Khadijah, Queen of Janjira

©  Sadida Athaullah

One of the most ancient of Sea and trading routes in the world is along the west coast of Africa and the Southeast coast of India. For centuries before Islam, goods and people from Africa, the Middle East, and India travelled and traded along these routes. Therefore the movement of people, culture, language and religion also travelled along them, with the Jewish tribes arrived about 300 BC. Thomas, an apostle of Prophet Isa (a), brought Christianity. Islam arrived during the lifetime of the Prophet (s).

     Travel by sea was not a fast and easy means of transport when locomotion was based on wind and water currents. Sometimes, sailors were stranded at foreign shores for months and, many times, even settled in and intermarried into the local population.

     Muslims from Africa and Middle East were very much at home in South India. A significant number of black Muslims, called Siddhis, had settled in this part of India and had established an independent state in Southeastern India.

     They controlled the sea lanes along the coast of India but soon after the arrival of the Portuguese, the Siddhis of South India lost the control of these trade and sea lanes to them. However, the state continued to exist though it was no longer as powerful as it was before European colonization by generating a significant income through trading. The Spanish followed the Portuguese and within a very short time the demand for African slaves became the most lucrative investment. The people and the state of Janjira helped the Africans in the slave ships to escape and settle in India.

     Unfortunately not much is written or researched about Janjira and its inhabitants but Gordon S. Forbes, the author of Wild Life in Canara and Ganjam, writes that the inhabitants were of pure African decent and that the descendants of fugitive slaves found a secure and congenial home among them by formed hamlets and villages, in which they obtained and cultivated the land. He describes their appearance as the same ebony color as found on the African coast. The Portuguese and the Spanish were replaced by the Dutch and the French until the British East India Company won the Indian Sub Continent for Britain. When the British decided that all independent states in India must come under their control and must pay taxes to the British Crown, the state of Janjira was ruled by a Muslimah, named Khadijah Bibi. She resisted the British army so fiercely that for years the British mistook her for a man. She was finally captured and put to death.

     The only reference, known at this time, to Khadijah Bibi is in the above mentioned book published in 1844 in which Mr. Forbes goes on to say, "Khadijah Bibi, a woman...had the strength and courage of a man and offered a resistance which took several strong men to overpower".