Nawayats and Konkani Muslims (Part 4)
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.
