretching from the Red Sea to Southeast Asia.
Migration to Sri Lanka in this context was not a simple movement of traders seeking profit. It was a strategic relocation shaped by conflict. Families with maritime experience, including those identified as Nainars, appear to have crossed to Sri Lanka after Portuguese consolidation in Kochi. There they were received not as strangers but as valuable allies in a shared struggle against European domination.
Once settled in Sri Lanka, these families became part of what later came to be known as the Moor community. Over time they integrated into the island’s social and economic fabric. Yet the hereditary use of the title Naina preserved a memory of origin. It signalled a Malabar background and, in some cases, an association with the seafaring warrior-merchant tradition linked to the Marakkars.
The historical pattern supports this interpretation. The Indian Ocean world functioned as an interconnected arena in which political upheaval in one port produced migration to another. The Portuguese disruption of Muslim trade in Malabar coincided with the need of Sri Lankan rulers for skilled maritime allies. Movement across the narrow sea between South India and Sri Lanka was both practical and frequent.
What remains essential, however, is careful distinction. The Marakkars are well documented as naval commanders under the Zamorin of Calicut. The Nainars were historically associated with Kochi. Any direct identification between the two must therefore be approached with precision. It is more accurate to view the Nainars as part of the wider Muslim maritime network within which the Marakkars operated, rather than to collapse the two into a single identity.
Nevertheless, the convergence of evidence is strong. Portuguese hostility towards Muslim traders, the naval wars led by the Marakkars, and the documented recruitment of experienced Muslim sailors by Sinhalese rulers together create a coherent historical framework. Within that framework, the migration of Nainar families from Kochi to Sri Lanka during the sixteenth century stands as a credible and compelling chapter of Indian Ocean history.
This was not an isolated episode. It was part of a larger story in which commerce, warfare and political alliance shaped the destinies of coastal communities. The Nainars of Sri Lanka, when viewed through this lens, are not an unrelated local phenomenon. They represent a maritime diaspora, formed in the crucible of Portuguese expansion and sustained by the enduring networks of the Indian Ocean world.
It is also important to note that the names associated with this community appear in multiple spellings across historical records. Naina may be written as Nina, Nainar, Nayyinar, Nayinar, Naynar etc. Likewise, Marakkar appears as Marikkar, Maricar, Markar etc, while feminine forms such as Thachy are also rendered as Natchi, Natchiya etc. These variations reflect differences in Arwi, Tamil, Malayalam, Arabic, Portuguese, Dutch and British transliteration practices rather than distinct origins. In a maritime world where names passed through several languages and scripts, spelling shifted more easily than identity.
Naina Marikkar of New Moor Street was a member of this clan. His full name and the name of his ancestors have not been recorded. He was affiliated to the Marikkar faction and Maradana Masjid. He had many children and one of them is Abdul Kareem. Abdul Kareem had many children and Izzadeen was one of them.
Ahamed Lebbe Sultan Bawa, remembered as the Calipha and nephew of Sheikh Hassan Appa, married Sholommaththa (Solai) and was buried at Sultan Bawa Masjid Burial Grounds (Badry Thakkiya, Dangedara, Talapitiya, Galle).
Shamsi Lebbe Marikkar, married to Chella Natchiya of Galle Fort, daughter of Molan Careem, is biologically related to Ahamed Lebbe Sultan Bawa. However, the precise relationship is not recorded.