Literally the word Mappila refers to the Muslim community of north
Kerala and Pattu means songs. The Mappilappattu is hence a song sung
by this community during their religious as well as on other occasions.
Passed down generations through an oral tradition, the earliest Mappilappattu
can be traced back to 700 years ago. The effort to record them however,
is a recent one. Thanks to the works of T. Ubaid (1908-1972), a famous
poet and social reformer, who successfully recorded many Mappilappattu.
Many of the Mappilappattu capture in them the beauty of fantasy apart
from a reflection of ardent religious faith. Events from history are
another commom theme.
The songs use words and phrases borrowed from other languages like
Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Hindi, Tamil, Sanskrit and Kannada, though
they are basically sung in an Arabic-Malayalam language. Sometimes
a single sentence is composed of words taken from more than three
or four languages.
For centuries these songs were the sole property of the Muslims as
the Arabic language was not familiar to non-Muslims. Now-a-days, however,
the Mappilappattu is an inevitable part of most music concerts and
cultural extravaganzas held in the State.
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