Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 4.djvu/536

MAPPILLA precepts of the Koran as handles for the sanction to rise and slay Kafirs, who opposed the faithful, chiefly in the pursuit of agriculture. The Hindus, in the parts where outbreaks have been most frequent, stand in such fear of the Māppillas as mostly not to dare to press for their rights against them, and there is many a Māppilla tenant who does not pay his rent, and cannot, so imminent are the risks, be evicted." Mr. Strange stated further that "the most perverted ideas on the doctrine of martyrdom, according to the Koran, universally prevail, and are fostered among the lower classes of the Māppillas. The late enquiries have shown that there is a notion prevalent among the lower orders that, according to the Mussalman religion, the fact of a janmi or landlord having in due course of law ejected from his lands a mortgagee or other substantial tenant, is a sufficient pretext to murder him, become sahid (saint), and so ensure the pleasures of the Muhammadan paradise. It is well known that the favourite text of the banished Arab priest or Tangal, in his Friday orations at the mosque in Tirurangādi, was 'It is no sin, but a merit, to kill a janmi who evicts.' "Mr. Strange proposed the organisation of a special police force exclusively composed of Hindus, and that restrictions should be put on the erection of mosques. Neither of these proposals was approved by Government. But a policy of repression set in with the passing of Acts XXII and XXIV of 1854. The former authorised the local authorities to escheat the property of those guilty of fanatical rising, to fine the locality where outrages had occurred, and to deport suspicious persons out of the country. The latter rendered illegal the possession of the Māppilla war-knife. Mr. Conolly, the District Magistrate, proceeded, in December, 1854, on a tour, to collect the war-knives