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The Maldive Islands

C. H. B. Reynolds
Published online: 24 Aug 2007.

To cite this article: C. H. B. Reynolds (1975) The Maldive Islands, Asian Affairs, 6:1,
37-43, DOI: 10.1080/03068377508729740

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 THE MALDIVE ISLANDS
C. H. B. REYNOLDS
Based on a lecture given to the Royal Central Asian Society on 10 July
1974. The author has been at the School of Oriental and African Studies
since 1949, and is now Lecturer in Sinhalese. Mr Reynolds has visited
Ceylon three times, and has spent four months in the Maldives. He has
published an Anthology of Sinhalese Literature in translation, and several
articles.
THE EXISTING writings on the Maldives are few. Ibn Battuta describes them
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in the fourteenth century; Francois Pyrard describes them in the early

seventeenth century; and after that we come to the nineteenth-century
reports of Young and Christopher, of the Indian Navy, and the writings
of H. C. P. Bell, first Archaeological Commissioner for Ceylon, who
published three monographs on the islands, in 1883, 1921 and 1940
respectively (the last one posthumously). Bell visited the islands himself
in 1879, in 1920 and in 1922. Wilhelm Geiger, in the course of his lifetime
study of the Sinhalese language, also studied the related Maldivian
language and published a volume on the subject in 1919, but he never
went there. J. Stanley Gardiner's account of the fauna and geography was
published in two large volumes between 1901 and 1906. I may also
mention T. W. Hockly's Two Thousand Isles (1935) and a small volume in
Russian published by Izvestiya in 1963.
The islands stretch for a distance of over 500 miles from north to south
in the Indian Ocean, west of Ceylon and south of the Laccadives. The
northernmost island of the Maldives is really Minicoy, which one used
to pass on the sea route from Aden to Colombo. Politically speaking,
however, Minicoy has been attached to the Laccadive group since the
eighteenth century. The Maldivians call it Maliku, and the language
spoken there is a form of Maldivian. The southernmost group of islands,
Addu Atoll, is just south of the equator. There are about 2,000 islands
according to normal calculations, though the ancient titles of the Maldi-
vian kings speak of 12,000 islands, or "countries" (rah) as they call them.
The number depends partly on what you call an island, and what you call
a shoal or a reef. But most of them are uninhabited. There are 191 in-
habited islands, distributed in 19 atolls, according to the ordinary
computation - again, the number of atolls is subject to variation according
to how you define an atoll. (The word "atoll" is a Maldivian word,
atolu.) What we have is coral islets dotted about round the edge and in
the middle of large, roughly circular areas of coral reef. Most of the islands
are very small, though the atolls may be extensive. The largest islands are
only a few miles in length, and many of them are only a few hundred
yards. The great majority are perfectly flat, usually covered with coconut
trees. Most of them, surprisingly, have fresh water, but few will grow a
crop. The total population is about 113,000, of whom the great majority
live by fishing from sailing ships called donis, among fish shoals of
extraordinary density.
37
 38 THE MALDIVE ISLANDS
The capital, Male, is approximately in the centre of the whole group,
and is 417 miles south-west of Colombo. I stayed in Male for almost
four months in 1967; it would be useful on another occasion also to visit
the southern atollsj where the language, people and climate are all rather
different. This difference has led on various occasions in the past to
breakaway movements in the southern atolls, of which the last was only
a few years ago. Nevertheless, the authority of the Male Government has
been exercised over the whole widely scattered group throughout the
recorded history of the islands, which implies a remarkably effective
system of control.
Male itself is about one square mile in area, and now has 15,000
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people. This makes it overcrowded, and large areas of lagoon have re-
cently been reclaimed and used for extra housing. Male is at present very
healthy. Historically, the Maldives have always been extremely unhealthy,
and every foreigner who went there soon became very ill. Pyrard comments
on this in 1602, and Bell in 1922. The wonders of the WHO, however, have
brought about a great change here in recent years.
The written tdrlkh of the Island Kingdom (as the Maldivians call
it - Divehi Rajje) begins with the conversion to Islam in 1153. Before that,
we have various short mentions by geographers and historians, some of
which may really apply to the Maldives. In particular, the Arab geographer
Mas'udi, who visited Ceylon in 916, talks of the ambergris and cowrie
shells which are found in the Maldives, and also records that they were
ruled by a queen. After him, Albiruni and Idrisl provide further informa-
tion.
At this time the people were Buddhists, and it seems highly probable
that they came from Ceylon, perhaps round about the sixth century
(though some liave taken the reference to Divis et Serendivis in Ammianus
Marcellinus's account of an embassy to the Emperor Julian in 362 to refer
to Maldivians). We say they came from Ceylon because this is their own
tradition, and because the language they speak - Maldivian, or Divehi -
is recognizably Sinhalese (though of course it is considerably different
from twentieth-century Sinhalese) and was formerly written in a script
similar to the early Sinhalese script; and ruined Buddhist stupas have
been discovered in the islands. These ruins were what Bell went to in-
vestigate in 1920 and 1922; what he discovered, mostly in the southern
atolls, is reported in his large work published in 1940. Since then, further
Buddhist remains have been discovered recently in Toddu, not very far
from Male. But in 1153 the King of the time, then known as Darumavanta
Rasgefanu, "the King who observes the Dharma", in the eleventh year
of his reign became a Muslim and was renamed Al Sultan Muhammad al
'Adil; and the written history starts there, in the middle of his reign.
Since then, this tarlkh covers subsequent kings down to 1821. According
to the tarlkh, the saint who converted them was a Persian, one Yusuf
Shams al Din of Tabriz; but Ibn Battuta, with North African patriotism
perhaps, ascribes it to one Abu al Barakat al Barbari, and this is the
tradition which seems to be generally accepted in Male today. The tomb
of this saint still stands just opposite the Hukuru Miskit, the Friday
mosque. The people are now 100 per cent Sunnl Muslims; indeed it is
 THE MALDIVE ISLANDS 39
illegal to be anything else. The whole social system is officially based on
this: in the written Constitution it was said, for example, that the principal
function of the Chief Justice was to promote Islam by all means in his
power - not what we would normally think of as the principal function
of a judge. (At present there is no Chief Justice.) However, popular magic
has survived Islam, as it also survives Buddhism in Ceylon.
Ibn Battuta arrived in Male in 1343, from Calicut. He gives a con-
siderable description of his time there. He says:
The inhabitants of the Maldive Islands are honest and pious people,
sincere in good faith and of a strong will. . . they abstain from what
is foul, and most of them bathe twice a d a y . . . . All the inhabitants...
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be they nobles or common folk, keep their feet bare. The streets are
swept and well kept; they are shaded by trees Any newcomer who
wishes to marry is at liberty to do so. When the time comes for his
departure he repudiates his wife, for the people of the Maldives do
not leave their country. . . . The women of these islands do not cover
the head: the sovereign herself does not do so. . . . Most of them
wear only a cloth, covering them from the navel to the ground: the
rest of the body remains uncovered. Thus attired, they promenade
the markets and elsewhere.
While I was invested with the dignity of Qazi in these islands, I
made efforts to put an end to this custom, and to compel the women to
clothe themselves: but I could not succeed. No woman was admitted
to my presence in the trial of a case, unless she had her whole body
covered: but, beyond that, I had no power over the usage. . . . The
Maldive women never leave their country. I have not seen in the
whole world any women whose society is more agreeable. . . . It is
one of their customs that the wife never eats with her husband, and he
does not even know what she eats. I married many wives in that
country.
After a time he got himself appointed Qazi, and explains his policy
thus:
I used all my efforts to have the precepts of the law observed. . . .
The first bad custom which I reformed concerned the sojourn of
divorced women at the houses of those who had repudiated t h e m . . . . I
forbade this to be done under any pretext. About five and twenty
men were brought to me who had conducted themselves in this sort.
I had them beaten with w h i p s . . . . Next I exerted myself to get prayers
celebrated. . . . If any were discovered who had not prayed, I caused
him to be beaten and marched through the town... . Lastly, I essayed
to make the women clothe themselves, but in this I did not succeed....
One day in that country, I ordered the right hand of a robber to be
cut off; whereupon many of the natives in the audience-hall fainted
away.
Not surprisingly, Ibn Battuta gave offence to people, and found it
advisable to leave Male after a year or so, repudiating his four Maldivian
wives. On his way to Ceylon he passed the southern island of Fok
 40 THE MALDIVE ISLANDS
Mulaku, of which he says: "I remained at Moluk 70 days, and married
two wives there. Moluk is one of the fairest islands to see, being verdant
and fertile."
The Portuguese appeared in Maldivian waters in 1506, or perhaps a
little earlier. They built a fort at Male in 1519 and, after some fighting
and disputing, they occupied the island from 1558 to 1573, killing All
Rasgefanu, the King, in battle. His tomb is still honoured, and so in
particular is the memory of the Maldivian leader who expelled the
Portuguese on 1st Rabi' al awwal 981 H., founding a new dynasty. He was
the Ghazi Muhammad Bodu Takurufanu (a Maldivian title) from the
island of Utimu in the northern atoll Tiladummati, where his house is still
preserved; he is the principal hero of Maldivian history. After that time,
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the Portuguese kept away, and nothing has survived of those times except
the fortifications round Male, which remained until about 10 years ago,
when they were pulled down. (In 1967 there was one remaining bastion,
now also gone.)
The next traveller who leaves a substantial account of the place is
Francois Pyrard, a Frenchman who was shipwrecked in the Maldives in
1602 on his way to the East Indies. He remained captive there till 1607,
when an invasion by the King of Bengal allowed him to escape; and after
further adventures he got back to Europe in 1611 and published his
Voyage (3rd and best edition, 1619),which is for the Maldives what
Robert Knox's Historical Relation is for Ceylon. Some 40 men were
shipwrecked with him, of whom only four eventually survived. Their
experiences indicate both the general suspicion of foreigners and the
authoritarian nature of the political regime, both of which are features
which long survived. The local islanders, finding that the Frenchmen had
silver money, refused them food except for high payments and reduced
them to starvation. "All we could do was to search for the sea-slugs on
the sand, and to eat them; and sometimes perchance we found a dead fish
cast up by the sea . . . and if by chance we got hold of a lime we put it in,
and days sometimes passed ere we got any such thing. We were in this
extremity a good while, until the natives, concluding that we had no money,
and having, as may be believed, some pity in them, began to be less shy
and barbarous." Pyrard soon endeared himself to the local authorities
by learning a little Maldivian. "While I was thus working for my living I
was obliged to learn the language of the country as well as I could, though
my companions despised it, saying there was no need to learn. . . . A
great chief and a relative of the king through his wife, seeing that I was
trying to learn their language, thought more highly of me, and took a
liking to me." He thus gradually managed to become a royal favourite;
and when he fell ill, as all foreigners very soon did, he was well treated.
"I was ill and in great danger for more than two months and it was ten
months before I was quite well. Not a day passed but the king and the
queens sent to get news of me and my condition." When he recovered, he
provided a constant supply of information for the King's curiosity, and
described to him the glories of the court of France. "I enlarged upon the
greatness, of the king and his state, with all which he was highly pleased.
On their part, the queens, princesses, and other ladies inquired much of
 THE MALDIVE ISLANDS 41
the queens and princesses here [i.e. France], and how many wives the
king had. . . . But chiefly they desired to know how the ladies here con-
ducted affairs of love - for they cared to talk and hear of nothing but
love." This passage shows again what we have already seen in Ibn Battuta,
the remarkably free position of women in the Maldives, which is a very
noticeable feature today, at any rate in Male.
The Maldives were also visited from, time to time for brief periods by
various seamen, many of them shipwrecked there. The southern island
of Fok Mulaku, which is said to be the most fertile of all, was visited by a
French ship in 1529 and by a Dutch ship in 1599. The first English visitors
were wrecked in the Maldives in 1658, and some of those were later also
imprisoned in Ceylon with Robert Knox.
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In 1645 there is the first record of a tribute paid by the Maldives to the
Dutch Governor of Ceylon at Galle. This symbolic tribute continued to
be paid afterwards to the British governors annually up to 1947, after
which Ceylon became independent. Neither the Dutch, however, nor the
English exercised any actual control over the islands, which continued to
be left to defend themselves against the occasional intruder. The French
kept a small detachment on Male for Dupleix for a few years. In 1752
occurred the second great occupation of Male, by Malabars from Cannan-
ore. They were expelled the following year by one Don Bandara, who
subsequently declared himself King and founded the Mulige dynasty of
Hura which lasted up till 1968. The most recent piratical attack was in
1907 when a party of folk called "Pishorin" (from Peshawar) attacked the
northern islands.
From 1834 to 1836 the Maldives were the subject of a survey for the
Bombay Government, during which J. A. Young and W. Christopher
spent some months in Male. Christopher has left a substantial vocabulary
of the language, the first since Pyrard, containing a good many words
which are now obsolete. It was shortly after this that certain Maldivian
aristocrats started a tenuous connexion with the outside world, in the
first place with Ceylon, where a certain Ali Dldi came to conduct a lawsuit
in 1850 and remained for the rest of his life (previous contacts had been
purely mercantile). It is the Maldives of this epoch which Bell describes,
still unchanged in 1922.
In 1932 the Royal absolutist Government of King Muhammad Shams
al Din was overthrown and replaced by an oligarchical regime. The King
and his son were deposed two years later and exiled to the south, where
they died. The sultanate continued, but as an elective office which no
longer had power. After this, the oligarchs started sending their children
to Ceylon for schooling, first boys but soon girls also. The next sultan
abdicated during the Second World War; the successor elected was living
at that time in Egypt, and though he came back as far as Colombo he
never actually assumed the throne, and died in Colombo in 1949.
The strong man of that time was Muhammad Amin Didi. He decided
to bring the Maldives into the modern world. After introducing numerous
changes and reforms, he changed the country from a monarchy to a
Republic on 1 January 1953, with himself as first President. He then fell
ill, and during his prolonged absences from Male for treatment the
 42 THE MALDIVE ISLANDS
situation deteriorated to such an extent that he was deposed in September
of that year and imprisoned, in the usual way, on a small island. When he
escaped from this island and arrived back in Male on 31 December, a
popular riot ensued, in the course of which he was severely injured, and
died of his injuries shortly afterwards. The monarchy was then restored,
and the King who was chosen to occupy the throne remained on it until
1968 (he died the following year).
Mr Ibrahim Nasir, who became Prime Minister in 1958, has instituted
a further radical policy of reform, following in the tracks of Amin Didi
(who is regarded as a national martyr). The second Republic, under
President Nasir, was inaugurated in 1968, the President having already
led the Island Kingdom to complete independence from the British, under
whose protection they had nominally been since 1887. This protection
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was never in fact exercised until the last war, when certain bases were set
up in the islands. It was the decision to reactivate the base at Gan in Addu,
the southernmost atoll, after the Government of Ceylon had closed down
Katunayaka and Trincomalee, which precipitated the latest trouble.
Maldivian labourers were engaged to work for the British for wages,
and found themselves able to obtain various luxury imports; and the
southern atolls, which have always been most remote from central control,
broke away and attempted to set up an independent Suvadive Republic
under a Mr Afif Didi. The central Government believed that the British
had encouraged this, and relations became very strained. Afif was given
sanctuary in the Seychelles (where he still is), confirmation was agreed
for a 30-year lease of Gan (from which all local residents were removed),
and complete independence was agreed by the British Government on 26
July 1965, which has now replaced 1st Rabi' al awwal (the day of the
expulsion of the Portuguese in 1573) as the Maldivian national day. The
Maldives subsequently became a member of the United Nations.
There have been great changes in Male itself in the last 15 years. The
old town walls have been pulled down, the old public stone bathing tank
removed, cadjan houses are being constantly replaced by coral-stone
buildings, and Government stores and warehouses are springing up
everywhere. The Indian Borahs who had been resident in Male for about a
century and had a virtual monopoly of foreign trade were expelled, to-
gether with the smaller community of Ceylon Moors; foreign trade is
now a Government monopoly (which means that the ordinary Maldivian
seaman now seldom goes to Ceylon), and the Government possesses a
number of merchant ships.
The official feud with the British Government did not extend to
Western material products, or to the English language. The two Govern-
ment schools, for boys and for girls, set up in Male by Amin Didi were
converted into English-medium schools on the Ceylon pattern, with a
staff mostly brought over from Ceylon. The permanent presence of 50 or
60 foreigners in Male would have been unthinkable even 15 years ago, as
would the introduction of Western clothing. The new Male radio station
began to broadcast short news bulletins in English every day; electricity
became widespread there, and there are even some status-symbol motor-
cars.
 THE MALDIVE ISLANDS 43
Newspapers were introduced as far back as 1934. These are handwritten
and then duplicated, as are nearly all such books as exist. Most of the real
books that there are were written by Amln DIdl, and few are more than
40 years old, though there are older poems in manuscript.
The order of society still remains aristocratic, with a separate kind of
language regularly used of and to aristocrats - consisting chiefly in the
use of double causatives for most verbs, and the addition of a safBxfufu
or kolu to many nouns, but also involving different words altogether for
some common actions and objects. But the mediaeval pageantry described
by Bell and Hockly as still in full force in the 1930s has completely
disappeared. There are no more picturesque uniforms, lances, royal
boats, canopied processions; these are already almost forgotten. And the
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number of children who are now being taught English as a living language
and sent abroad on scholarships, is too large to be confined to aristocrats.
Tourism is now encouraged and the outside world is being let in; if no
sudden disasters occur, this process will accelerate. In the past, periodic
famines have been the recurrent disaster - particularly bad, for instance,
just after the last war. But now that the distribution of rice is in Govern-
ment hands, this ought to be avoidable.
Meanwhile, the country prospers, as may be seen from the relative
exchange rates of the Ceylon and Maldivian rupees. It is connected with
the mainland by frequent air flights, and now also by a telex link. Fishing
is still mostly done under sail, but even this may change (to the detriment
of the clear water). It is to be hoped that the isolated position of the country
will enable harmful innovations to be rejected, while useful ones are
fully adopted.