[16][clarification needed] The Muslim community originated primarily as a result of West Asian contacts with Kerala, which was fundamentally based upon commerce ("the spice trade").

[13] The Mappilas inhabiting the islands of Androth, Kavaratti, Agatti and Kalpeni in the Lakshadweep were descended from Hindu migrants from the mainland who had converted to Islam in the fourteenth century.

[13] Furthermore, a substantial proportion of Muslims have left Kerala to seek employment in the Middle East, especially in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

[32] Stephen Dale states that Barbosa accurately "identified the two aspects of Muslim-Hindu social relations," which were the primary causes of the growth of Muslim society in later centuries when the number of Arab traders had dwindled with the arrival of the Portuguese and other European powers in the Indian Ocean.

He also noted the frequency of multiple marriages among Muslims and their concubinage of lower-caste women as having served as the genesis of a local Malayalam speaking Mappila society.

[15] William Logan, comparing the Census Reports of 1871 and 1881, famously concluded that within ten years some 50,000 people from the Cheruma community (former untouchables) converted to Islam.

[39] It is generally agreed among scholars that Middle Eastern merchants frequented the Malabar Coast, which was the link between the West and ports of East Asia, even before Islam had been established in Arabia.

[13] The earliest major epigraphic evidence of Muslim merchants in Kerala is a royal charter by Ayyan Atikal, the powerful governor of Kollam under the Chera king of Kodungallur.

The charter shows Atikal, in presence of the royal representative from Kodungallur (prince Kota Ravi Vijayaraga) and regional civil and military officials, granting land and serfs to the Tarisapalli, built by Mar Sapir Iso, and conferring privileges on Anchuvannam and Manigramam.

[34] In keeping with Kodungallur's significant role in the spice trade, the legends of Kerala Christians, Jews and Muslims all depict this port city as the focal point for the spread of their respective faiths.

[46][47][43][48] Perumal's proselytisers, led by Malik ibn Dinar, established a series of mosques in his kingdom and north of it, thus facilitating the expansion of Islam in Kerala.

[34] While there is no concrete historical evidence for this tradition, there can be little doubt of the early Muslim presence, and of the religious tolerance based on economic imperatives, on the Malabar Coast.

[16][45] The Middle Eastern Muslim traders and Kerala mercantile community went through a long period of peaceful intercultural growth till the arrival of the Portuguese explorers (early 16th century).

[21] Moroccan traveller Ibn Battutah (14th century) has recorded the considerably huge presence of Muslim merchants and settlements of sojourning traders in most of the ports of Kerala.

[54] Fortunes of these merchants depended on the political patronage of the native chiefs of Calicut (Kozhikode), Cannanore (Kannur), Cochin (Kochi), and Quilon (Kollam).

The inscription is the only surviving historical document recording royal endowment by a Hindu ruler, in the form of a grant, to the Muslim community in Kerala.

[57] The Middle Eastern Muslims controlled the lucrative western arm of the overseas long-distance trade (to the ports of the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf) from the Malabar Coast.

[26] According to Stephen Dale, upcountry trade was carried mostly by Mappilas, many lower caste Hindus from the local countryside converted to Islam in the settlements established by them.

[21] Dale concludes that, in contrast to the influence of Sufis and other popular movements in the spread of Islam across the Asia, the Mappilas instead gradually grew through "peaceful conversion" due to the contradiction between a "dynamic, egalitarian mercantile" Muslim community and the "exceptionally conservative" version of the Hindu caste system.

[59][60] In the first two decades of 16th century CE (c. 1500–1520), Portuguese traders were successful in reaching in agreements with the local Hindu chiefs and native Muslim (Mappila) merchants in Kerala.

The ships of the Cannanore Mappilas again and again fell prey to the Portuguese sailors off the coast of Maldives, an important point between Southeast Asia and the Red Sea.

Interests of the Portuguese casado moradores in Cochin, now planning to capture the spice trade through the Gulf of Mannar and to Sri Lanka, came into the conflict with Mappilas and the (Tamil) Maraikkayars.

Small, lightly armed, and highly mobile vessels of the Mappilas remained a major threat to Portuguese shipping all along the west coast of India.

It is written in Arabic and contains pieces of information about the resistance put up by the navy of Kunjali Marakkar alongside the Zamorin of Calicut from 1498 to 1583 against Portuguese attempts to colonise Malabar coast.

L. R. S. Lakshmi states that the census report attributed this decline to conversions, which could be explained by the "poor economic conditions" among the Cherumars, who saw "possible work incentives available within the flourishing Mappila community."

[13] The Muslim material strength — along with the extent of modern education, theological "reform", and active participation in democratic process — recovered slowly after the 1921–22 Uprising.

C. O. T. Kunyipakki Sahib, Maulavi Abussabah Ahmedali (died 1971), K. A. Jaleel, C. N. Ahmad Moulavi, and K. O. Ayesha Bai were other prominent social and political reformers of the 20th century.

This system, which traced descent and inheritance through the female line, centered around the Tharavadu (ancestral home), with the Karanavar (maternal uncle) serving as the head of the family.

Despite Islamic law advocating a egalitarian system of inheritance, many of these converted families, especially in the Malabar region, retained matrilineal customs for several generations, reflecting the deep influence of pre-Islamic social structures.

[91] The snacks include unnakkaya (deep-fried, boiled ripe banana paste covering a mixture of cashew, raisins and sugar),[95] pazham nirachathu (ripe banana filled with coconut grating, molasses or sugar),[95] muttamala made of eggs,[91] chatti pathiri, a dessert made of flour, like a baked, layered chapati with rich filling, arikkadukka,[96] and more.