Rethinking Reform: Arabi-Malayalam and Epistemic Justice in the Study of Kerala Muslims

Abstract (English)

The established discourses on Muslim reformation in Kerala have frequently neglected the longstanding cultural and literary traditions of Muslims in the region, often disregarding vernacular intellectual traditions, particularly those articulated through Arabi-Malayalam—a Creolized form of the Malayalam language written in Arabic script. By critically engaging with the notion of "reform", the study elucidates how Kerala’s traditional Ulama and Muslim communities used Arabi-Malayalam as a medium to sustain, adapt, and negotiate Islamic knowledge within local socio-cultural contexts. Rather than perceiving reform solely through the lens of modernist or colonial epistemologies, this paper proposes a framework of epistemic justice that acknowledges the Arabi-Malayalam tradition as a legitimate and dynamic site of Islamic thought. Through examining religious treatises, juridical opinions, poetry, and popular literature written in Arabi-Malayalam, the study uncovers an indigenous intellectual archive that challenges the marginalization of vernacular Muslim scholarship. In doing so, it advocates for a decolonized anthropology of Kerala Muslims—one that accounts for pluralistic knowledge systems, respects vernacular epistemologies, and redefines the contours of Islamic reform beyond dominant, often Eurocentric, academic frameworks.