CHENNAI: The heritage walk ‘Medieval Trade Guilds to the Nawabs. Muslim Heritage in Mylapore’, led by Kombai S Anwar, traced layers of Mylapore’s Islamic history through streets, mosques and place-names that record long-standing connections between Tamil country and the wider Indian Ocean world.
The walk began at Jonaham Street and moved through a sequence of historic lanes. As one speaker described it, “The walk highlighted how Islam arrived in Tamil Nadu and specifically Mylapore, which was mentioned by Arab geographers as Miliapur and identified as Bethuma (House of Thomas).”
Jonahan’s mosque was an early marker of Muslim presence. Arab pilgrims visited the shrine associated with Saint Thomas, a site historically tended by Muslims.
Next was Appu Mudali Street, where the area known as Charzaman (four gardens) is associated with the Nawabs and their earlier presence in the neighbourhood before they relocated to Chepauk. Devadi Street, likely a corruption of ‘Deorhi’, was pointed out as a possible residence of Nawab Wallajah when he visited Madras. The surrounding streets still carry Muslim names though the old nobility later moved to Chepauk Palace.
The walk included Kutcheri Road Jumma Masjid, constructed by Zulfiqar Khan, Aurangazeb’s commander-general, in 1699. The mosque’s structure has weathered the time, though it has structural issues.
The roof requires replacement while the original walls have remained intact. The final stop was Arundel Street, associated with the Fakri family (descendants of Shah Abdul Quadir Fakhri), who arrived in erstwhile Madras in 1720 from Aurangabad (in present-day Maharashtra). This site served as a centre for their religious and communal activities.
The family is noted for its background as religious scholars. They were part of the migration that occurred during the era of the Nawabs of the Carnatic. The properties and the mosque associated with the family are treated as a Wakf (a charitable endowment under Islamic law).
A participant from Kyrgyzstan summed up his experience: “This heritage walk had a lot of good and fruitful information.”
The guide and speaker of the walk is a documentary filmmaker and historian specialising in TN’s Muslim history, and is now researching the evolution of the Tamil font. The walk presented a compact, document-based reading of place-names, mosques and migration links that situated Mylapore within centuries of trade, religious overlap and changing local elites.