No. 24.— 1881.] mi'rA kantiri festival. 127 



became converted to Islam, the propagation of which Mfra 

 Sahib had in view in visiting them. 



The Maldivians pretend that this saint is buried in their own 

 soil, but the Moors will have it that he was buried at Nagur 

 on the Coromandel coast, where there is a stupendous mosque 

 erected in honor of him, and which is the resort of vast 

 multitudes of Muhammadans from various parts of the world. 

 The miracles performed by this saint were innumerable. 



NOTE. 



[According to a Tamil version of an Arabic biography of this saint,* 

 Mira Sahib was born at " Manikkapuri" on the 9th J amdd-u l-dkh ir 9 

 A. H. 910 (A. D. 1504), and died on the 10th of the same month, 

 A. H. 978 (A. D. 1570). He is known to his votaries under several 

 names, e.#.,HazratMira Sahib, Shaikh 'Abd-ul-K&dir, Saul Hamid, &c. 



Among the miraculous adventures attributed to the Shaikh is 

 included a visit to the Maldives, where, after thwarting the treachery 

 of the King and his subjects, he was enabled to win them over to 

 Islam by ridding the Islands of a dreaded Jinni^ 



It should be noted, however, that the account of this conversion, 

 though sufficiently quaint to warrant its insertion here in extenso, is 

 manifestly nothing more than the plain unvarnished legend related 

 by the Arab traveller Ibn Batuta, as then {circa A. D. 1344) 

 current among the Islanders^ popularised and assimilated to the 

 familiar Arabian Nights' Tale of the Fisherman, the 'Ifrtt, and the 

 bottle of brass. 



* Kalarattu Mirdn Sdkipu A'ndavaravarkal Mrana-sarittiram, Karaikkal, 

 A. H. 1293 (A. D, 1876). 



f Evidence is addusible that the Maldivians were converted to Muham- 

 madanism not later than A. D. 1244. See "The Maldive Islands" (Ceylon 

 Sessional Papers, 1881) and Gray, J. R. A. S., Vol. X. n. s, 1878, p. 177. 



% See Lee's " Travels of Ibn Batuta," p. 179, London, 1829 ; and Gray 

 (J. R. A. S., Vol. X., n. s. pp. 180-1) translating the French Editors' Ibn 

 Batoutah, Tome IV., pp. 126-9. Paris, 1879. 



