Western Ghats, India

The Western Ghats are a mountain range that runs along the western coast of India. The mountains cover an area of about 160,000 sq km stretching from the country's southern tip to Gujarat in the north.
Of the 372 species of mammal found in India, 63 are in the Western Ghats. Sixteen of these are endemic.
Faced with enormous population pressure, the lush mountains are at risk of a biodiversity crisis. Important populations of Asian elephants, Indian tigers, and the endangered lion-tailed macaque are threatened as agriculture and logging intensify.
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Agumbe and Kodachadri by ManjunathKP

Here I present our experience of trekking to Kodachadri. It was full of misadventures. The unexpected of the unexpected things happening even after careful planning (should recheck). We friends did fell in love at first sight with this place (Kodachadri) and decided to go there even without thinking what season we were in. Later we came to know that we were in rainy season. As they say, true love survive, many of my friends dropped out and three of us with true love for this place decided to go. Let me introduce our self. I am Manjunath(Manju) working for Synergy in Hyderabad. Narahari(Hari) a lecturer of Mathematics in PESIT and Mehboob Basha(Basha) working for GE. All of us are basically from Bangalore, but myself and Basha are put up in Hyderabad and Hari in Bangalore. Our plan of 3 days was like me and Basha from Hyderabad go to Shimogga and spend a day in Agumbe and back to Shimogga. The second day Hari joining us in Shimogga and we leave towards Kodachadri the very same day. And the third day was a buffer day. We knew that we will be very tired and we had strict orders from our parents to visit Kollur Mookambike temple. If we had time we wanted to spend some time in beach. All I can say is Man proposes but he only disposes.

Day 1(19th Oct 2007)
Shimogga is around 700kms from Hyderabad and Agumbe is around 100 Kms from Shimogga. Our bus from Hyderabad was at around 7:30 pm (ticket of around 500 rupees per head). I was at Hyderabad bus stand by 7. Basha didn’t know that we were going for trekking. He was thinking that we were going to some hill station which was just partially true. He literally gave me a shock when he arrived at bus stop. He was with his full luggage as if we were going to Kodaikanal. With all those thick blankets, towels, sweaters and also a book!!! I immediately knew that it has to be dropped some where in cloak room as we will be walking in the thick jungle on the second and third day. Mr. Basha who wants a TV where ever he goes was shocked to know that our bus didn’t have a TV. KSRTC buses except Volvo will not have TV. They will leave you alone to entertain yourself, which I consider as the best Idea. We had our dinner packed before in hand. As a regular traveler in that route, I knew that the bus’s gonna stop in a place where eating looks like a punishment. The bus started exactly at 7:30 PM and at the same time we started our conversation. Our conversations since 9 years is usually like he does the 90% talking and I do the rest 10% and I do the 90% listening and he does the rest 10%. We talked about each others company’s working culture, about technology, movies, etc. The bus did stop exactly at the same place for dinner at around 9 or 9:30 PM. We had our dinner inside the bus itself. Rest of the journey was peaceful and we reached Shimogga around 9:00 AM next day. To our surprise there was another team of Tamil guys in our bus going towards the same trekking as us. We exchanged our ideas about the place and our plans and took our own ways. We took a room just opposite to the bus stand for 340 bucks a day. It was a pretty good one. The room had a pretty decent bathroom and double bed cot and a TV (Mr. Basha was happy). We refreshed ourselves there and made our necessary phone calls to our dear ones to prove that we are safe.

There were 2 places in our mind to visit for the first day near Shimogga. JogFalls and Agumbe. As we have explored JogFalls couple of times before, we thought that it’s a good idea to go to Agumbe and get a glimpse of the Western Ghats and amazing sunset. Agumbe is a rainforest manifesting rare and unique flora and fauna in India. It receives one of the highest rainfall in the world and 2nd highest in India next to Cherrapunji of Assam. One can reach to Agumbe from Bangalore via Shimogga. It's around 350 kms from Bangalore. Most of the buses going towards Udupi and Mangalore go via Agumbe.

The Sunset from the Sunset point is said to be a breath takingly amazing. One of the best in the world. I was exited to catch the Sunset from there and have a lovely view of the amazing landscape and breathe the fresh air. Here I have to confess that I have an amazing rapport with this Sun setting. I have romanced with sun while setting very well before. I enjoy that very much. I was exited to get that thing in my camera and heart.
We had a decent break fast and started towards Agumbe. We got into a local bus which goes over Agumbe to Udupi. With in an hour and half we were there. The place was calm, serene and picturesque. It was a village. We got down exactly at the place where the rain forest starts (remember we were there in the rainy season).There were no places where any one can stay back as far as we saw. We did see an Agumbe Guest house which was completely deserted. And ya, a school too

We decided to walk towards the sunset point. We reached a point where left turn goes to Shringeri and right turn goes to Agumbe. Shringeri is just 15 kms from the place where we were standing. Sringeri is another beautiful place with Sharadamba Temple. It is situated at the banks of river Tunga. The first thing that comes to my mind about this place is the big and plumpy fishes in the river. I am vegetarian , so I just adore watching them. Anyway, I have been to Shringeri many times, so we took right turn and went towards Agumbe. We were just few kms away from the sunset point. The road lying like a black carpet, the forest on both sides of it and we loners walking on it. It was a great feeling of being in the laps of the nature.

Spice trade

About an hour's drive from Mangalore is the village of Elyar, near the foot of the Western Ghat mountain range.

Many of the villagers in Elyar are Muslim
Coconut trees dot the landscape amid rice fields and banana plantations.
But the real income comes from the lucrative spice trade with cinnamon, cardamom, aniseed and cashews grown here.
Many of the villagers are Muslim - like Christianity, Islam first entered India through the south-west, with Arabian traders setting foot here more than 1,000 years ago.
Many Muslim women, veiled in black, line up to vote - women outnumber men in this region.
They lift their veils for a woman polling official, also Muslim, to check their faces against the voter cards.
KP Muhammad Qasim is a local spice trader and has been voting for the past 42 years.
"We need peace so that our business can continue unhindered. This is a prosperous part of the country - we want it to stay that way."

Carts and computers

In Karnataka, a state in southern India, farmers are as familiar with computers as they are with their bullock carts.
Since the programme was launched, 20 million land records have been computerised. And seven million farmers can now access official documents - vital if they want to secure a bank loan for fertiliser, seed or crop insurance.
The project is called Bhoomi - the Hindi word for land.

In Karnataka, roads and telephones are few and far betweenUntil recently, land records had been held by village accountants who entered details in hand-written ledgers, usually in pencil.
These accountants were often accused of tricking illiterate farmers into signing away their property or overcharging them for copies of their land deeds.
"Before, the records were done by hand. They would write in pencil and do the records. And at that time, they could change whatever they wanted," Mohammed Suman Kumar, an e-kiosk operator, told TVE.
In Karnataka, roads and telephones are few and far between so Bhoomi is a chance to close that gap. Around 200 village e-kiosks are now open for business.
Record collection
The Bhoomi project is the brainchild of Rajiv Chawla, secretary of e-governance in the government of Karnataka.
He told TVE: "There was tampering of the land records. The village accountants were not available to citizens when they needed them. A lot of fudging of the data.
"Therefore, a need was very strongly felt that these records should be computerised and put in a digital form."
The e-kiosks also sell copies of land records. Muhammad sells between 25 and 30 land registry copies per day. Of the 20 rupees charged, 15 go to the government and he takes five in commission.
"What I am charging here is much more than they would pay in the city. If you calculate the travelling expenses and the days and income they are wasting, I would say they are getting it at the cheapest rate."
Mr Shankara, a farmer in Karnataka, agrees the e-kiosks are a boon to the state's rural communities.
"Another good thing about this village kiosk is that the man offers computer lessons. This will be a good thing for my children to help them with their education," he told TVE.

India Week - Narayana Murthy

In a HARDtalk interview on 20th October, Stephen Sackur talks to Indian entrepreneur Narayana Murthy.
Twenty four years ago, Narayana Murthy set up his software company with only $250 dollars in the bank.
His company is now worth almost $20 billion.
But in Bangalore the site of his business empire sits uneasily beside the worst of India's slums.
In recent days effigies of Mr. Murthy have been burnt by local residents angered that his workforce has too few employees from Bangalore.
Stephen Sackur talks to Mr. Murthy about his business success.
He asks him what impact India's economic growth is having on the millions of Indians who still live in abject poverty.

Bangalore's Boomtown Blues

Nitesh Shetty may be Bangalore's youngest property billionaire.
Aged 30, he has 4,000 apartments under construction in the city, with plans to expand his operations into Calcutta, Mumbai and New Delhi.
And he has just sealed a $100m deal with Citigroup to build Bangalore's latest luxury hotel, the Ritz Carlton.
Having dropped out of university to pursue a career as a tennis pro, he began his career by selling billboard space in Bangalore, after getting a 10,000 rupee ($226, £115) loan from his mother.
At 23, he borrowed 500,000 rupees ($11,000) to turn a house in central Bangalore into an office block.

Nitesh Shetty got rich in Bangalore's booming property marketThe home was owned by an old widow, and he gave her a 50% stake in the venture.
He then persuaded the bank to rent the ground floor - which covered his interest payments - and he never looked back.
Mr Shetty told the BBC there was no shortage of foreign investors eager to take a stake in India's real estate boom.
He has named all his luxury apartment complexes after famous US locations, such as Times Square, Key Biscayne, and Forest Hills (the US Wimbledon), and has hired the Australian cricketing legend Shane Warne to promote his properties.
Hi-tech boom
In the 1990s, when the Indian government decided to liberalise the economy and encourage the IT services industry, Bangalore established special zones such as Electronic City - a hub of hi-tech firms.

But its highly educated, literate workforce prompted the government to locate its defence and space research here in the 1960s.
Today the Bangalore boom is based on its attractiveness as the centre of India's IT industry, which is enjoying unprecedented growth as foreign multinationals rush to outsource their back-office functions to India.
The city's population has grown from 1.6m in 1970 to 2.8m in 1990 and 6.5m today, making it India's fastest growing city, and planners expect it to reach 10m by 2015.
India's IT sector employs 1.3 million people directly, and 3 million indirectly - and 40% of the IT sector is concentrated in Bangalore.
Bangalore also has the highest average income in India, and the jobs are plentiful, with Infosys expected to hire thousands this year.
Out on the town
The spirit of affluence pervades Bangalore.
Civil servants... are not good at managing big projects on time and on budget
K JairajCity commissioner
There are six new shopping malls, and luxury car showrooms like BMW are springing up everywhere.
The young, well-paid worker likes to go out on the town, and restaurants and bars are doing a roaring trade, with 500 new bars in the city alone and dozens of cafes.
With a new bar opening every week, owners cannot get enough staff.
That's good news for the head barman at the newly opened Le Rock pub, who has been hired at double his previous salary.
And there has been a boom for taxi firms as the IT companies all pay them to transport their workers to and from their offices, given the hopeless inadequacy of the public transport system.

Not that the new-found wealth always filters through.
Raj Singh came from Tamil Nadu 15 years ago to work as a taxi driver.
He still sends half his salary to his mother back home, and visits her two weekends a month, travelling for 15 hours on three buses.
But if his wages are higher, so is his rent. He cannot afford to live in Bangalore, and it costs half his salary even to rent a room in a village 30 miles away.
And many of the thousands of construction workers who have to build the new apartments and offices live in squalor in makeshift roadside tents that sit uneasily among the city's glamour.
Weekend breaks
The hi-tech industry has also introduced a new phenomenon in Indian life for those who are on-the-up - the weekend break.

Affluent IT workers like to get away from the city.
Previously, everyone spent six days a week in the office, but the high-paid IT workers only do five.
With their high-stress jobs, they are increasingly interested in getting away from it all.
And into the breach has stepped Santosh, a trekking guide.
His web-based travel agency, Getoffurass.com, specialises in finding weekend hideaways in the jungle, and is doing a roaring trade.
Santosh told the BBC that the biggest change was that now he was leading Indians, not Westerners, in treks across the Himalayas.
Infrastructure woes
Bangalore's public infrastructure has lagged woefully behind the pace of private sector investment.

Bullock carts block the road to the hi-tech industrial park
Every Bangalore IT company has to have a private generator and uninterruptible power supply to cope with the daily power failures of the grid.
Despite 15 years of lobbying, the 5km stretch of road linking Electronic City to the city centre is still crammed with bullock carts, trucks, cars and two-wheelers despite a private-public partnership to fund a new expressway.
And its international airport has an antiquated terminal far too small for the hordes of international businessmen flooding into the city - and the frenzied search for luggage as people gather five-deep around the single luggage carousel sometimes prompts emotional - and occasionally physical - outbursts.
Bangalore's city commissioner, K Jairaj, told the BBC that untrammelled growth could not go on indefinitely, with five million vehicles already clogging the roads and property prices going through the roof.
The government's policy is to decentralise development - building new towns on green field sites surrounding the city.

The boss of Bangalore is critical of many of his workforce
Mr Jairaj also said that, in order to generate more jobs, the government wanted to encourage more labour-intensive sectors like car manufacturing to locate in Bangalore, and would not resist plans to disperse IT jobs to more cities in India.
But he said his greatest problem was the weakness of his own civil servants, who were not good at managing big projects "on time and on budget."
Cultural dislocation
For those Bangalore natives who do not have jobs in the IT industry, there are signs of increasing unease about the direction the city is going.

Even in Bangalore there have been anti-globalisation riots
Some object on religious grounds to the wild nightlife, which was recently highlighted when the police started enforcing a curfew law that forbids disco dancing in bars after 11pm.
Others want the IT firms to give them a share of the good jobs.
They are calling for a reservation system, similar to that in the Indian civil service, which allocates a percentage of all jobs to the so-called "backward castes".
And many are disturbed by the fact that Kannada, the native language of Karnataka, has become a minority tongue in Bangalore, with English, Hindi, and Tamil all more widely spoken.
The state government has now insisted that Kannada, not Hindi, should be the language of instruction at school.

The city's lively nightlife has annoyed older residents
It plans to change Bangalore's name to Bengalooru in an effort to appease locals disturbed by the tremendous influx of outsiders into the city in the past few years.
The change still has to approved by the Federal government.
Tensions reached boiling point in April last year when crowds rioted outside Microsoft's global research centre in Bangalore after hi-tech companies failed to observe an unofficial day of mourning following the death of Karnataka's most famous film star, Rajkumar, the "John Wayne of India."
So despite its prosperity, the cultural dislocation brought about by Bangalore's rampant success in the global economy has, at least for now, increased rather than decreased political tensions.

Mangalore Airport

Located in the scenic countryside of the Goulburn Valley Region, Mangalore is strategically based just north of the Great Dividing Range, which separates Mangalore from Melbourne. While this has significant impact on the type of weather conditions encountered, it is still only a 100km drive to the city centre of Melbourne.
Mangalore was originally used as an alternate to Melbourne International Airport because of its recorded stable weather conditions. Students at the airport have come to appreciate the efficiencies that come as a result of the ideal weather, which means that there are rarely delays due to poor weather.

is approximately 20 minutes away to the south by air. To the east, also about 20 minutes flying time, lie the mountainous areas of the ski resorts at Mount Buller and the 'High Country'. This allows students to experience a large spectrum of weather conditions and terrain. Initial training however is all conducted over the relatively safe farm lands surrounding Mangalore Airport without the necessity to fly over built up areas.

Fascinating Coconut-related Facts

The coconut crab, (alternately called the robber crab or palm thief), has no shell of its own so sometimes uses discarded coconut shells to protect its delicate abdomenal area. These ingenious crabs are native to Vanuatu.
Some arthritic people eat dried copra to ease joint pains.
The Coconut Lagoon, a hotel in Kumarakom, Kerala, in the south-western region of India, has a unique architectural style.
'Coconut' is the title of a song by Harry Nilsson, a novelty calypso number featuring the narrator, the sister, and the doctor, all sung in different tones by the talented Nilsson. This track was used by Coca-Cola™ to advertise their latest soft drink variation, but changing the ending in the commercial to: You put the lime in the Coke, you nut.
Coconut Recipes
Drinks
Coconut Daiquiri is a refreshing drink which is simple to prepare. Ingredients: 2oz (5g) coconut cream; 1oz (2.5g) pineapple juice; ½oz (1g) lime juice; ice. Mix all the ingredients in a blender until smooth. Serves one person.

Shipyard cranes to move to India

Swan Hunter's cranes have long dominated the skylineThe shipyard cranes famous for mapping the skyline along the River Tyne in Newcastle are being dismantled and sent to India.
The owner of the Swan Hunter yard, Jaap Kroese, has sold off the heavy equipment to an Indian shipyard for an estimated £2.5m.
When he bought the yard 10 years ago he reportedly paid 40 times that amount.
Their final destination is the Bharati shipyard in Mangalore on the south-west coast of India.
Swan Hunter closed in July after the Ministry of Defence took an unfinished ship to a yard in Scotland.
Plans to establish the yard as a breaking business did not come to fruition either.

A Dollar A Day

Less than a dollar a day is a phrase we are all familiar with, but what does it really mean?
Almost half the world's population lives on less than a dollar a day, but the statistic fails to capture the humiliation, powerlessness and brutal hardship that is the daily lot of the world's poor.
In this series, Mike Wooldridge looks at what it's really like to have to live on a dollar a day and how it can mean different things in different countries, and asks whether the global target of halving world poverty by 2015 can really be achieved.
It isn't all about desperation and gloom, though: Mike meets people of incredible energy and determination, living in vibrant communities and having a diversity of experiences.
Part Three: India
Veeran is a spirited 75 year old living alone in the back streets of the town of Rohtak, north west of Delhi.
In her small, spartan home -the kitchen does not even have a roof- she symbolises one of India's newest challenges.
More and more people are surviving into their seventies and beyond, thanks to overall improvements in health care. But there is a growing problem of destitution among the elderly too.
The tradition in India, as in many Asian societies, of younger family members caring for the elderly can no longer be relied on.
This is largely because of the impact of rapid urbanisation and increasing employment opportunities for women, the primary carers of older relatives.
Mike Wooldridge hears at first-hand how elderly people cope and how they see the changes taking place around them.
Those who neglect their relatives could end up before tribunals - but is this what the elderly themselves want?
The policy issues involved are crucial. It is predicted that by the middle of the century Asia will be home to almost two-thirds of the world's older people.

KONKANI MUSLIMS: AN INTRODUCTION BY OMAR KHALIDI

Introduction Muslims of the Konkan and Malabar coasts represent the oldest Islamic settlements in India. The most obvious characteristic of these Muslims is the common origin as maritime mercantile communities. In addition to their status as the vanguards of Islam in India, they are especially interesting to students of Islam in South Asia, because they evolved in areas of continuing upper caste Hindu political and social dominance. Muslims first arrived in the Konkan in 699, according to Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti, less than 70 years after the death of Prophet Muhammad in circa 632. In other words some Muslims were already present in India a decade before the invasion of Sindh by Muhammad ibn Qasim in 711. Thus Konkani Muslims, along with the Moplahs are the oldest Muslim communities in India. In the 1300 years of their existence, they have been acutely conscious of being Muslim as well as being perceived as such by others. Throughout their long history, the Konkani Muslims have overcome the triple challenges of surviving the assimilative power of syncretistic Hinduism, the crusading zeal of the Portuguese Backed by their armed invasions in the sixteenth century, and the subsequent challenge posed by westernization as represented by the British colonial power. Surviving as a distinct Muslim community is no small achievement particularly when seen in the light of the fact there were no Muslim political powers to protect them when they first landed, nor when the power of Muslim sultanates waned in the eighteenth century. The story of the Konkani Muslims despite its antiquity and success is a mystery to most outsiders. Among the Konkani Muslims, the community’s history is not known in a clear, systematic manner either. A Review of Literature on the Konkani Muslims Beyond the scattered and occasional references to the Konkani Muslims in the writings of travelers and geographers, there is no detailed account of the Konkanis in sociological or anthropological literature. Indian sociologist Victor S. d’Souza, author of The Navayats of Kanara informs us that he had "made a detailed field study of the cultural traits of the Navayats of the Deccan and the Konkani Muslims too," , though it appears to have remained unpublished. The late Professor A.R. Saiyed (1931-89) conducted research entitled "Muslims of Konkan: An Explorative [sic] Study," but it never materialized beyond an investigation of purdah among the Konkani women. Some years (1989-94) later Muhi al-Din Mumin received a grant from the Indian Council of Historical Research to study the Konkani Muslim communities in the medieval period. However, I have not been able to see it as a published work. A.R. Momin did a comparative study of the social mobility among Muslims in Bhiwandi comparing the Konkanis and the weavers called Momins. So far as I have been able to locate, no other studies of the Konkani Muslims are available. What follows then is my own research based on published materials dispersed in various writings and also on personal interviews conducted with community activists, field observations in Mumbai, and informed journalists in the Konkan. Konkan: A Geographical Overview The Konkan is the coastal plain of Maharashtra state, in western India, lying between the Arabian Sea on the west and the Western Ghats on the east. It stretches approximately 330 miles from the Daman Ganga river north of Mumbai (Bombay) to the Terekhol river between Maharashtra and Goa. Between 28 and 47 miles in width, the Konkan today (1999) is divided into the five administrative districts from the north to south of Thane, (Thana), Mumbai (Bombay), Raigadh (formerly Kolaba), Ratnagiri, and Sindhudurg. 1)The topography of the Konkan coast is congenial to settlement. In this area, bays, peninsula, estuaries and capes coexist, and the combination of the influences of the land and the sea is seen. The narrow and broken coastline causes creeks and inlets in the Arabian Sea, whose tides thereby deeply penetrate into the country. This favors the growth of a number of littoral ports which are naturally protected. This is one of the few areas of the sea-boards of India that is sheltered from the sea. The settlement pattern in this region is intimately connected with both littoral and estuary ports. Together with the towns in the estuaries at points where the tides carry in the boats are formed two, sometimes even three lines of settlements corresponding to two or three degrees of marine penetration. At no other part of the western coast is this parallelism so obvious. Mountain passes through the Sahyadri connect the littoral region with the extensive interior. Moreover, some of the rivers issuing out of the Sahyadri range carry some amount of regional trade towards the Arabian Sea. The area is thus suited to commercial activities, whether inland, coastal or overseas. Early Muslim Settlements From time immemorial there had been traffic between the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and India. India’s west coasts of Gujarat, Konkan, and Malabar traded with countries of the western Indian Ocean. The Arabs had shown themselves to be brave and skillful seamen; the term ‘Arabian Sea’ was no misnomer for the western part of the Indian Ocean. Long before the Greeks first entered the Asian world, the Arabs had crossed the ocean to India and had penetrated the countries of south-east Asia. Much before the Portuguese appeared in Asian waters, the Arabs had made themselves familiar with the eastern coast of Africa almost as far as its southern tip. They came to trade and not to conquer. But like the Christians in later times, they had their coastal settlements, and had intermarried with the local inhabitants. In circa 699, a group of Arabs in Basra left the province to escape the tyrannical Ummayad Governor Hajaj ibn Yusuf al-Thaqafi. These refugees evidently found welcome on the Konkan coast. The region from Khambayat in Gujarat to Chawl in Konkan came under the control of the Rashtrakutas who ruled for some two centuries between 733-975 from Malkhed. Although they were ‘infidels’ as the Arab traveler Masudi says, "amongst the kings of Sindh and Hind none treat the Muslims who are established in their domains with more distinction than the Ballahara (i.e. the Rashtrakutas). In the cities of the Ballahara kingdom the Muslims ‘were honored and protected’ and they were allowed to erect their own mosques. Masudi writes that the largest settlement was that of about 10, 000 in the district of Saymur;[Chawl] these were a permanently established group by the tenth century, with ancestors who had come from Siraf (Persia), Oman, Hadramawt, Basra, Baghdad, and other cities in the Middle East, now ‘wearing the same dresses and having their beards grow in the same manner as the infidels.’ Masudi refers to them as bayasira (singular baysari), explaining that this means they are ‘Muslim born in al-Hind of Muslims parents. From among the merchants of great distinction, one was customarily appointed by the Ballahara as the head (hamza) of the Muslim community. Consequently, even though Muslims were excluded from political power, ‘none but Muslims ruled over them on the part of the Ballahara (min qibali Ballahara) The Persian traveler Buzurg ibn Shariyar of Ram-Hurmuz was familiar with a man from Siraf. Abbas ibn Mahan, who was the chief of Saymur. More information is available in the writings of classical geographers such as Yaqut Hamawi (d. 1229) in his Mujam al-buldan written in 1154 and in al-Idrisi’s (d. 1166) Nuzhat al-mushtaq in 1224. The Arab geographers’ account of Muslims is confirmed by Sanskrit epigraphic evidence in the tenth century. This occurs in a grant of Rashtrakuta monarch, Indra III (reigned 915-28), found at theseaport town of Chinchani in Thana. The Chinchani inscription records the recipient of a land grant whose name is Madhumati, which a modern scholar David Pingree identifies as the Sanskritization of Muhammad. Ranabir Chakravarti, another scholar familiar with Sanskrit epigraphy, has arrived at the same conclusions. What is clear from the scattered writings of the early medieval travelers and geographers is that Muslims of Arab extraction were present in clusters from the close of the seventh century on the Konkan coast, and kept arriving until the middle of the tenth century. They enjoyed religious freedom to build and worship in mosques, and the local rulers granted them a degree of internal autonomy to the extent that a Muslim ruled his coreligionists on behalf of the raja. The fact that some Arab merchants settled in India meant that at least some of the profits of the overseas trade remained in the country. A Dutch factor Pieter van der Broecke encountered Arab merchants settled in India wherever he turned in the Red Sea-Hadramawt area in early 17th century. Nawayats and Konkani Muslims The various Muslim communities that sprang up on the Konkan coast of India in the seventh century share three common characteristics: the first is a common origin in the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf region, second is a common adherence to the Shafi’i madhab, or school of Islamic law, (founded by Imam Shafii, d. 819) and finally the common descent from Arab mariners and merchants. Among these communities at least three groups came to be called Nawayats. The name appears in a variety of forms in Arabic, Urdu and English, including Nait, Naiti spelled with the letters ta ( ) or te ( ) . The mariners among the Arabs and Persians of the time were no doubt called Na-Khuda, a combination of naav=boat and khuda (lord), both words of Old Persian. The composite word thus means "boat-lord". The Arab and Persian na-khudas have been translated into English as mariners, sailors, sea-farers, ship captains, ship owners, and the like. There is controversy among the Nawayat scholars and academic researchers regarding this term. Based on a detailed and sophisticated philological analysis D.V. Chauhan has concluded in his important study that "the term Navait in the Arabo-Iranian historical sources and also in Indian languages is in fact the Prakritisation of the Arabo-Iranian term navakidh, shipowners." The term "navakhidh" (correct transliteration nawakhid) is most likely to have become "nawayat" as persuasively argued by D.V. Chauhan. Regardless of the origin and meaning of the term Nawayat, it is clear that there are three groups of Muslims who are descended from the Arab immigrants and their progeny and dispersed to various parts of western and southern India. The first group of Nawayats are those who live predominantly in the town of Bhatkal, in North Kanara district in the southern state of Karnataka. The second group of Nawayats are those who live, among other places, in Chennai (Madras) and Hyderabad. The Chennai and Hyderabad Nawayats are closely linked with ties of kinship and intermarriage. According to the Gazetteer of the Bombay City and Island "the Muslims of the coast of Bombay State now styled Konkanis were formerly known as Naitias or Navayats Our concern heretofore is with the third group of historical Nawayats who were initially called Nawayat but are now known as Konkani Muslims inhabiting the region of Konkan as described earlier. Muslim Conquest of the Deccan and Konkan The Muslim position was further transformed in 1294 with the invasion and eventual annexation of the Deccan by Sultan Ala al-Din Khilji of Delhi. Although the conquest of the Deccan was no more than a looting expedition in the beginning, it sowed the seeds of territorial occupation and the subsequent inroads into Konkan itself when Dabhol (not to be confused with Dabhel, further northwest on the Sindh coast) was overrun by Malik Kafur, the trusted general of Ala al-Din Khilji in 1312. The Khiljis were overthrown by the Tughluqs, and they in turn by the disgruntled amirs who founded the Bahmani Empire in the Deccan in 1347. As recorded by Firishta, a medieval Persian historian, the two major ports of Konkan, Chawl in the north and Dabhol in the south became part of the Bahmani Empire and upon its breakup at the dawn of the sixteenth century, the ports came into the possession of Ahmadnagar and Bijapur kingdoms respectively. The Konkan ports flourished under Muslim rule and carried on multiple trade exchanges with other coastal and overseas ports, and with inland trade centers. In the early sixteenth century the busy port of Chawl attracted a "great concourse of ships," and served as an alternate entreport for the textiles of Cambay in Gujarat; the spices, coconuts, and areca nuts of Malabar; and grain and cloth of the Deccan. Dabhol thrived on trade not only with Cambay and Malabar, but also with the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Bassein, Thana, Danda Rajpur, and Sangameshwar were other active coastal ports. Although the Konkan ports handled a far smaller volume of trade relative to that of Gujarat, Malabar, and Coromandel ports, they formed a convenient mid-way point on the sea route from Southeast Asia to the Red Sea. Most of the of Konkan ports had a substantial trading population of Muslims as noted by the Portuguese Barbosa in the sixteenth century. In addition to the ship-building and commercial activities at the ports, some Muslims acquired positions at Bijapur’s Adil Shahi court, exemplified by the case of Mulla Ahmad Naita and the appointment of qazis and pesh imams by Adil Shahi authorities in Konkan. Archaeological research reveals traces of Muslim presence in the medieval period through Arabic and Persian inscriptions (from 14th century) in mosques, forts, and tombs dating from the mid-seventeenth century. Archaeological Remains of the Muslim Era Writing toward the end of the nineteenth century historian A.K. Nairne observed that "the remains of Musalman buildings in the Konkan are few and unimportant. Dabhol was so frequently burnt by the Portuguese, and Chaul so thoroughly destroyed by Shivaji that there is little more than enough to show that they were once great places. At both there are a number of tombs scattered about, but none of great pretension. At Dabhol there is a fine mosque with dome and minarets standing close to the water’s edge, and now almost buried in coconut trees. It is of considerable size, and its situation is striking, but is should not be thought very much of in Gujarat or any other district rich in Muslim remains. The site of the Muslim city of Chaul is even more covered by coconut gardens than Dabhol. The most striking ruin is a hammam khana or bath, containing one large central chamber and two smaller ones, all octagonal and each lighted by a circular opening in the cupola which covers it. At Kalyan formerly called Islamabad, there is a large Musalman population and several mosques in use. There is however nothing either old or remarkable except one mosque, which would be very fine if it had a dome in proportion to its other parts. This stands on the edge of a noble pond, round which there are many tombs and other indistinguishable remains, as well as one considerable building said to be the tomb of a governor named Mohrtada Khan, on which is the date H. 1108.This is probably the person called by the Portuguese Mortada Khan, Nawab of Bhiwandi, who ravaged their territories at various times about 1690. The absence of other buildings is due to the ravages to which this district was subjected in the early days of Shivaji. [ John] Fryer, who traveled in India from 1673 to 1676, speaks of the remains of the Musalman city of Kalyan, then only recently destroyed, as noble and striking, and goes so far as to call them "the most glorious ruins the Mahommedans in the Deccan ever had occasion to deplore." At Kharepatan, there are the foundations of a large Musalman town in a fine situation and a great number of tombs, but no building remains standing. At Rajpuri near Janjira, now a wretched looking village, there are the tombs of four of the [Siddi] Nawabs situated in a pretty glen and close to the creek. There are, of course, tombs and mosques of an ordinary description in many places, but none architecturally remarkable. The tomb of a saint at Bhiwandi, said to have been previously a diwan of Bijapur, and that of a princess at Lanja said to have been the daughter of one of the Bijapur kings, may be mentioned." Speaking of the various forts, Nairne says, " at Vijaydurg, the most massive of the buildings within and in the fort walls are evidently Musalman. At Avchitgad, the crenelated battlements of the outer wall seem to prove the same origin. The island fort of Arnala near the mouth of the Vaitarna appears to be entirely Musalman, with domes, Saracenic arches, octagonal recesses,and other features never seen in Maratha forts, though there are also marks inside of its Hindu occupation. But there is scarcely any mention to be found of any of the Konkan forts in the records of the Musalman time... The picturesque bridge at Nagothna ... is said to have been built about 1582 by... Kazi Alauddin of Chaul and as this date is between the siege of Chaul during the alliance of Musalman kings against the Portuguese and the activity of Nizam Shahi troops at the same place twenty years later, it may without improbability be assumed that the bridge was built to facilitate the march of the troops from Ahmadnagar to Chaul... The chief peculiarity of the bridge is its narrowness, the space between the parapets being only nine feet nine inches. Villages with Musalman names are often met with, of the origins of which nothing can be heard. Two small districts, close to Dabhol retain the names they received from the Mahommedans, though everywhere else the ancient Hindu names of prants and tarafs have been preserved. These are Haveli Jaafarabad containing thirty seven villages, and Haveli Ahmadabad containing twenty-one, and the probability is that when Dabhol was first taken by the Musalmans these villages were assigned for the support of the governor and his establishment." Konkani Muslims Since the Nineteenth Century According to a British colonial official Arthur Crawford "The Konkan Mahommadan occasionally settles in the Deccan; he is to be found at Poona, but is to be seen at his best in a comparatively small region, to wit, the Khed and Dapoolie talukas, sub-districts of Ratanagiri. There will be found a few small clusters of villages, situated not only on the borders of the Jogabarree and Washistee rivers, but lying well inland also, which, with the exception of just enough Mahratta cultivators to carry on farm labor, and a few Mahars to act as watchmen, guides and messengers, are entirely populated by Mahommedans, who at once impress the observer as worthy of special study.Their dress to begin with, is remarkable, in as much as they surmount the usual Mahommedan jacket, shirt and pyjamas, with a large Brahminical turban, casting a scarf or shawl round their necks, very much in the fashion of that worn by Brahmins in gala dress. Somehow the costume, incongruous as it may appear from this description, goes exceedingly well with the grave demeanor, handsome features, and dignified bearing of the wearers. They are usually rather above average height and always well built, with small, well-proportioned hands and feet; their profiles are clear cut, the nose generally aquiline; full frank eyes, and massive foreheads; the whole betokening their descent from the best Mahommedan blood in India. Their presence as superior landowners in this out-of-the-way part of western India, is very difficult to account for; but probably their ancestors received grants of their lands for services performed during the Beejapur and Mogul dynasties. Judging from the number of ruined mosques and "peer’s" (saints) tombs scattered about, there must have been rather a large Mahommedan population in that neighborhood at some time or other before the Peishwa’s raj. Large numbers of them, however, abandoned their lands and villages as they became surrounded by Brahmin and Mahratta Khotes (middlemen or farmers of revenue). A few of the wealthier of the best of the old families only remain now, and many of these are dying out or have been driven by adverse circumstances to seek a livelihood elsewhere. Mahommedans are invariably kind and liberal landlords, but they are shockingly bad farmers and cultivators, and their personal expenditure is lavish and extravagant compared with that of their Hindu neighbours. As a natural consequence, they fall an easy prey to local usurers, who are the real owners of most of their villages now.Great numbers of these Mahommedans flocked to the service of the British government during the settlement of the Konkan after the overthrow of the Peishwa [in 1818]: they were largely employed in the Customs Department, and many of the first mamlutdar and mahalkarees (middlemen or farmers of revenue) were taken from the old Mahommedan families at and near Bankote and the Khed subdistricts, where the Parkars, Potrocks, Sajanees and others were very influential and very deservedly respected. The chief revenue official in 1820 was a splendid old gentleman, the head of the Parkars of Bankote, who despite his advanced age, insisted on leading the stormers at the capture of several forts by Colonel Prothero and other commanders. Several of his descendants rose to high official rank in various departments, and one of them was very many years ago, State Karbharee (prime minister) to the late Nawab of Janjira. When I first went to Ratnagiri in 1859-60, Mr. Turquand’s chitnis (secretary) was a Mahommedan: there were also two Mahommedan mamlutdars and several mahalkarees. Gradually the Brahmins have shouldered them out of every post: impoverished and apathetic, their families have been indifferently educated, so that they have never qualified for government service, except in the lower grades of the police. ‘Tis a thousand pities! For the Konkanee Mussalman is intelligent, resolute, faithful, and thoroughly to be depended upon in an emergency." Rise of Bombay and Konkani Muslim Migration When the English, French, and other European East India Companies opened their direct trade with India in the seventeenth century, their activities centered on the rich commercial provinces of Gujarat, Bengal, and peninsular India along the Malabar and Coromandel coasts. On the west coast the commercial magnet was Surat, the chief Mogul port, where the English utilized the existing commercial infrastructure, availability of merchandise, shipping facilities, and access to its inland and oceanic communication network. By contrast, the Konkan coast attracted only minor and sporadic European contact in the form of smaller factories at Rajapur (English and French), Malvan (English) and Vengrula (Dutch) with the major exception of Bombay. Among other reasons, the Mogul ban on foreign fortifications in their territories compelled the English to look for an alternative site, and Bombay became that site after it was ceded by the Portuguese to the English in 1661. Gradually Bombay emerged as the center of trade and commerce. The spread of western education in the mid nineteenth century coupled with the introduction of industrial technology in the fields of cotton textile manufacture and railway construction accelerated Bombay’s growth. Thus in the later half of the nineteenth century, Bombay emerged as the cotton mill center of India and as a major terminus on the extensive railway network which spanned the entire subcontinent. Bombay’s oceanic communications improved vastly with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which made it the chief Indian port city closest to Britain. The Konkan port towns, usually smaller than the inland towns were completely dwarfed by Bombay. With the emergence of Bombay as the industrial, educational, economic and communication center of India, the people of Konkan were attracted to the city in search of job opportunities. The shrine and tomb of the saint Shaykh Makhdum Faqih Mahaimi, also known as Ali Paru dates from 1431, indicating Muslim presence in Bombay centuries before it became the great metropolis. The better known shrine and tomb of Haji Ali on an island in the little bay that was once the mouth of the Great Breach does not appear in any account or map of the city until late nineteenth century. The influx to Bombay included the Konkani Muslims too. Muslims began settling in Bombay as early as the beginning of the 18th century, in Mahim, the northernmost of the seven original islands making Bombay. They were attracted to Bombay by the maritime nature of its European occupants, settled there and amassed wealth first as ship’s masters and sailors, and then as merchants and shipowners The great success stories of Bombay magnates are those of the Parsis, Marwaris, and the Gujaratis, but "similar riches were made by those Konkani Muslim families, such as the Kurs, the Roghays, and the Ghattays, who entered the China trade and also traded in pearls with Madras. Muhammad Ali Roghay, who earned the title Nacoda (nakhuda) because of the large number of ships he owned, traded in China in partnership with one of the [Parsi] Readymoneys. The Konkani Muslim shetias (magnates) had a considerable advantage in the trade, because, like the Parsis, their community had long been associated with shipbuilding. Konkani Muslims later on settled in the eastern part of the native quarter of Bombay, near where the Jama Masjid was built around Dongri fort on a tank and gardens belonging to a Konkani Muslim. This Konkani Muslim was none other than Muhammad Ali Roghay, who also enlarged and repaired the Jama Masjid in 1830s. Construction of this mosque began in 1775 and completed in 1808. The Jama Masjid is Bombay’s most important mosque and lies in the commercial center. Located at the junction of Shaykh Memon Street and Janjikar Street, it forms the most important landmark on this important road. A symphony of domes and minarets with ornate entrances, the mosque has a two storied prayer hall, which is a recurring feature in all Mumbai mosques. The second story has a tiled sloping roof designed to take into account the heavy rainfall during the monsoons. A special feature of the Jama Masjid is its large pool on which the prayer hall is built. Water is pumped up to the ablution area. Urdu Language, Education and Identity Konkani Muslims are fluent in Konkani, an Indo-Aryan language grammatically and structurally close to and written in Marathi script. Konkani is the official language of Goa, a neighboring state. The Konkani dialect spoken by Muslims is heavily infused with words of Arabic and Persian origin. But Konkani was not used by the Muslim intelligentsia for scholarship, barring a handful of religious tracts transcribed in it using the Urdu letters.Konkani remains the common language of public communication in the rural area, and in semi-urban and urban areas Urdu is often an alternative language. Children are taught to learn and memorize the Qur’an for use in the five prescribed daily prayers. The knowledge of Arabic is restricted to a very small class of people who have had access to schools of higher Islamic education. Many Konkani ulama wrote scholarly works on Qur’an and Islamic studies, exemplified by the cases of Ahmad ibn Abd al-Qadir Konkani, (d. 1320.) and Shaykh Abd Allah Konkani (d. 1325.) and the better known Shaykh Makhdum Ali Mahaimi (1372-1431) in the medieval period, and the case of Shaykh Abd al-Samad Sharaf al-Din (1901-1906) in our own time. Leaving aside this small group of scholars, common Konkani Muslims, like their coreligionists in the 19th century Bombay Province lagged far behind Hindus and Parsis in education, as noted by the government reports of the time. The difficulties facing Muslims in acquiring modern education were recognized by the more enlightened members of the faith. One of the original members of the Bombay Board of Education, a Konkani Muslim named Muhammad Ibrahim Muqba, had been successively munshi to the East India Company cadets, interpreter to the Supreme Court and magistrate of the Court of Petty Session. He was very much aware of the need to create an interest in higher English education among Muslims, and had himself founded an Urdu school in Bombay and prepared books for it. Although the school did not prosper, it produced at least one pupil who continued his education until 1840 at the Elphinstone Institution. This was Ghulam Muhammad Munshi, the grandson of an Ahmadabad Muslim who had prospered in Bombay as a laundryman for washing Europeans’ clothes. Munshi sought and received, after initial hesitation, the cooperation of Muslim commercial magnates of Bombay to establish educational institutions for children of the community, his efforts accelerated after a visit to Aligarh and contacts with Sayyid Ahmad Khan there.The first to lend a hand was the Tayyibji family of Sulaymani Bohras, headed by brothers Qamar al-Din and Badr al-Din. The Tayyibjis had already formed an organization of their own to feed, clothe, and educate boys of their community who managed to get to Elphinstone High School. Their endeavors in assisting Munshi attracted the interest and friendship of Muhammad Ali Roghay, (1852-1910) the man who had helped build the Jama Masjid. Roghay though in his early twenties, was a landlord of great wealth and position.Roghay had been well educated and was influenced by the ideas of Sayyid Ahmad Khan, to which he advanced his even more liberalism. ‘His ideas were all of the most modern type,’ remarked the Victorian traveler and Islamophile Wilfrid S. Blunt, after meeting him 1883, ‘far too modern on some point to please me. Roghay’s interest in Sayyid Ahmad Khan brought him into contact with Ghulam Muhammad Munshi when the latter returned to Bombay from a visit to Northern India. He called on Roghay and described to him the anjumans that had been established to help Muslims in several cities, Roghay consulted the Tayyibjis, and in March 1876 the Anjuman-i Islam of Bombay was founded. The Anjuman’s aim was "the amelioration of the Mohammedan community and to effect some improvement in their education, and moral and social state." 43 From 1874 to 1880 Qamar al-Din Tayyibji was its President and Roghay its Vice-President. In 1889, Roghay rose to be the President of the Anjuman remaining in office until 1890. When the first school of the Anjuman opened, Roghay rose to the occasion with a princely donation of 10,000 making him the largest single donor. The Anjuman, which celebrated its hundredth anniversary in 1986, is the premier educational institution founded by Muslims for Muslim education in Maharahstra today .In addition to imparting modern education, its role in the spread of Urdu among Konkani and other Muslims is clearly crucial. The language of instruction of the Anjuman schools is Urdu, and it runs as many as 25 schools in Mumbai, Pune, and several towns of Konkan. The example of the Anjuman was replicated in other neighboring towns, in Bhiwandi for instance by the Kokan Muslim Education Society (KMES) founded in 1927 with a number of schools. In late 1999 the KMES was in the process of establishing a medical school.A detailed study of Urdu schools in the region from 1903-95, entitled Konkan main Urdu taalim, by Abd al-Rahim Nishtar shows the growth of Urdu schools in the area. The Konkani Muslims today are equally at ease in Urdu as well as native Konkani. Their socialization with the Urdu speaking Deccani and North Indian Muslims resident in Mumbai and elsewhere accelerated familiarity with Urdu. As Urdu is the richest repository of literature in Islamic studies, and since it is associated with the aristocratic culture of Deccan and North India through its status as the language of power, authority, and law courts, it began to be widely adopted by Bombay Muslims such as the Konkanis and the Tayyibji family as far back as the nineteenth century.In the twentieth century, the spread of Urdu, particularly through poetic symposia called mushairas and mystical music called qawwali performed at the Islamic shrines further intensified the familiarity with Urdu. Movies produced in the Bombay studios erroneously certified as Hindi films, with high content of Urdu songs and dialogs played their own role in the popularization of Urdu. The advent of radio and television quite literally brought Urdu programs to homes almost everywhere in the region.The Konkani intelligentsia is now thoroughly Urduized. In this process of Urduization, defined as the learning of Urdu, its use in formal education and mass communication, the role played by the monthly journal Naqsh-Kokan, published since 1962 is crucial. The Naqsh is a virtual chronicle of the Konkani Muslim society and its institutions for more than three decades. Led by its energetic founder Dr.Abd al-Karim Naik, its publications in Urdu on Konkani history and culture are the primary source of information indispensable for any understanding of the Konkani Muslim community today.The efforts of the Naqsh is supplemented by other literary associations such Konkan Urdu Writers’ Guild, which publishes a quarterly journal Tarsil since 1994.The wholesale adoption of Urdu by the Konkani Muslims has brought the group into the mainstream of Urdu culture of the Deccan and North India, in the same manner as it has the Panjabi, Kashmiri, Memon, and Meo Muslims of India and Pakistan, in contrast to the indifference of the Bohras and Khojas toward Urdu. If several generations of Kokanis receive their basic education in Urdu, it is likely that most will be homogenized with the Urdu speakers in the rest of India. Social Stratification among Konkani Muslims The Konkani Muslims are divided into at least two major categories, namely those who are the progeny of Arab intermarriages with the women of the cultivating castes, and those who are converts to Islam. The former are known as the Jamaatis, and the later as Daldis; the later however, resent this term and prefer being called Mahigir (fishermen), another indication of the desire of some Konkanis for Arabic/Persian terms instead of Indian, which can be interpreted as another instance of homogenization with the Urdu speaking Muslim communities. The Jamaatis are conscious and proud of their Arab ancestry and constitute the elite group. The Mahigirs are the descendants of the Kolis, the Konkan fishermen. The Mahigirs continue their traditional occupation even in the late 1990s. The two Konkani groups are spatially differentiated due to occupational differences. Mahigirs live in the fishing villages by the creeks, whereas the Jamaatis are mainly concentrated in the inland villages as agriculturists and as those involved in forestry and mango orchards. The Konkanis possess most of the important attributes of an ethnic group. Like the Moplahs of Malabar, they are the progeny of Arab immigrants and Indian women, they speak the same dialect of Konkani language, and marry among themselves, in anthropological terms they are generally endogamous. Yet, according to A.R. Momin, "the Konkani Muslim community has a well defined system of ranking and stratification. Topmost in the hierarchy are those who distinguish themselves from the rest on account of purity of descent and ancestral nobility. Families with surnames like Faqih, Farid, Khatib, Patel, Burbere, Narvil, Hani, Qazi, Tase, [among others] and Muallim belong to this category. Next come people with surnames like Chivne, Bolinjkar, Bhoje, and Jairumi. They are considered to be lower down in the hierarchy on account of differences in occupation and family background.Some of them are believed to have married or kept Hindu women in the nearby villages and so their families carry a stigma.Lower than these two are the Wazah (or Wajas as they are locally known). The Wazahs were traditionally a weaving sub-caste. Some of them formerly used to sell dried fish which is considered to be a lowly occupation in the Konkani Muslim subculture. Until quite recently, the Wazahs were supposed to be next to the lowest in the hierarchy, almost to the extent of being outside the group. They used to live in separate localities. Until a few years ago, there used to be no intermarriage between the Wazahs and other Konkani Muslims. Till very recently, the Wazahs did not observe purdah which the Konkani Muslims of Bhiwandi consider to be a mark of backwardness.Of late the Konkani Muslims have started giving their girls in marriage to the Wazahs as a consequence of the impact of industrialization, Islamization and the spread of modern education. However, this privilege is restricted to those Wazah boys who have acquired wealth and education and have thereby raised their status in the social hierarchy. At the lowest rung of the hierarchy are the Telis. The Telis are oil-pressers. They came to Bhiwandi from the neighboring villages. Though settled among the Konkani Muslims, they were barely considered a part of the group. Their dialect, rituals and customs are the same as those of the Konkanis, but there is no intermarriage between them and the latter". Finally, a group of Muslims known as "Chorvad" (in Raigarh district) are considered to be the illegitimate offspring of Konkani Muslim landlords and Koli peasant women. The expansion of communication network leading to ease, frequency, and decreasing cost of travel led to greater socialization between and among various sub-groups of the Konkani Muslims. Spread of modern education universally tends to level the ground between various groups, and the Konkanis are no exception. The leveling of ground is greatly aided by accelerating Islamization (defined in our context as the rejection of beliefs, customs, rituals, and structures originating from non-Islamic sources and the adoption of the Islamic notion of the equality of believers, (female and male) further decreasing the boundaries between Konkani sub-groups. However, marriages are still arranged by the parents, although independent mate selection commonly known as "love marriages" through contacts at college and work place is not uncommon. Most middle class Konkani Muslim families prefer marriage within their own group, failing which second preference is given to the Deccani Muslims, followed by other Urdu speaking Muslims. Considerations of education, occupation, and wealth are always present in negotiations for marriage, as is the case in any other ethnic group, thus A.R. Momin reports Konkani intermarriages with upwardly mobile Momins of Bhiwandi. Divorce and remarriage is rare among the Konkanis, but it is likely that both may increase as a result of expanding modernization and westernization. Marriage age for women has increased as a result of longer years spent in college education. An inadvertent outcome of large scale male migration is the relaxation of purdah among Jamaati women in Ratnagiri as women are forced into roles and responsibilities held previously by men, according to A. R. Saiyed. Konkani Muslim Economy and Society Today As a minority within a minority, the Konkani Muslims do not exhibit political preferences greatly different from Muslims of other ethnic, linguistic, or sectarian backgrounds. Thus in the 1930s and 1940s, many supported the Muslim League, exemplified by the cases of Aziz Abdulghaffar Kazi (MLA 1937-46) and Waziruddin Ahmad Parkar (MLA 1946-52) just as men like Muin al-Din Haris, (1907-83) a member of the Maharashtra State Legislative Assembly remained a firm supporter of the Indian National Congress. His example has been followed by men like Ghulam Mustafa Faqih, (1909-94) (Minister in Maharashtra state cabinet), Husain Dalwai, former MLA, as well as Rafiq Zakaria. Born in 1920, Zakaria is the author of several books on Islam and Muslims in India. He held Maharashtra state cabinet posts for a number of times (minister for public health, in 1960s and 1970s) as well as the inspiration behind founding of Muslim educational and charitable institutions such as the Mawlana Azad College in Aurangabad and Maharashtra College in Mumbai. Politically the most successful Muslim to date has been Abd al-Rahman Antulay, (b. 1929) becoming Chief Minister of Maharahstra (between June 1980 and January 1982) and later on elected to Lok Sabha, the lower house of Indian parliament in 1996 from the Kolaba constituency on a Congress Party ticket, though defeated in 1998 elections.He also served as minister for health during the prime ministership of Narasimha Rao, 1995-96. The integration of the Konkani Muslim society within the larger Maharashtrian society no doubt played a part in Antulay’s election as Chief Minister of India’s most industrialized state, besides his own superior organizational skills and the leadership qualities, although he claims to have been victimized in a bribery case due to his being a Muslim. The long era of Congress Party rule from 1947-95 was generally one of peace in Bombay except for two major riots in Bhiwandi (1970) and Bombay (1984). The major outbreak of anti-Muslim violence in January 1993 shortly after the Babari Masjid demolition in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 was the worst since independence. However the coming to power of the blatantly anti-Muslim Shiva Sena party has sent shock waves among Muslims communities of all categories in Maharashtra. There is a concerted attempt by the Shiva Sena government to erase aspects of Muslim culture in the state including those associated with the sufis, as exemplified by the attempt to claim the dargah of Haji Malang in Kalyan as one belonging to a Hindu Macchindranath. Economy and Migration Pattern The main occupation of most Konkanis is agriculture, followed by animal husbandry. Barring Mumbai, the greater portion of Konkan is generally backward industrially and agriculturally. For instance, the Ratnagiri district, the heart of Konkan is generally hilly, with several creeks. The hilly terrain does not give much scope for cultivation, though rice is grown wherever possible. There is some forest wealth. The district is the home of the alphonso variety of mango, renowned and exported worldwide. Harvesting and marketing mangoes is a lucrative, though only a seasonal business.There is plenty of sea food such as shrimps, prawns, and a variety of fish. In the last several decades, the mechanization of fishing has brought prosperity to some families. The amendment of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act of 1956, giving the tiller the right of the land ownership deprived some Konkani Muslims of some privileges relating to rice cultivation. Subsequently the legislation regarding the allotment of forest resources to cooperative societies as opposed to individual owners curtailed the wealth of some Konkani families. Some consequently took to the powerloom industry in Bhiwandi. But on the whole the region remains undeveloped and its natural resources yet to be exploited. As a result the entire Konkan belt became a satellite society to Bombay, with both Hindus and Muslims seeking jobs in the great metropolis and elsewhere. A demographer has found simultaneously depletion of Muslim population in Ratnagiri and manifold increase in Bombay and Thane, so it can be inferred that Ratnagiri’s loss has been Bombay and Thane’s gain. In the nineteenth century, the career of Sardar Abd al-Haq, ( 1853-96) shows a meteoric rise and fall. Coming from Konkan at the young age of 20, he entered the Nizam’s civil service, and received the title of Dilayr Jang, ending his career as the Agent of the Hyderabad State Railways in London before a mining scandal led to his fall. Konkani Muslims have sought careers beyond the country’s shores in significant numbers. Several Konkanis found jobs or businesses in the oil rich Arab sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf, (estimated numbers between 3000-4000) East Africa (5000) South Africa, (40,000-50,000) Britain (7000, of which a majority came into Britain via East Africa), North America (3000-5000), Southeast Asia and Australia (1000), according to Abdullah Muqaddam of Kokani World Muslim Federation. When Mukhtar Mohiuddin of Blackburn, U.K., a native of Borli Panchattan, won a huge lottery, the media focused attention on the Konkanis in England. The existence of Konkani Muslim Club, in Nairobi, Kenya, and the Konkani World Muslim Federation in London are indications of an emerging diaspora. Following the footsteps of some of their forefathers, large number of Konkani Muslims can be found in the Indian and foreign merchant navies. Conclusion The Muslim community of the Konkanis have survived thirteen hundred years in India. As the oldest surviving Muslim community, their history is truly fascinating. Sea-faring commerce demands exchange of capital and enterprise among peoples of difference races, religions, and cultures. This probably explains why, despite the advent of foreign immigrants --Persians, Arabs, Jews, Christians of various denominations, and the Parsis in the coastal areas of Gujarat, Konkan and Malabar-- the local societies did not undergo ethno-religious strife, so common a feature of upper and peninsular India. Since the early Arabs were either refugees or traders and not contestants for power as in the Deccan and North India, the integration but not assimilation of the Arabs and their progeny was a smoother process in Konkan. Trade in goods and services involves exchange, unlike extraction of revenues by the force of arms. Thus trade contributed to the harmonious relations between the Muslims and the local communities. Acknowledgments: I am grateful to Professors Theodore P. Wright, Jr.(SUNY-Albany) and Michael N. Pearson of University of New South Wales, Australia for comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Husain Dalwai, a former chairman of the Maharashtra Minorities Commission and Abdullah Muqaddam of the Kokani World Muslim Federation in London answered many questions to me during the course of writing this paper. My sincere thanks to Masud Taj and Suhail Fakih of Mumbai who helped me in contacting the descendants of Muhammad Ali Roghay Nakhuda and the Charity Trust named after him to obtain critical information on this important Konkani. NOTES 1. Kashf al-ansab, Arabic text in Aziz Jang, Tarikh al-Nawayat, (Hyderabad: Wila Academy, 1904, reprinted in 1976, pp. 275-79.2. Victor S. D’Souza, The Navayats of Kanara: A Study in Social Contact, (Dharwar: Kannada Research Institute, 1955); and his article "Mother Right in Transition," Sociological Bulletin 2, no. 2 (September 1953): 135-42.3. See "Purdah, Family Structure and the Status of Women: A Note on a Deviant Case," pp. 239-64, in Family, Kinship and Marriage among Muslims in India, edited by Imtiaz Ahmad, (New Delhi: Manohar, 1976).4. A.R. Momin, "Muslim Caste in an Industrial Township in Maharahstra," pp.117-40, in Caste and Social Stratification among Muslims in India, edited by Imtiaz Ahmad, (New Delhi: Manohar, 1978).5. For an excellent description of the medieval trade of Konkan see Ranabir Chakravarti," Coastal Trade and Voyages in Konkan: The Early Medieval Scenario." The Indian Economic and Social History Review 35, no. 2 (1998): 97-123.6. Kashf al-ansab, op. Cit.7. Translated as The Meadows of Gold, by Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone, (New York: Kegan Paul, 1989);8. For baysira, see J.C. Wilkinson, "Baysirah and Bayadir," Arabian Studies 1 (1974): 75-85.9. Masudi, Muruj al-dhahab, op cit.10. Buzurg ibn Shahriyar, Kitab ajaib al-Hind, translated as The Book of the Wonders of India by G.S.P. Grenville, (London: East-West, 1981)11. Yaqut Hamawi, Mujam al-buldan, (Beirut; Dar Sadir, 1993)12. al-Idrisi, Nuzhat al-mushtaq, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970)13. D.C.Sircar, "Rashtrakuta Charters from Chinchani," Epigraphia Indica 32 1957-58): 45-60.14. David Pingree, "Sanskrit Evidence for the Presence of Arabs, Jews, and Persians in Western India, c. 700-1300 " Journal of the Oriental Society of Baroda 31, no. 2 (1981): 172-82.15. Ranabir Chakravarti, "Merchants of Konkan," Indian Economic and Social History Review 23, no.2 91986): 207-15.16. See references to Pieter van der Broecke’ account cited in Ashin Das Gupta, "Indian Merchants and the Western Indian Ocean: The Early Seventeenth Century," Modern Asian Studies 19 , no. 3 (1985): 481-99, citation on p. 491.17. Prof. C.M. Naim, University of Chicago in a personal communication, March 24, 1999 helped me understand the term. In modern Kuwait, the term Nawakhid is applied to boat captains according to George F. Hourani, Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Medieval Times, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 19510, p. 113.18. See the authors in chronological order: Aziz Jang, op. Cit. 1904; Alex A. Pais, "The Navayats: An Account of Their History and Their Customs,"Quarterly Journal of Mythic Society 10, no. 1 (October 1919): 41-58; Muhammad Murtaza, "Sawahil- Hindustan par Musalmanon ka tawattun," Majallah I Taylisanin 6 (1942): 18-52 Hashimi, "Mawlawi Abd al-Qadir, (Hyderabad, 1963; Muhammad Yusuf Kokan, Khwanwadah Qazi Badr al-Dawlah, (Madras: Dar al-Tasnif, 1963; Muh al-Din Mumin, Tarikh-I Kokan, Bombay: Naqsh-I Kokan Trust Publications, 1969; D.V. Chauhan, "The Problem of the Navaits in India," Oriental Institute Journal of Baroda 21, no. 2 (June 1972): 357-63; Zakira Ghause, Baqir Agah’s Contribution to Arabic, Persian and Urdu Literature, M.litt. dissertation, University of Madras, 1973; Muhammad Afzaluddin Iqbal, Tazkirah Sa’id, (Hyderabad: Saeedia Library, 1973; Sylvia Vatuk, "Identity and Difference: Or Equality and Inequality in South Asian Muslim Society," pp. 227-62, in Caste Today, edited by C.J. Fuller, (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996.19. D.V. Chauhan, "The Problem of the Navaits in India," Oriental Institute Journal of Baroda 21, no. 2 (June 1972): 357-63.20. Gazetteer of the Bombay City and Island, vol 11, p. 24, (Bombay: Gazetteer Dept, Govt of Bombay, 1977-78): II, p. 24.21. Lotika Vardarajan, "Kokan Ports and Medieval Trade," Indica 22, no. 1 (March 1985): 9-16.22. Lotika Vardarajan, op cit. P. 10.23. M. Longworth Dames, The Book of Duarte Barbosa, (London: Haklyut Society, 1918), pp. 151-67.24. Shah Nawaz Khan Samsam al-Dawla, Maathir al-umara, vol. 3, Urdu translation by Muhammad Ayyub Qadiri, (Karachi: Markazi Urdu Board, 1970), pp. 468-70.25. Muhi al-Din Mumin, Tarikh-I Kokan, (Bombay: Naqsh-I Kokan Trust Publications, 1969)26. Z.A. Desai, Arabic, Persian and Urdu Inscriptions in West India: A topographical List, (New Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan, 1999), inscriptions numbers 609, 618, 791-93, 796, 1185-87, 1305-1308, 1678, 1914, 2069-70, 2100, and 2167; and A.K. Nairne, "Musalman Remains in the South Konkan, "The Indian Antiquary 2 (October 1873): 278-83; 2 (November 1873): 317-22; 3 (April 1874): 100-02; 3 (July 1874): 181-82.27. Nairne, History of the Konkan, (Bombay, 1894), p. 41.28. Nairne, op. Cit. P. 42.29. Arthur Crawford, Our Troubles in Poona and the Deccan, (London: Archibald Constable, 1897), pp. 155-58.30. Encyclopedia of Islam, II ed. S.V. Bombay City, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960-)31. Census of the City and Island of Bombay, 1881, (Bombay, 1883), pp. 46-47.32. Christine Dobbin, Urban Leadership in Western India: Politics and Communities in Bombay City, 1840-1885, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), p. 15.33. Gillian Tindall, City of Gold: The Biography of Bombay, (London: Temple Smith, 1982), p. 125.34. Gillian Tindall, op. Cit. P. 126. See also Monisha Ahmed, "Sacred Muslim Sites, "pp. 176-80, in Bombay to Mumbai, ed. By Pauline Rohatgi and others, (Mumbai: Marg, 1997)The Jama Masjid and Haji Ali Complex are listed as buildings of historical, aesthetical, and architectural value in 1995 by the State. See Heritage Regulations for Greater Bombay, 1995, (Mumbai: Urban Development Department, Govt., of Maharashtra, 1995), pp. 37, 44.35. Muhi al-Din Mumin, op cit, see the chapter "Bhant Bhant ki Boliyan," pp.300-333.36. See Abd al-Hayyi al-Hasani, Nuzhat al-khawatir bahjat al-masami wa al nawazir, (Hyderabad: Dairat al-Maarif al-Uthmaniya, 1947-68, and reissued as al-Ilam bi man fi tarikh al-Hind min al-ilam, (Lucknow: Majlis-I Tahqiqat was Nashariyat-I Islam, 1995.37. Abd al-Rahman Parwaz Ilahi, Makhdum Ali Mahaimi: hayat, athar wa afkar, (Bombay: Naqsh-I Kokan Trust Publications, 1976) Aftab-I Kokan by Fakhr al-din Munshi, (Bombay: Matba’a Karimi, n.d.) which the present writer has not seen, is probably related to a Konkani saint.38. See Abd al-Wahid Narvil, "Mawlana Abd al-Samad Sharaf al-Din," Maarif (Azamgarh) 157, no. 4 (April 1996): 313-14.39. Christine Dobbin, op. Cit., p. 239.40. Roghay’s life span and some of the information about him were supplied by the late Nakhuda’s descendant. I am grateful to Masud Taj, the Mumbai architect who put me in contact in May 1999 with Suhail Fakih, a young architect. Fakih contacted the Roghay family and the Charity Trust named after him. According to Roghay’s descendants, the late Nakhuda donated land for the buildings of such premier institutions of Mumbai as the J.J.Hospital, St. Xavier’s College, and the maidan at Mahim. According to Lutfullah, Roghay built a caravanserai at Karanja, near Bombay. See Autobiography of Lutfullah, (New Delhi: International Writers Emporium, 1995; a reprint of 1857) p. 360.41. Wilfrid S. Blunt, India under Ripon: A Private Diary, (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1909), p. 82. Roghay’s liberalism may be due to his travels to England and Turkey in the late 1880s.I am thankful to Prof. Syed Tanvir Wasti of the Middle East Technical University, Ankara for bringing to my attention the autobiography of Abdulhak Hamid, the Ottoman Consul in Bombay in the 19th century. Wasti translated relevant passages in his diary about Roghay for me, personal communication dated August 1, 1998. See Syed Tanvir Wasti, "The Indian Sojourn of Abdulhak Hamid," Middle Eastern Studies 34, no.4 (October 1994): 33-42, where Hamid speaks favorably of Roghay.42. See Shaykh Farid, "Anjuman-I Islam Bombay aur Aligarh," Nawa-I Adab 36 (April 1986): 94-113. Roghay established a scholarship at Aligarh for Muslim students named after his father Amin Roghay with an amount of 5000 rupees in May 1889, according to Selected Documents from the Aligarh Archives, edited by Yusuf Husain, (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1967), p. 38743. Sayyid Shahabuddin Desnawi, Anjuman-I Islam ke sau sal, (Bombay: The Anjuman, 1986)44. Fuzail A. Ghazali, "A District Awakened from the Slumber of Illiteracy, "Saudi Gazette 24 April 1999: 8.45. Bombay, 1997.46. Husain B. Tyabji, Badruddin Tyabji, (Bombay: Thacker, 1952), pp. 14-15.47. See the profile of " Dr. Abd al-Karim Muhammad Naik," by Sharaf Kamali in Naqsh-I Kokan (August 1996): 23-26.48. Anjum Abbasi and Ismail Shaykh, Kokan ke suput 2 vols. (New Delhi: Modern Publishing House, 1986)49. Momin, op. Cit. Pp. 119-20.50. Momin, op. Cit. Pp. 124-36.51. Saiyed, op. Cit, p. 251-53.52. Telephone conversation with Husain Dalwai May 18, 1998.53. Interview with Mir Ayoob Ali Khan, "Truth Can be Complicated…Antulay, "Saudi Gazette, 12 November 1995: 3.54. See Theodore P. Wright, Jr. and Omar Khalidi, "Majority Hindu Images, Stereotypes and Demands of the Minority in India: The Backlash," Journal Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs 12,, no. 2 (July 1991): 321-34; and Theodore P. Wright, Jr. "The B.J.P.?Shiv Sena Coalition and the Muslim Minority in Maharashtra: The Interface of Foreign and Domestic Conflict, "Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 21 , no. 2 (Winter 1998): 41-50.55. Asad B. Saif, "Attack on Syncretic Culture: Case of Haji Malang, "Economic and Political Weekly (10 August 1996): 2131-32. In addition to the Haji Malang, several mosques and shrines have been targeted. As a beginning a list of such structures is given in Arun Shourie and others, Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, (New Delhi: Voice of India, 1990), pp.146-47, with reference to the Konkan region.56. Harish R. Srivastava, "Muslims in Maharashtra: An Analysis of Their Growth, Concentration and Redistribution, 1951-81," Indian Journal of Social Work 49, no. 4 (1988): 394-407, see particularly p. 404.57. Vijay Rana, "Mukhtar’s Millions," India Today (15 January 1995): 132-33. Borli Panchatan is the village where a South African woman lived in the 1940s after marriage to a Konkani. See Brenda Kidman, Once upon a Far Hillside: The Life and Times of an Indian Village, (London: Century Publishing, 1985)58. Tabassum S. Parkar, "Kokani Muslim Community in Luton," Kokan Link 5th Anniversary issue (1991): 18-19; iv.

Trip to Udupi Beaches By Sudhir Bangalore

Myself and my office friends were planning for a get-together since a long time but unfortunately it was not getting worked out. So during the first week of this month myself and Risaf planned to make a trip. Now the next question was, Where to go? Both of us digged into google.com and tried to get information about some exciting place for visit. We checked details about many places in karnataka also we checked a lot of travel photographs on travel sites. Our main aim was to make this tour a memorable one and should be adventerous. After a lot of search on various websites, both of us hit upon the idea of going to Malpe Beach. The main reason for our selecting this place was because it had a exotic island nearby, called St. Mary’s island, where the rocks have emerged as hexagonal prisms. I was a also excited about travelling in sea for around 20 minutes and going to an island and also enthusiastic about this rock patterns. Finally the trip members rose to six, alongwith Risaf, Trevor, Nishit, Sreejith, Jayakumar and myself. When we made a further search about the bus route and nearby place in Malpe we came to know about Kaup beach which had a lighthouse and also the Maravanthe beach. The captivating photographs of these places and description given by various people in travel sites/ blog made us more enthusiastic to visit them. Myself and Risaf spent a lot of hours getting the details about the buses and about the trip plan like when to go, which bus to take, where to go first, food, hotel details for stay, etc. Here I would like to make a special mention of Risaf because it is he who contacted the other colleagues and managed to make a very good arrangment for the smooth running of the office works for two days in the absence of we six guys. I would like to thank Geetha, Raghu and Hassan who worked extra hours in our absence as without their help this trip would have been practically impossible. So everything was set, It was decided that the trip will be of two days, First day we will be visiting the Kaup Beach and the next day we will be off to St Mary Island at Malpe in the morning and at Marvanthe Beach in the evening and catch the evening bus back to Bangalore. Risaf got the to and fro tickets booked through KSRTC. It was decided that everybody has to reach the Majestic Bus stand at 6.45am on 17th Jan. Myself and Risaf were in night shift duty on 16th Jan, so finished our work and left at 4.45am on 17th Jan. Went home, packed the dresses, loaded the camera and after getting freshed up left to majestic on my bike. On the way picked up Risaf and while we were going to majestic we got the first set back of our trip, Sreejith called up and said that he will not be able to make for the trip as his stomach is upset and not in a state to travel.
DAY 1 (17th Jan 06) : We reached majestic, parked our bike at pay and park place. The other three guys - Tevi, Jayakumar and Nishit came on time. We all boarded the bus and made ourselves comfortable at the respective seats. The condition of the bus was horrible, it was a ultra deluxe bus but the outer body of the bus was full of rust and cracks. The glasses were sealed with adhesive tapes and glues :).
The bust left the Stand at sharp 7.20am. The sound of the engine of bus was very loud and the speed was worse than our local BMTC bus. Risaf and Jayakumar were soon lullabied to sleep maybe due the sound of the engine or due to the night shift on previous day. I was enjoying the sight seeing through the window and once the bus came out of crowded Bangalore city premises, it was a great relief to watch the greenery and the small mountains etc. I was continously taking photos of the scenic beauty through the moving bus. At 9.45am, the bus stopped at a road side hotel at Adichinchunagiri area for Breakfast. All of us were very hungry because none of us had anything in the morning, not even tea. All of us had idli, vada sambhar for breakfast. Actually I wanted to have a Masaladosa but it seemed that I will have to wait, so switched over to Idli, Vada. The bus moved ahead and we cracked a lot of joke with the bus conductor about the condition of the bus. We had a gala time cracking jokes, some very animated discussions and at times breaking into peals of laughter and also enjoying the beautiful sight seeing on the roadside.At 10.30 am we got a break at Hassan when we all took time out and brought some snack items and fruits. Risaf and Trevi got hold of sudoku in Times of India, and we were enjoying the fresh air that was striking us and making us feel like a free bird in open space. We reached a place called Nelliyadi at around 2.00 pm and had lunch from a hotel which was horrible, somehow we just had rice and curd and moved ahead. The bus took the route of Hassan – Sakaleshpur – Mangalore. We continued our journey talking about different subjects. The journey was not different to other journeys until we entered the area of Sakaleshpur. From here the journey was different in two ways; one the quality of roads was not good due to poor maintenance which was a challenge to our backbones and secondly we entered into an area where the beauty of nature is mesmerizing. My eyes were locked at the windows to capture the beauty of the nature. The coffee estates, the pepper plantations, and trees are really good and the roads are horribly bad. When we neared Mangalore, we had to undergo one more test at BC Road of Mangalore. The condition of the road was also very much worst and somehow we reached Mangalore. I enjoyed the small rivers that were flowing parallel to our bus route near the Mangalore area. After crossing the Mangalore are the bus was amost empty. The bus conductor informed us that the bus stop of Kaup Beach comes ahead of Udupi bus stop, so we planned to get down at Kaup. We got off the bus and inquired the auto rickshaw driver about the beach route, he informed that it is around 3 km. Five of us adjusted in a single auto and reached the Beach. The glimpse of the vast sea and clean beach made us forget all the tiredness and refreshed us with new energy. We enjoyed the sheer beauty of nature, sounds of the waves, sensuously caressing breeze. The beach was not crowded and the sea was also calm. It was around evening 5.00 pm and the sun was slowly going down. The main attraction was the lighthouse situated on top of a 12-metre-high boulder and the majestic 34-metre tower is painted with white and black bands. We climbed the winding stairs of the tower and reached the top of the lighthouse. The view from the top was breathtaking - the sight of the sea, the scattered rocks and the aerial view of the green land was a fantastic. We watched the sunset from the lighthouse - the hot red sinking into the sea. The waves were hitting the rocks and the roar of the waves was as if the sea was crying. We climbed down the lighthouse and had a walk along the beach. Walking on the soft beach sand with waves kissing our legs was a different king of pleasure. We then played football on the beach, not with a ball but with a empty plastic bottle. It was getting dark and we went to a small hotel on the beach and had some snacks. We took a auto back to the bus stop and we immediately got a bus to udupi which is only 14 kms from Kaup. It was around 7.30 pm when we reached Udupi bus stand. We went to a nearby hotel named 'Udupi Residency' , took two double bedrooms. The rooms were cheap and well maintained. Our clothes were full of sand from Kaup Beach and we were very much tired of the travel. All of us had a nice bath and freshned up. After taking bath we had a small walk in the streets of Udupi, the city looked very clean to me and the roads were quite wide. All us were feeling very hungry as we did not had good food during our travel, so we decided to have dinner at the hotel where we were staying. We ordered ......fish fry, fish curry, prawns, rajali kabab(that was delicious), navrathan kurma (it was horrible), steamed rice, chicken item etc. The dishes were not too good but as were very hungry we were attacking on the dishes over the table.We went back to our home at around 11.00am and went to bed as we had to get up early the next day for the remaining part of the trip. So I just closed my eyes with the picture of the scenic beauty during the travel, the view of sunset from the light house and the sound of the waves vibrating in my ears.

Fortress of the Muslim

The Virtue of Remembering Allah

Allah the All-Mighty has said:

"فَاذْكُرُونِي أَذْكُرْكُمْ وَاشْكُرُوا لِي وَلَا تَكْفُرُونِ". البقرة 152

"Therefore remember Me. I will remember you. Be grateful to Me and never show Me ingratitude" - Al-Baqarah 2:152

And He said:

"يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اذْكُرُوا اللهَ ذِكْرًا كَثِيراً". الأحزاب 41

"O you who believe, remember Allah with much rememberance." - Al-Ahzab 33:41

And He said:

"وَالذَّاكِرِينَ اللهَ كَثِيرًا وَالذَّاكِرَاتِ أَعَدَّ اللهُ لَهُمْ مَغْفِرَةً وَأَجْرًا عَظِيمًا". الأحزاب 35

"And the men and women who remember Allah frequently, Allah has prepared for them forgiveness and great reward." - Al-Ahzab 33:35

And He said:

"وَاذْكُرْ رَبَّكَ فِي نَفْسِكَ تَضَرُّعًا وَخِيفَةً وَدُونَ الْجَهْرِ مِنَ الْقَوْلِ بِالْغُدُوِّ وَالْآصَالِ وَلَا تَكُنْ مِنَ الْغَافِلِينَ". الأعراف 205
"And remember your Lord by your tongue and within yourself, humbly and in awe, without loudness, by words in the morning and in the afternoon, and be not among those who are neglectful." - Al-Araf 7:205

The Prophet (pbuh) said: "He who remembers his Lord and he who does not remember his Lord are like the living and the dead." - Al-Bukhari, cf., Al-Asqalani, Fathul-Bari 11/208; Muslim 1/539 with the wording "The house in which Allah is remembered and the house in which Allah is not remembered is like the living and the dead."

And he said, "Shall i not inform you of the best of your works, the purest of them with your Master (Allah), the loftiest of them in your stations, the thing that is better for you than spending gold and silver (in charity), and better for you than meeting your enemies and slaying them and being slain by them?" They (the Companions) said, "Of course!" He said, "Rememberance of Allah, the Most high." - At-Tirmithi 5/459, Ibn Majah 2/1245. See Al-Albani, Sahih Ibn Majah 2/316 and Sahih At-Tirmithi 3/139.

And he said, "Allah the Most High says, 'I amd with my slave when he thinks of Me and I am with him when he mentions Me. For if he mentions Me to himself, I mention him to Myself; and if he mentions Me in a gathering, I mention him in superior gathering. If he approaches Me by a hand's width, I approach him by an arm's length, I approach him by two arms length. And if he comes to me walking, I hasten to him swiftly.'" - Al-ukhari 8/171, Muslim 4/2061; this wording is from Al-Bukhari.

Abdullah bin Busr (raa) said that a man asked the Prophet (pbuh), "O Messenger of Allah! Verily, the sanctions of Islam have become too numerous for me (to perform them all). Inform me of something (simple) that I may adhere to." The Prophet (pbuh) said, "Let your tongue always be moist with the rememberance of Allah." - At-0tirmithi 5/458, Ibn Majah 2/1246. See Al-Albani, Sahih At-Tirmithi 3/139 and Sahih Ibn Majah 2/317.

And he said, "Whoever reads one letter from the Book of Allah, will receive one Hasanah (reward for a good deed), and one Hasanah comes with ten like it. I do not say that Alif-Lam-Mim is a letter. Indeed Alif is a letter, and Lam is a letter, and Mim is a letter." - At-Tirmithi 5/175. See Al-Albani, Sahih At-Tirmithi 3/9 and Sahihul-Jami' As-Saghir 5/340.

Uqbah bin Amir (raa) said: The Messenger of Allah (pbuh) came out (from his house) and we were of the porch (As-Suffah). So he said, "Who of you would like to go out in the morning everyday to the valley of Buthan or Al-'Aqeeq and come back with two large she camels without commiting any sin or severing any family ties?" We replied, "O Messenger of Allah! All of us would like this." So he said, "Would one of you not go to the Masjid and learn to recite two Verses from the Book of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic? That would be better than two she camels. And three Verses would be better for him than three she-camels. And four Verses would be better than four she-camels, and whatever their number may be of camels." - Muslim 1/553

And he said, "Whoever sits and does not mention the Name of Allah (before he rises) will find it a cause of sorrowfrom Allah. Whoever lies down to sleep and does npt mention the name of Allah before rising, will find it a cause of sorrow from Allah." - Abu Dawud 4/264. See Al-Albani, Sahihul-Jami' As-Saghir 5/342.

And the Prophet (saw) said: "No people sit in an assembly without mentioning Allah, and without asking Allah for blessings on their Prophet, except that it will be a cause of sorrow upon them. Thus if He (Allah) wishes He will punish them, and if He wishes He will forgive them." - At-Tirmithi. See Al-Albani, Sahih At-Tirmithi 3/140.

And he said: "No people may rise from an assembly in which they have failed to mention the Name of Allah without it being as if they were getting off a dead donkeys rotting back, and it would be a cause of grief for them." - Abu Dawud 4/264, Ahmad 2/389. See Al-Albani, Sahihul-Jami' 5/176.

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Supplications for when you wake up

"الْحَمْدُ للهِ الَّذِي أَحْيَانَا بَعْدَ مَا أَمَاتَنَا وَإِلَيْهِ النُّشُورُ".
1. Alhamdu lillaahil-lathee 'ahyaanaa ba'da maa 'amaatanaa wa'ilayhin-nushoor.

Praise is to Allah Who gives us life after He has caused us to die and to Him is the return.

Reference: Al-Bukhari, cf. Al-Asqalani, Fathul-Bari 11/113; Muslim 4/2083

"لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ، لَهُ الْمُلْكُ وَلَهُ الْحَمْدَ، وَهُوَ عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ. سُبْحَانَ اللهِ، وَالْحَمْدُ للهِ، ولَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللهُ، وَاللهُ أَكْبَرُ، وَلَا حَوْلَ وَلَا قُوَّةَ إِلَّا بِاللهِ العَلِيِّ الْعَظيِمِ، ربِّ اغْفِرلِي".
2. Laa 'illaha 'illallahu wahdahu la shareeka lahu, lahul-mulku wa lahul-hamdu, wa Huwa 'alaa kulli shay'in Qadeer Subhaanallahi, walhamdu lillaahi, wa laa 'ilaha 'illallahu, wallaahu 'akbar, wa laa hawla wa laa Quwwata 'illaa billaahil-'Aliyyil-'Adheem, Rabbighfir lee.

There is none worth of worship but Allah alone, Who has no partner, His is the dominion and to Him belongs all praise, and He is able to do all things. Glory is to Allah. Praise is to Allah. There is none worth of worship but Allah. Allah is the Most Great. There is no might and no power except by Allah's leave, the Exalted, the Mighty. My Lord, forgive me.

Reference: Whoever says this will be forgiven, and if he supplicates Allah, his prayer will be answered; if he performs ablution and prays, his prayer will be accepted. Al-Bukhari, cf. Al-Asqalani, Fathul-Bari 3/39, among others. The wording here is from Ibn Majah 2/335.

"الْحَمْدُ للهِ الَّذِي عَافَانِي فِي جَسَدِي، وَرَدَّ عَلَيَّ رُوحِي، وَأَذِنَ لِي بِذِكْرِهِ".3. Alhamdu lillaahil-lathee 'aafaanee fee jasadee, wa radda 'alayya roohee, wa 'athina lee bithikrihi.

Praise is to Allah Who gave strength to my body and returned my soul to me and permitted me to remember Him.

Reference: At-Tirmithi 5/473. See Al-Albani's Sahih Tirmiihi 3/144.

" إِنَّ فِي خَلْقِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَاخْتِلَافِ اللَّيْلِ وَالنَّهَارِ لَآيَاتٍ لِأُولِي الْأَلْبَابِ ۞ الَّذِينَ يَذْكُرُونَ اللهَ قِيَامًا وَقُعُودًا وَعَلَى جُنُوبِهِمْ وَيَتَفَكَّرُونَ فِي خَلْقِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ رَبَّنَا مَا خَلَقْتَ هَذَا بَاطِلًا سُبْحَانَكَ فَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ ۞ رَبَّنَا إِنَّكَ مَنْ تُدْخِلِ النَّارَ فَقَدْ أَخْزَيْتَهُ وَمَا لِلظَّالِمِينَ مِنْ أَنْصَارٍ ۞ رَبَّنَا إِنَّنَا سَمِعْنَا مُنَادِيًا يُنَادِي لِلْإِيمَانِ أَنْ آمِنُوا بِرَبِّكُمْ فَآمَنَّا رَبَّنَا فَاغْفِرْ لَنَا ذُنُوبَنَا وَكَفِّرْ عَنَّا سَيِّئَاتِنَا وَتَوَفَّنَا مَعَ الْأَبْرَارِ ۞ رَبَّنَا وَآتِنَا مَا وَعَدْتَنَا عَلَى رُسُلِكَ وَلَا تُخْزِنَا يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ إِنَّكَ لَا تُخْلِفُ الْمِيعَادَ ۞ فَاسْتَجَابَ لَهُمْ رَبُّهُمْ أَنِّي لَا أُضِيعُ عَمَلَ عَامِلٍ مِنْكُمْ مِنْ ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنْثَى بَعْضُكُمْ مِنْ بَعْضٍ فَالَّذِينَ هَاجَرُوا وَأُخْرِجُوا مِنْ دِيَارِهِمْ وَأُوذُوا فِي سَبِيلِي وَقَاتَلُوا وَقُتِلُوا لَأُكَفِّرَنَّ عَنْهُمْ سَيِّئَاتِهِمْ وَلَأُدْخِلَنَّهُمْ جَنَّاتٍ تَجْرِي مِنْ تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ ثَوَابًا مِنْ عِنْدِ اللهِ وَاللهُ عِنْدَهُ حُسْنُ الثَّوَابِ ۞ لَا يَغُرَّنَّكَ تَقَلُّبُ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا فِي الْبِلَادِ ۞ مَتَاعٌ قَلِيلٌ ثُمَّ مَأْوَاهُمْ جَهَنَّمُ وَبِئْسَ الْمِهَادُ ۞ لَكِنِ الَّذِينَ اتَّقَوْا رَبَّهُمْ لَهُمْ جَنَّاتٌ تَجْرِي مِنْ تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا نُزُلًا مِنْ عِنْدِ اللهِ وَمَا عِنْدَ اللهِ خَيْرٌ لِلْأَبْرَارِ ۞ وَإِنَّ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ لَمَنْ يُؤْمِنُ بِاللهِ وَمَا أُنْزِلَ إِلَيْكُمْ وَمَا أُنْزِلَ إِلَيْهِمْ خَاشِعِينَ للهِ لَا يَشْتَرُونَ بِآيَاتِ اللهِ ثَمَنًا قَلِيلًا أُولَئِكَ لَهُمْ أَجْرُهُمْ عِنْدَ رَبِّهِمْ إِنَّ اللهَ سَرِيعُ الْحِسَابِ ۞ يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اصْبِرُوا وَصَابِرُوا وَرَابِطُوا وَاتَّقُوا اللهَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ". آل عمران 190 – 200
4. 'Inna fee khalqis-samaawaati wal'ardhi wakhtilaafil-layli wannahaari la'aayaatil-li 'oolil-'albaab. Allatheena yathkuroon-allaaha qiyaaman wa qu'oodan vua 'alaa junoobihim wa yatafakkaroona fee khalqis-samaawaati wal'ardhi Rabbanaa maa khalaqta haathaa baatilan subhaanaka faqinaa 'athaaban-naar. Rabbanaa 'innaka man tudkhilin-naara faqad 'akhzaytahu wa maa lidhdhalimeena rain 'ansaar. Rabbanaa 'innanaa sami'naa munaadiyan yunaadee lil'eemaani 'an 'aaminoo birabbikum fa'aamannaa, Rabbanaa faghfir lanaa thunoobanaa wa kaffir 'annaa sayyi'aatinaa wa tawaffanaa ma'al-'abraar. Rabbanaa wa 'aatinaa maa wa'adtanaa 'alaa rusulika wa laa tukhzinaa yawmal-qiyaamati, 'innaka laa tukhliful-mee'aad. Fastajaaba lahum Rabbuhum'annee laa 'udhee'u 'amala 'aanulim-minkum min thakarin 'aw 'unthaa, ba'dhukum mim ba'dh, fallatheena haajaroo wa 'ukhrijoo min diyaarihim wa 'oothoo fee sabeelee wa qaataloo wa qutiloo la'ukaffiranna 'anhum sayyi'aatihim wa la'udkhilannahum jannaatin tajree min tahtihal-'anhaaru thawaaban min 'indillaah, wallaahu 'indahu husnuth-thawaab. Laa yaghur-rannaka taqallubul-latheena kafaroo fil-bilaad. Mataa'un qaleelun thumma ma'waahum jahannam, wa bi'sal-mihaad. Laakinil-latheenat-taqaw Rabbahum lahumjannaatun tajree min tahtihal-'anhaaru khaalideena feehaa nuzulam-min 'indillaah, wa maa 'indallaahi khayrul-lil'abraar. Wa 'inna min 'ahlil-kitaabi laman yu'minu billaahi wa maa 'unzila 'ilaykum wa maa 'unzila 'ilayhim khaashi'eena lillaahi laa yashtaroona bi'aayaatillaahi thamanan qaleela, 'oolaa'ika lahum 'ajruhum 'inda Rabbihim, 'innallaaha saree'ul-hisaab. Yaa'ayyuhal-latheena 'aamanus-biroo wa saabiroo wa raabitoo wattaqul-laaha la'allakum tuflihoon.

Verily! In the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the alternation of night and day, there are indeed Signs for men of understanding. Those who remember Allah standing, sitting and lying down on their sides, and think deeply about the creation of the heavens and the earth, (saying:) "Our LordA You. have not created this without purpose, glory is to You! Give us salvation from the torment of the Fire. Our Lord! Verily, whom You admit to the Fire, indeed, You have disgraced him, and never will the oppressors find any helpers. Our Lord! Verily, we have heard the call of one calling to Faith (saying:) 'Believe in your Lord,' and we have believed. Our Lord! Forgive us our sins and expiate from us our evil deeds, and make us die in the state of righteousness together with the pious and righteous slaves. Our Lord! Grant us what You promised us through Your Messengers, and disgrace us not on the Day of Resurrection, for You never break (Your) promise." So, their Lord answered them (saying): "Never will I allow to be lost the work of any of you, be he male or female. You issue forth one from another, so those who emigrated and were driven out from their homes, and suffered harm in My Cause and who fought, and were killed in My Cause, verily, I will expiate from them their evil deeds and admit them into Gardens under which rivers flow ; a reward from Allah , and with Allah is the best of rewards ." Let not the free disposal of the disbelievers through out the land deceive you . A brief enjoyment ; then , their ultimate abode is Hell ; and worst indeed is that place for rest . But , for those who fear their Lord, are Gardens under which rivers flow ; therein are they to dwell forever , and entertainment from Allah ; and that which is with Allah is the best for the pious and righteous slaves . And there are , certainly , among the people of the Scripture , those who believe in Allah and in that which has been revealed to you , and in that which has been revealed to them , hum bling themselves before Allah . They do not sell the Verses of Allah for a little price, for them is a reward with their Lord . Surely , Allah is Swift in account . O you who believe! Have patience and contend in patience, be vigilant and informed, and fear Allah , so that you may be successful.

Reference: Qur'an Aal-'Imran 3: 190-200; Al-Bukhari, cf. Al-Asqalani, Fathul-Bari 8/237; Muslim 1/530.

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Invocation when getting dressed

" الْحَمْدُ للهِ الَّذِي كَسَانِي هَذَا (الثَّوبَ) وَرَزَقَنِيهِ مِنْ غَيْرِ حَوْلٍ مِنِّي وَلَا قُوَّةٍ".
5. Alhamdu lillaahil-lathee kasaanee haathaa (aththawba) wa razaqaneehi min ghayri hawlim-minnee wa laa quwwatin.

Praise is to Allah Who has clothed me with this (garment) and provided it for me, though I was powerless myself and incapable

Reference: Al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah, At-Tirmithi. See also 'Irwa'ul-Ghalil 7/47.

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Invocation when putting on new clothes

"اللَّهُمَّ لَكَ الْحَمْدُ أَنْتَ كَسَوْتَنِيهِ، أَسْأَلُكَ مِنْ خَيْرِهِ وَخَيْرِ مَا صُنِعَ لَهُ، وَأَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنْ شَرِّهِ وَشَرِّ مَا صُنِعَ لَهُ".

6. Allaahumma lakal-hamdu 'Anta kasawtaneehi, 'as'aluka min khayrihi wa khayri maa suni'a lahu, wa 'a'oothu bika min sharrihi wa sharri ma suni'a lahu.

O Allah, praise is to You. You have clothed me. I ask You for its goodness and the goodness of what it has been made for, and I seek Your protection from the evil of it and the evil of what it has been made for.

Reference: Abu Dawud and At-Tirmithi. See also Al-Albani, Mukhtasar Shamd'il At-Tirmithi, p. 47.

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Invocations for someone who has put on new clothes

"تُبْلِي وَيُخْلِفُ اللهُ تَعَالَى".

7. Tublee wa yukhliful-laahu ta'aalaa.

May Allah replace it when it is worn out.

Reference: Abu Dawud 4/41. See also Al-Albani Sahih Abu Dawud 2/760.

"الْبَسْ جَدِيداً، وَعِشْ حَمِيداً، وَمُتْ شَهِيداً".

8. Ilbas jadeedan, wa 'ish hameedan, wa mut shaheedan.

Put on new clothes , live a praise-worthy life and die as a martyr.

Reference: Ibn Majah 2/1178, Al-Baghawi 12/41. See also Al-Albani, Sahih Ibn Majah 2/275
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What to say when undressing

"بِسْمِ اللهِ".

9. Bismillaahi

In the Name of Allah.

Reference: At-Tirmithi 2/505, among others. See 'Irwa'ul Ghalil no. 49 and Sahihul-Jami' 3/203
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Invocation for entering the restroom


"[بِسْمِ اللهِ] اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنَ الْخُبُْثِ وَالْخَبَائِثِ".

10. [Bismillaahi] Allaahumma 'innee 'a'oothu bika minal-khubthi walkhabaa'ith.

(Before entering) [In the Name of Allah] . (Then) O Allah , I seek protection in You from the male and female unclean spirits.

Reference: Al-Bukhari 1/45, Muslim 1/283. The addition of Bismillah at its beginning was reported by Said bin Mansur. See Fathul-Bari 1/244
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Invocation for leaving the restroom (bathroom/toilet)

"غُفْرَانَكَ".
11. Ghufraanaka

I seek Your forgiveness.

Reference: Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah and At-Tirmithi. An-Nasa'i recorded it in 'Amalul-Yawm wal-Laylah. Also see the checking of Ibn Al-Qayyim's Zadul-Ma'ad, 2/387.
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What to say before performing ablution

"بِسْمِ اللهِ".
12. Bismillaahi

In the Name of Allah

Reference: Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah, and Ahmad. See also Al-Albani, 'Irwa'ul-Ghain 1/122.

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What to say upon completing ablution
"أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إلَّا اللهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّداً عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ".
13. 'Ash-hadu 'an laa 'ilaaha 'illallaahu wahdahu laa shareeka lahu wa 'ash-hadu 'anna Muhammadan 'abduhu wa Rasooluhu.

I bear witness that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah alone, Who has no partner; and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger.

Reference: Muslim 1/209.

"اللَّهُمَّ اجْعَلْنِي مِنَ التَّوَّابِينَ وَاجْعَلْنِي مِنَ الْمُتَطَهِّرِينَ".
14. Allaahummaj'alnee minat-tawwaabeena waj'alnee minal-mutatahhireen.

O Allah, make me among those who turn to You in repentance, and make me among those who are purified.

Reference: At-Tirmithi 1/78. See also Al-Albani, Sahih At- Tirmithi 1/18

"سُبْحَانَكَ اللَّهُمَّ وَبِحَمْدِكَ، أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا أَنْتَ، أَسْتَغْفِرُكَ وَأَتُوبُ إِلَيْكَ".
15. Subhaanaka Allaahumma wa bihamdika, 'ash-hadu 'an laa 'ilaaha 'illaa 'Anta, 'astaghfiruka wa 'atoobu 'ilayk.

Glory is to You, O Allah, and praise; I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but You. I seek Your forgiveness and turn to You in repentance.

Reference: An-Nasa'i, 'Amalul-Yawm wal-Laylah, p. 173. See also Al-Albani, 'Irwa'ul-Ghalil 1/135 and 2/94.
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What to say when leaving the home

"بِسْمِ اللهِ، تَوَكَّلْتُ عَلَى اللهِ، وَلَا حَوْلَ وَلَا قُوَّةَ إِلَّا بِاللهِ".
16. Bismillaahi, tawakkaltu 'alallaahi, wa laa hawla wa laa quwwata ‘ illaa billaah.

In the Name of Allah, I have placed my trust in Allah, there is no might and no power except by Allah.

Reference: Abu Dawud 4/325, At-Tirmithi 5/490. See also Al-Albani, Sahih At-Tirmithi 3/151

"الَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَعُوذُ بِكَ أَنْ أَضِلَّ، أّوْ أُضَلَّ، أَوْ أَزِلَّ، أَوْ أُزَلَّ، أَوْ أَظْلِمَ، أَوْ أُظْلَمَ، أَوْ أَجْهَلَ، أَوْ يُجْهَلَ عَلَيَّ".
17. Allaahumma 'innee 'a'oothu bika 'an 'adhilla, 'aw 'udhalla, 'aw 'azilla, 'aw 'uzalla, 'aw 'adhlima, 'aw 'udhlama, 'aw 'ajhala 'aw yujhala 'alayya.

O Allah, I seek refuge in You lest I misguide others , or I am misguided by others , lest I cause others to err or I am caused to err , lest I abuse others or be abused, and lest I behave foolishly or meet with the foolishness of others.

Reference: Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah, An-Nasa'i, At-Tirmithi. See also Al-Albani, Sahih At-Tirmithi 3/152 and Sahih Ibn Majah 2/336

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What to say when entering the home
"بِسْمِ اللهِ وَلَجْنَا، وَ بِسْمِ اللهِ خَرَجْنَا، وَعَلَى رَبِّنَا تَوَكَّلْنَا".
18. Bismillaahi walajnaa, wa bismillaahi kharajnaa, wa 'alaaRabblnaa tawakkalnaa

In the Name of Allah we enter , in the Name of Allah we leave , and upon our Lord we depend [then say As-Salaamu 'Alaykum to those present].

Reference: Abu Dawud 4/325. Muslim {Hadith no. 2018) says that one should mention the Name of Allah when entering the home and when beginning to eat; and that the devil, hearing this, says: "There is no shelter for us here tonight and no food."

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Invocation for going to the mosque
"اللَّهُمَّ اجْعَلْ فِي قَلْبِي نُوراً، وَفِي لِسَانِي نُوراً، وَفِي سَمْعِي نُوراً، وَفِي بَصَرِي نُوراً، وَمِنْ تَحْتِِي نُوراً، وَعَنْ يَمِينِي نُوراً، وَعَنْ شِمَالِي نُوراً، وَمِن أَمَامِي نُوراً، وَمِنْ خَلْفِِي نُوراً، وَاجْعَلْ فِي نَفْسِي نُوراً، وَأَعْظِمْ لِي نُوراً، وَعَظِّمْ لِي نُوراً، وِاجْعَلْ لِي نُوراً، وَاجْعَلْنِي نُوراً، اللَّهُمَّ أَعْطِنِي نُوراً، وَاجْعَلْ فِي عَصَبِي نُوراً، وَفِي لَحْمِي نُوراً، وَفِي دَمِي نُوراً، وَفِي شَعْرِي نُوراً، وَفِي بَشَرِي نُوراً،" ["اللَّهُمَّ اجْعَلْ لِي نُوراً فِي قَبْرِي.. وَنُوراً فِي عِظَامِي"] ["وَزِدْنِي نُوراً، وَزِدْنِي نُوراً، وَزِدْنِي نُوراً"] ["وَهَبْ لِي نُوراً عَلَى نُورٍ"].
19. Allaahummaj'al fee qalbee nooran, wa fee lisaaanee nooran, wa fee sam'ee nooran, wa fee basaree nooran, wa min fawqee nooran, wa min tahtee nooran, wa 'an yameenee nooran, wa 'an shimaalee nooran, wa min 'amaamee nooran, wa min khalfee nooran, waj'alfee nafsee nooran, wa 'a'dhim lee nooran, wa 'adhdhim lee nooran, wafal lee nooran, waj'alnee nooran, Allaahumma 'a'tinee nooran, waj'al fee 'asabee nooran, wafee lahmee nooran, wafee damee nooran, wa fee sha'ree nooran, wa fee basharee nooran. [Allaahummaj'al lee nooran fee qabree wa nooran fee 'idhaamee.] [Wa zidnee nooran, wa zidnee nooran, wa zidnee nooran.][Wa hab lee nooran 'alaa noor.]

O Allah, place light in my heart, and on my tongue light, and in my ears light and in my sight light, and above me light, and below me light, and to my right light, and to my left light, and before me light and behind me light. Place in my soul light. Magnify for me light, and amplify for me light. Make for me light and make me a light. O Allah, grant me light, and place light in my nerves, and in my body light and in my blood light and in my hair light and in my skin light.1 [O Allah, make for me a light in my grave... and a light in my bones.](At-Tirmithi 5/483 (Hadith no. 3419).) [Increase me in light, increase me in light, increase me in light .](Al-Bukhari in Al-'Adab Al-Mufrad (Hadith no. 695), p. 258. See also Al-Albani, Sahih Al-'Adab Al-Mufrad(no. 536).) [Grant me light upon light.] (Al-Bukhari, cf. Al-Asqalani, Fathul-Bari 11/118.)

Reference: 1 Up to this point was reported by Al-Bukhari 11 / 116 (Hadith no. 6316) and by Muslim 1/526, 529-530 (Hadithno. 763).
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Invocation for entering the mosque

"أَعُوذُ بِاللهِ الْعَظِيمِ، وَبِوَجْهِهِ الْكَرِيمِ، وَسُلْطَانِهِ الْقَدِيمِ، مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ". [بِسْمِ اللهِ، وَالصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَّامُ عَلَى رَسُولِ اللهِ] "اللَّهُمَّ افْتَحْ لِي أَبْوَابَ رَحْمَتِكَ".
20. 'A'oothu billaahil-'Adheem, wa bi-Wajhihil-Kareem, wa Sultaanihil-qadeem, minash-Shaytaanir-rajeem. [Bismillaahi, wassalaatu.] [Wassalaamu 'alaaRasoolillaahi.] Allaahum-maftah lee 'abwaaba rahmatika.

I seek refuge in Almighty Allah, by His Noble Face, by His primordial power, from Satan the outcast.1 [In the Name of Allah, and blessings.]2 [And peace be upon the Messenger of Allah.]3 O Allah, open before me the doors of Your mercy.4

Reference:
1 Abu Dawud and Al-Albani, Sahihul-Jdmi' As-Saghir (Hadithno. 4591).
2 Ibn As-Sunni (Hadith no. 88), graded good by Al-Albani.
3 Abu Dawud 1/126, see also Al-Albani, Sahihul-Jami'As-Saghir 1/528.
4Muslim 1/494. There is also a report in Sunan Ibn Majah on the authority of Fatimah (RA), : "O Allah, forgive me my sins and open for me the doors of Your mercy." It was graded authentic by Al-Albani due to supporting Ahadith. See Sahih Ibn Majah 1/128-9.
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