Dr. Mahmood Kooria, a historian at Leiden University (the Netherlands) stressed the importance of reading historical sources to unearth the histories of women travellers in the premodern centuries. Dr. Mahmood was delivering a special web lecture at the Vakkom Moulavi Memorial and Research Centre (VMMRC) on the theme of “Women Travellers in pre-modern South Asia.” Dr. Mahmood said we hardly know of any women travellers from a time before 1800, and all the travellers we know are males. But, in contrast to their absence in the secondary sources and proscriptions in the primary sources, women’s journeys do appear in the subcontinent’s intangible and tangible heritage. Women did undertake long journeys across long distances, between Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas and left behind elaborate traces of their diverse peregrinations as pirates, queens, prisoners, mystics, pilgrims, admirals, saints, and diplomats. A few such South Asian narratives do demonstrate the variety of motivations in women’s journeys and there were a few such women travellers who travelled long distances across borders of countries and continents despite the restrictions and constraints of their times. Focusing on journeys carried out by Muslim women like Fatimah bint Sa’d Al-Khayr in and around the Indian Ocean world between 700 and 1500 CE, Dr. Mahmood also explained the specific features of medieval women on the move. He also emphasized on why historians should read such popular traditions as theyyam and thottam pattus to understand our past.
Speaking on the role of women in society, Dr. Mahmood said that millions of Muslims across the Indian Ocean littoral were following matrilineal systems for several centuries. Both in the past and the present, Muslims in Minangkabau in Indonesia, Negeri Sembilan in Malaysia, the Coromandel and Malabar coasts and the Lakshadweep Islands in India, the Ampara, Batticaloa, and Trincomalee districts in Sri Lanka, the Cabo Delgado and Nampula provinces in Mozambique, and across the Comoros followed diverse kinds of mother-focused systems of lineage, habitation, property ownership, and power. He said these matrilineal Muslims did not adopt patriarchal interpretations of Islam and adhered to more gender-equal, if not women-centric, normative orders. However, many Arab, African, Indian, and Malay male Muslim religious scholars criticized the matrilineal systems since the late 18th century. Their oppositions were especially targeted at the inheritance customs, where men got little or no share in property, and some of these criticisms led to violent movements against clan matriarchs and hereditary power centers, Dr Mahmood said.
Writer Dr Khadija Mumtaz chaired the session. Mrs. Anusha Omar welcomed and Dr Shahina Javad proposed a vote of thanks.
