[3][4] Their contemporary populations are primarily concentrated in the Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the Republic of Maldives, as well as the Western, Central, and Southern provinces of Sri Lanka.

[5] The Marakkars achieved particular prominence in the early modern period as the first Indian mercantile community to establish settlements in British Malaya.

[7] They later gained distinction as the first Indic ethnic group to mount sustained military resistance against European colonial expansion, engaging in a hundred-year conflict with the Portuguese from 1520 to 1619.

[10] Their maritime trade networks and established presence across multiple regions facilitated this religious diffusion, though the exact extent of their influence remains a subject of academic discussion.

[11] In contrast to the Hanafis of Northern India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, the Marakkars are part of a distinct South Indian Muslim community that follows the Shafi'i school of Islamic jurisprudence.

[2][11][12] They are one of several interconnected cultural groups along India's southwestern coast, including the Nawayaths of Konkan, Kodava Maaple of Coorg, Bearys of Tulu Nadu, and the Mappillas of Malabar.

These communities share common religious practices and cultural traditions shaped by their coastal heritage and historical trade connections.

Most Marakkars are, in some way or other, connected to foreign trade through which they became more advanced economically and socially than the different Muslim groups in the locality and even many Hindu sub-castes.

They offered their men, ships and wealth in defence of their motherland to the Samoothiri of Kozhikode – The Raja, who took them into his service and eventually became the Admirals of his fleet.