The Sinhalese ruler King Senarat of Kandy gave refuge to some of the Muslims in the central highlands and Eastern Province, Sri Lanka.

Laffir mawatha, Colombo, supported by the Al-Fassi family in the 1870s, is the most prevalent Sufi order among the Sri Lankan Muslims followed by Aroosiyathul qadiriya.

[7] Sunni scholar Muhammad Abdul Aleem Siddiqi built Hanafi Masjid in Colombo for Sri Lankan Muslims.

[11] In late February 2021, after intense objections from human rights groups, including Amnesty International and the United Nations, the Sri Lankan government decided to allow burials to take place for Muslims.

[12] The districts of Ampara (43%), Trincomalee (42%) and Batticaloa (26%) in Eastern Province have the highest share of Muslims in Sri Lanka, followed by Puttalam (20%), Mannar (17%), Kandy (14%) and Colombo (12%).

Due to the lack of opportunity in Sri Lanka, many Muslim professionals are emigrating to get jobs abroad, such as to the Middle East, United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe.

The Moors have had better social and economic mobility, thanks to the historic head start they had in getting education and government jobs under the British colonial rule.

[citation needed] Their family lines are traced through women, as in kinship systems of the southwest Indian state of Kerala, like the Nairs and some Mappilas, but they govern themselves through Islamic law.

[16] Many moors in the west of the island are traders, professionals or civil servants and are mainly concentrated in Colombo, Kalutara, Beruwala, Dharga Town, Puttalam, Jaffna, Kandy, Matale, Vavuniya and Mannar.

Along with those in the Central Province, the surname of many Moors in Colombo, Kalutara and Puttalam is their father's first name, thus retaining similarity to the traditional Arab and middle eastern kinship system.

[16] Most of the early Malay immigrants were indentured labours, posted by the Dutch colonial administration to Sri Lanka, who decided to settle on the island.

[16] In the 1980s, the Malays made up about 5% of the Muslim population in Sri Lanka[16] and, like the Moors, predominantly follow the Shafi school of thought within Sunni Islam.

[16] The majority of them came from Tamil Nadu and Kerala states, and unlike the Sri Lankan Moors, are ethnically related to South Indians and number approximately 30,000.

[citation needed] The Dawoodi Bohras and the Khoja are Shi'a Muslims who came from western India (Gujarat state) after 1880; in the 1980s they collectively numbered fewer than 2,000.