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It is highly likely that the Singhalese (from Gujarat) were the first settlers on the southern atolls of the Maldives. The dialect spoken here today is strongly reminiscent of Singhalese. Some of the customs and the Buddhist finds during excavations also point in this direction.

 

The Maldives must also have been known to the western world at that time, since the geographer Claudius Ptolemy describes islands that appear to be the Maldives in his records.

 

 

He obtained his information from the records of the Phoenicians, who had advanced into the Indian Ocean with their trading vessels and probably encountered the Maldives while they were there. Later, Arabs on their way to Ceylon also frequently ran aground on the reefs and settled on the islands. More concrete information was found in the records of geographers from the 11^th and 12^th centuries, who tell of beautiful, independent islands where trade is carried on with cowries and coconut ropes. The first detailed description comes from Ibn Batuta, who spent one and a half years on the Maldives starting in 1343 and describes the Maldivians as righteous, devoted Muslims.

 

The Maldivians have been Islamic since 1153; this is also the first time they were recorded in written history. The chronicle of the Islamic sultans was kept from this date; it begins with Mohammed Ibn Abdullah and ends in 1968 with Mohammed Fareed-ul-Avval.

 

In the 14^th century, the Maldives were ruled by the first sultaness Khadeeja Rehendi Kabaidhi Kilege. She reigned for a total of 35 years, with some interruptions. Although the Maldivians were devout Muslims, there were some local customs that evoked great horror among Arab Muslims. The women of the Maldives never wore head coverings, and were sometimes clad in nothing more than a loincloth. The marriage customs, already rather permissive in Islam, were even less complicated on the Maldives; this has hardly changed today. However, this only applies to Muslims; for Christians, Maldivian women are taboo to this day.

 

Although the Maldives were known as a hospitable country, those shipwrecked on their shores could not count on a lot of help since a stranded ship became Maldive property under Maldivian law. Thus the locals usually waited until the ship was washed up on a reef.

 

At the beginning of the 16^th century, the Portuguese reached the Indian Ocean and were the first to occupy Southern India and Ceylon. In 1558 Hassan the Ninth, who was very unpopular with his people, asked the Portuguese for help against rebel Maldivians; this was an opportunity for the Portuguese to occupy Male and the other atolls under the leadership of Andreas Andre. They destroyed all mosques and replaced them with churches in order to convert the Maldivians to the Christian faith. However, the Portuguese met stalwart resistance to this plan. The Maldivians started guerrilla warfare under the leadership of Mohammed Thakrufaan with the support of the Malabars. In 1573 he successfully drove out the Portuguese and was elected as sultan. Therefore he is one of the great folk heroes in the history of the Maldives.

 

The sultans who followed him also had to defend against frequent attacks by the Portugese. The sultan Ibrahim Iskander (1648-1687) was especially successful in this regard; he also had the Friday Mosque of Hukuru Miskiy built and founded the first school.

 

In the 17^th century, the Dutch replaced the Portugese on Ceylon; since they were more interested in trade than conquest, they maintained a loose tribute relationship with the Maldives. The English took over Ceylon in 1802 and were the first to being charting the Maldives under the leadership of Captain Moresby in the year 1834. Even today, his records form the foundation of English nautical charts. In 1883, the British administration official H.C.P. Bell visited the Maldives and compiled the most detailed monograph up to that date.

 

In the year 1887, the English concluded a protectorate agreement with the Maldives in which the Maldives committed to refrain from entering into agreements with any other countries and to pay a tribute to England in return for English protection. The English established an airbase on Gan during the 2^nd World War. In 1965, the Maldives were granted total independence; the airbase on Gan which was leased until 1976 was dissolved and the island is now used for tourism.