The Arabisation of South Asia

When I was growing up and we saw an elderly Muslim gentleman, we greeted with, "Aadaab". Today, it's universally, "As-salaam-waaleikum". The disappearance of aadaab from the vocabulary of South Asia is just one small point in how the multi-faith, multi-lingual fabric of countries India, Pakistan and Bangladesh has been torn to pieces. The other is clothes. We were a culture under 500 years of Islamic and Mughal rule where people wore the brightest and richest of fabrics covered head to toe. Look around Muslim women on the streets of these three countries and they're increasingly wearing only black burkhas. Next, paan might be decreed to be un-Arabic for South Asian Muslims.

#ArabisationOfSouthAsia #IslamicCulture