A History of Arakan (Past & Present) by Dr. Mohammed Yunus First Edition Published in 1994 A History of Arakan: Past and Present, by Dr. Mohammad Yunus, President of the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), Arakan, is a a welcome addition to the present stock of our knowledge about the history of Arakan and her interrelation with neighbouring lands of Burma and Bengal. It deals mainly with the advent of Islam in Arakan about 800 C.E. and the eventual growth of Muslim community through thick and thin into a major Rohingya community of the country. One can say unhasitatingly that for the first time Dr. Yunus has been able to offer, even if in a skeleton form, a connected and continuous history of the Rohingya community of Arakan from the earliest down to the present time. He has explored an enormously wide field in digging up a great variety of new materials drawn from an impressive number of references. Specially commendable in this work is the forging of all the material under his command towards a new direction of studying the history of the Rohingya Muslim community in the perspective of the impact of Islamic civilization on Southeast Asia, not merely considering it as a part of the national or political history of Burma or Myanmar. Indeed, when we turn our gaze to the whole situation of Southeast Asia and find, to our amazement, the statistic of the Muslims exceeding 50% (fifty percent) of the total population of the region, we can easily realize the importance of the community history of the Muslims of different areas of the region. Because, even though the Muslims of Arakan, like as those of Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam, are suppressed and repressed from time to time out of sheer communal enmity of sister-groups, yet we realize that the grand islamic civilizing impact on the region has come to stay. Apart from the history of the Muslim community of Arakan, Dr. Yunus has shown this extraordinarily rich and fertile land as falling into a bone of contention between geographically adjacent Bengal and religiously homogenious Burma since time immemorial, which unwittingly, unnecessarily and unjustly preved upon the Rohingya Muslim community with beastly ferocity, breaking thereby the hearth and home of the once majority community of the Arakan region and driving a sizeable number of them out of the land. In this study the author has also raised a few moot points inviting the interest of the researchers as to the real cause of the fleeing of King Narameikhla from Arakan to Bengal in 1404 C.E. Was it due to communal discord or owing to mere political aggression of the King of Burma? Another moot point attracting the attention of the researchers relate to ascertaining the real intention of the eleven Arakanese Kings from 1430 to 1531 behind adopting Muslim names alongwith their Arakani names. Was it due to their adoption of Islam as a religion or just for political expediency. A third point calling for close investigation lies in finding out the causes of the political failure of the Muslim community of Arakan and Burma or Myanmar in spite of the enormous growth of the Muslim population in the region along with Muslim cultural and administrative influence in Arakan: whether it lay in the field of education, intellectual failure or greed of wealth? Such a full-dressed investigation alone canhelp the Muslim community of Arakan and Myanmar to determine and delineate a realisitc attitude towards living peaceful and cherishable lives within and outside of the country adopting a befitting useful point of view towards the politics of the country like s the Muslims of Ceylone, those of France. West Bengal or Bangladesh. In the meantime, we may expectantly look forward towards wider and deeper research, investigation and integration of data and facts in these fields. In spite of some minor compositional weaknesses of the work as a book of history, it deserves wide popularity as "Arakan: Past and Present" and I am sure, it will prove its mettle amongst specialists as well as general readers throughout the world. Dr. Muin-ud-Din Ahmad Khan Professor of Islamic History & Culture Chittagong University Chittagong, Bangladesh In my opinion by Sufi A.M. Waheed This is the first time that we are having a history of Arakan in a consolidated and comprehensive form. Dr. Mohammed Yunus must have taken a long and deep search to compile the glorious past of Arakan, where the two sister communities, the Rohingyas and the Rakhines lived in peace and harmony. In my opinion, this book will be a milestone in the freedom movement of the people of Arakan, as the lesson from the history inspires a nation for independence and for achieving fruits of independence. As much all the freedom loving Rohingyas must go through it and should possess a copy of it as a precious belonging. SUFI A.M. WAHEED Ex. Electrical Adviser and Chairman Electricity Licencing Board Government of Bangladesh Opinion by Dr. Ali Ahmad I feel great pleasure to know that 'A History of Arakan: Past and Present', containing all sorts of information of the Arakanese (Rohingya) Muslim is going to be published. This attempt of Dr. Mohammed Yunus, President of the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) and an undisputed leader of the Arakanese Muslims, is a timely contribution to the on-going national movement of their independence. I wish for a peaceful publication and wide circulation of the book and pray for a long and happy life of the author. DR. ALI AHMAD (M.A., Ph.D) Professor Dept. of Islamic History & Culture University of Chittagong Chittagong, Bangladesh Preface After a little over two centuries under colonial rule Arakan --- the once flourishing maritime Muslim Sultanat extending from Dhaka and Sandarbans to Moulmein, a coastal strip of a thousand miles in length and varying from 150 to 20 miles in depth -- has now become almost a forgotten land. The irony is that a full, comprehensive history of Arakan has not yet been complied by any unbiased historian. Whatever sofar have been written about the events that took place in Arakan by modern historians are found either as a separate chapter in the books of history or as titbits here and there in other subjects written with relevance to the history of Arakan. The old Arakanese chronicles, and books and articles written in Burmese language on Arakan by different authors are controversial and some time derailed far away from truth. There are concrete evidences of distortion of the history and heritage of the Arakanese people by vested interest of prejudiced and powerful groups. The world is still, more or less, in the dark as to the realities that governed once the lives of the people of Arakan. one cannot draw the right conclusion in the matter of socio-culture, political and religious life of the people of Arakan without in depth studies of the contemporary histories of India, Bengal, Tripura, Burma and South-east Asia in particular and the Islamic world in general which had, in the course of a long period, close interrelation and interaction with Arakan. To fathom the truth it is important also to study various chronicles written about the region, coins and other archeological findings, monuments and shrines, language and scripts and names of places, rivers and mountains etc. etc. that bear considerable reflections on the history of Arakan. There is not the slightest doubt that those who occupied Arakan and wished to colonise it forever are deliberately distorting the historical facts to fulfil their sinister design. They use all weapons ---racial, religious, political, economic and propaganda --- to mislead and divide the two sister communities of Arakan. Today they shamelessly claim that " there is no such thing like Rohang and Rohingya in Myanmar (Burma); it is invention of certain insurgent groups." It is hoped that as the pages of this treatise are unfurled, all the misunderstandings, delusions, false notions and misleading interpretations shall be removed from the minds of unbiased readers. The colonisers of Arakan and their fanatic collaborators have done much wrong to our nation by misleading innocent people. Much water had flowed down the Kaladan. It is time that the two sister communities should be able to learn a good lesson from the bitter past, recognise the machination of the enemy, amend their wrong attitude and join hands for the restoration of their glorious past. I wish that this humble work may serve as an eye-opener to our sister community whose appreciation of the realities of Arakan is inevitable for a peaceful and prosperous future. The ur ge to write this short history on Arakan has been intensified in the backdrop of our enemy's attempt to completely erase the truth of our past and legacy as an indigenous ethnic community of Arakan. It is to be noted that I am not a professional historian; only the prevalent circumstances had compelled me to take up this job. In spite of various shortcomings and handicapped by dearth of source material this task has been undrtaken with hope that it may serve as a harbinger of truth in Arakan. Research into the history of a nation is not one man's job; it is a collective and continuous responsibility of its people. I shall consider myself fortunate enough if this humble work would serve at least as a book of reference for future researchers of the history of Arakan. As an acknowledgement of thanks to those who had a part in making this work possible, I would like to register the name of my colleague Br.