History of Muslims in Monaragala (Wellassa) District, Sri Lanka: Empirical Evidences

Abstract

Monaragala is one of the 25 administrative districts of Sri Lanka. This district was also named as Wellassa by its ancient inhabitants. It is located in the Uva Province in the South Eastern region of Sri Lanka. In Monaragala the Sinhalese are the dominant ethnic group as they constitute 94.5% of the total population, the Tamils 3.3% and the Muslims 2.17%. The main objective of this study is to explore the history of the Muslims in Monaragala District. It is an unfilled gap and there is no more academic research on the history of Muslims of Monaragala. Thus, this study takes this gap to be bridged throughout an academic field survey as a qualitative nature of research. In order to carry out this research there has been used the folktales and utterances prevailed among the native public as well as the administrative records and census reports, the ancient tombs and daily used house wares and articles. Based on the finding of this study, the Muslims settled down in Monaragala or Wellassa area during the time of Portuguese rule (1505-1656) from the Central (Kandy) and Southern provinces of Sri Lanka and increased their settlements gradually during the Dutch (1656-1796) and British regimes (1796-1948).