Ponnani

Ponnani stands at the mouth of the Bharathapuzha, where the river reaches the Arabian Sea. The port was an important centre under the Zamorins of Calicut and a home to merchants and sailors of Malabar’s Muslim communities. Its great Friday mosque and adjoining school made the town a renowned centre of Islamic learning, drawing students from beyond the coast.

The Makhdum family settled at Ponnani in the later fifteenth century. Zainuddin Makhdum I built the great mosque after returning from study abroad, and generations of scholars taught there. His successor Zainuddin Makhdum II wrote the Tuhfat al-Mujahidin, an account of Malabar and the struggle against the Portuguese. Ponnani was also associated with the Marakkar naval commanders who resisted Portuguese attempts to dominate the coast. In the eighteenth century Mysorean armies entered Malabar, and the region later passed to the East India Company. The mosque and the river port preserve the memory of a town shaped by scholarship as well as maritime trade.