The Maricars played a pivotal role in developing the Malay States, that to this day you can find several streets and places named after Maricars in Malaysia. It is derived from the Tamil term for a boat, Marakalam. Marakalam means a boat made of wood. Muslim traders were known to ply the seas around Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka in wooden boats. Hence the name. Muslims are also known as Marakalayo by the Sinhalese speakers of Sri Lanka.
Probably one of the most famous Maricars of all time happen to be Dr.Abdul Kalam Maraikkayar, the former president of India and arguably the greatest scientist of modern times that India has known.
Traditionally Maricars have been known for maritime trade along east Asia, but now due to the prevalence of education, a lot of professionals have also been found in the community. The Kilakarai Maricars have played a big role in setting up educational institutes all over Tamil Nadu for the betterment of Tamil Muslims and Muslims in general. A lot of Maricars happen to have connections with the Gulf and Malaysia-Singapore. But of late, this trend has been changing with some of the Maricars moving to UK, France and USA.
It is a very close knit community and they marry among themselves to maintain the lineage. At times, people construe the Maricars to be racist, but off late this has been changing due to proper education. Traditionally they follow Shafi school of thought as most of the Arabs who did trade with these regions followed that madhab. Interestingly a small portion of Maricars incidentally speak Malayalam as well.
The Maricars have a distinct Arab-Tamil composite culture and they are traditionally very conservative. There used to be a time when the language used to have a strong Arabic flavour as most of their vocabulary was derived from pure Arab and classical Tamil.
Some examples of this beautiful mix of Arab and Tamil vocabulary will be illustrated below:
1) Khair, Allah podhumanavan - which means 'Whatever! Allah is sufficient for me!
2) Inge konjam Raahatha irukkum - which means it will be comfortable here
3) Balaah Museebath Subhu thozhugainal neengidum - All misfortunes and misery will be prevented by the morning prayer.
Maraikayar Pattinam is a small place in Ramanathapuram district. The people living there are called Maraikayars. Even before two generations they were operating Marakalam 'Wooden Ships' to the entire world especially to Gulf, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and some European countries. Current generation people are diversified into many areas apart from their traditional trade by sea. Still there are some senior people living in Maraikayar Pattinam, who traveled to many countries by the Marakalam.