Haa Alif Atoll - History

History

In Matheerah there is a famous shrine (ziyaraiy, mausoleum) which was visited formerly by the Maldive kings and their families in order to seek blessings. Such tomb visits are aspects of Sufism that existed among the Maldivians until very recent times. Hence this island was referred to with the honorific title Matheerahffulhu (High (noble) Island) by the sufi Muslims of the Maldives at that time.

Traditionally the northernmost atoll of the Maldives was Minicoy (Maliku). Fishermen from Thuraakunu and from Minicoy often crossed the Maliku Kandu on their boats to visit each other's islands. Marriage alliances were common. Now Minicoy is a part of India and communication is highly restricted.

Read more about this topic:  Haa Alif Atoll

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
    —Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)

    “Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.”
    —Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)

    “The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
    —Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)