I was delighted to receive a fantastic book shipped couple of weeks from Kochi to Kuala Lumpur. Authored by Mansoor Naina, the History of Naina Marakkar became the first extensive work ever written on the Naina, one of the South Indian mercantile powers.
The book traces the origins of the Naina family clan and their roles in the mercantile politics of South India. It provides a new contribution, not only in terms of marginalized social historical study but also, most significantly, a foundational direction for the study of Naina’s mobility in the diasporic realm.
As Hussain Ranjathani knew that Naina bore “a foreign connotation” to South Indian identification, the assumption of the Nainas’ origins remained unsettled. Ideas on the origin of the Nainas have involved the cultural aspects of Arabs, Persians, and Christianity.
As the descendant of the Naina family who was born and grew up in the Nachia house of Kochi, the
witness of Naina Mansoor provided significant layers of debatable knowledge, as he did not only rely on archival sources and expert interviews but also on the Naina and Marakar family oral traditional knowledge that passed down from one generation to other. Mansoor Naina traced the lineages not only in Kochi but also in Tamil Nadu, Kayalpatttinam, and the long demographic line of the Malabar.
Classified into 24 chapters, the book draws on several chronological aspects: 1). On the origin and encounters from the Arabian Peninsula to the Ma’bar, 2). the rise to economic dominancy, 3). the power struggle and alliance with the Portuguese and the Zamorin, and 4). the patriotic anti-colonial figures
of the Naina clan. This classification covers the historical process from the 13th century to the 20th century.
The period coverage may seem too broad. However, the history of marginalized societies frequently works this way, considering the disconnected availability of materials, as commonly found among societies with experience of centuries-old colonization.
As a historian of international relations, particularly between South India and Indonesia, it is unsurprising to learn that the Ma’bar would have more of their history than elsewhere.

Understandably, because of textual spelling changes from Jawi/Arwi to Latin, Colonial records inconsistency of writing had put a long halt on the discovery of the Naina. The name spelling includes Naina, Nina, Nainar, Nayyinar, Nayinar, and Naynar. The same occurred to the spelling of Marakkar and other non-Western identifications.
I have learned of 2 identified tombs from the 15th century laid in Aceh that bore the name Naina. The distinct tombs’ floral illumination and the type of stone signal the strata from which they originated. It was just like the awareness of Ranjathani, the name Naina is not familiar to the Acehnese dictionary of honorific labels. This factor led me to run through thousands of pages of colonial records as I recall the phase of my dissertation.
Other abundant records on the Naina can be found in the civil law cases in the Strait Settlement, Malaya and its Federated States, and Batavia. These sleeping records, which span from the 17th to the 20th century, were written in English, Tamil, Dutch, and Danish.
Although the foundational finding on the origin of the Naina remains inconclusive, it is clear that their prominence and dominancy began along the productivity line of the Ma’bar (Southern Arabia, Malabar, Tamil Nadu, and Coromandel Ports) since the 13th century. In fact, the post-colonial framework demands no longer priority to obsess investigating the origins of a group of people, compared with the living legacy they left.
Finally, the book is obviously a stepping stone to further research on the border
less human connection. This is because our shared history is what binds us. It creates empathy towards each other, and thus, history can reduce the amount of toxic patriotism that is increasingly displayed in the global political arena nowadays.
P.s. Thanks to Waseem Naser for introducing this man and his work to me.
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