Offerings to the Muslim Warriors of Malabar: Foundation Document of Colonialism and Clash of Civilisations (Tr. From the Indo-Arabic work ’Tohfut ul mujahideen’)

Offerings to the Muslim Warriors of Malabar was one of the rarest and pioneering documents of historical importance which attests emphatically west European expansion in the Indian Ocean region and Malabar. It is the only foundation document on colonialism and enslavement written by Sheikh Zainuddin, south Indian in the sixteenth century, who like many of his compatriots, was very much affected by Portuguese atrocities and high-handedness that had been planned and sponsored by the Portuguese royalty and the Roman Catholic Church. It is also a pioneering account of the beginning of the Clash of Civilisations between the west and the rest of the world and the valiant resistance put up by the Zamorin, the Hindu king of Calicut, with the help of the Muslim Marakkars who manned his navy. The clash of civilisations began not after the fall of Soviet Union as asserted by Samuel Huntington. But it began in the 15th century itself with the arrival of Vasco da Gama on the Malabar Coast. Through capitalism which is part and parcel of western civilization, the west had indeed succeeded to a great extent in imposing its way of life and culture upon the rest of the world including India.