Tamil Muslims

[Raveen Satkurunathan]

On Mon, 4 Dec 2000 08:30:31 -0800, Swaminathan Madhuresan
<smadhuresan at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

>>Closer to Taminadu, Tamil Muslims in Srilanka speak the
>>same language as the rest of the Tamils, but they are classified
>>as a separate ethnic group - on their own request.
>
>There are many Muslims who speak a Tamil dialect in Sri Lanka who call
>themselves Tamils. Several famous Tamil writers and artists come from
>the Muslim community in that country.

Muslims in general in Sri lanka do not want to be called Tamils or as Tamil
Muslims. There might be individual exceptions but politically and
collectively they want to be identified as Sri lankan Muslims or as Sri
lankan Moors even if most of them are still using Tamil as a medium of
communication (many are in the process of acquiring Sinhalese as their
medium of communication now) Try

Communalisation of Muslims in Sri Lanka
An Historical Perspective
By F. Zackariya and N. Shanmugaratnam

I have posted this before so excuse my repetition on this subject.

There are many Tamil writers of Muslim faith in Sri Lanka, but the communal
identity is not Tamil. So one can speak in Tamil and consider one not an
ethnic Tamil. There are many such groups within the Tamil speaking
community around the world.

Raveen