According to the religion of the Rohingya – Muslims. They are spoken in the language of roginkah, which belongs to Indo-Aryan languages. It is estimated that the number of rogindgs in Myanmar, before the crisis of 2016-2017, was more than 1 million. According to the UN, they are one of the most persecuted national minorities in the world.

 

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  Photo: Marie Starr

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The Rohingya population is concentrated in the historical region of Arakan, an old coastal country of Southeast Asia. It is not clear who the original settlers of Arakan were. Burmese nationalist claims that the Rakhine inhabited Arakan since 3000 B.C., are not supported by any archaeological evidence. By the 4th century, Arakan became one of the earliest Indianized kingdoms in Southeast Asia. The first Arakanese state flourished in Dhanyawadi.

 

People cross the road between the Buddhist Sule Pagoda and the Muslim Bangali Sunni Jamai Mosque in downtown Yangon/Anadolu Agency

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Sanskrit inscriptions in the region indicate that the founders of the first Arakanese states were Indian.

The British historian Daniel George Edward Hall stated that “The Burmese do not seem to have settled in Arakan until possibly as late as the tenth century A.D. Hence earlier dynasties are thought to have been Indian, ruling over a population similar to that of Bengal. All the capitals known to history have been in the north near modern Akyab”.

Arakan was a key center of maritime trade and cultural exchange between Burma and the outside world, since the time of the Indian Mauryan Empire.

 

The date of this photo of Imam Sultan Mahomed Shah with members of the Burmese jamat cannot be ascertained but it appears to be from the Imam’s second visit to the country in 1914, when he was 37 years old. Photo: Anwar Virani Collection, Ottawa.

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Arab merchants had been in contact with Arakan since the third century, using the Bay of Bengal to reach Arakan.

 

A southern branch of the Silk Road connected India, Burma and China since the neolithic period. Arab traders are recorded in the coastal areas of southeast Bengal, bordering Arakan, since the 9th century. The Rohingya population trace their history to this period.

Besides locals converting to Islam, Arab merchants married local women and later settled in Arakan. As a result of intermarriage and conversion, the Muslim population in Arakan grew. Modern day Rohingya believe they descended from these early Muslim communities.

 

Silver coin of king Nitichandra of Arakan in 8th century (British Museum)

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The Rakhines began migrating to Arakan through the Arakan Mountains in the 9th century. The Rakhines established numerous cities in the valley of the Lemro River. These included Sambawak I, Pyinsa, Parein, Hkrit, Sambawak II, Myohaung, Toungoo and Launggret. Burmese forces invaded the Rakhine cities in 1406.
The Burmese invasion forced Rakhine rulers to seek help and refuge from neighboring Bengal in the north.

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A surge of violence in Myanmar has forced 400,000 children to flee from their homes and search for shelter in Bangladesh. Children are sick, hungry and desperate for our help. UNICEF is responding to this spiralling emergency but cannot meet the needs of Rohingya children without you. Please donate to support them today.

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The photo above shows the plate bearing the names of the 31 persons who died in the bombing as well as (9) others who died during WWII. Note the Burmese names adopted by Ismailis, with their aliases. The transcript at the top of the plaque is as  follows: “In sacred memory of our heroic martyrs who lost their precious lives in the sahadt of our holy mosque on the 19th April 1943 and also due to actions of World War II in Burma.”  Photo: Muslim Harji. Copyright.

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During the more than 100 years of British rule (1824-1948), there was a significant amount of migration of labourers to what is now known as Myanmar from today’s India and Bangladesh. Because the British administered Myanmar as a province of India, such migration was considered internal, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

 

© UNFPA Bangladesh/Naymuzzaman Prince

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Shortly after Myanmar’s independence from the British in 1948, the Union Citizenship Act was passed, defining which ethnicities could gain citizenship.

 

                                 

 

According to a 2015 report by the International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School, the Rohingya were not included. The act, however, did allow those whose families had lived in Myanmar for at least two generations to apply for identity cards.
Many rugins live in refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh, as well as in areas along the Thai-Mongin border.

 

Rohingya Muslims, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, carry an elderly woman in a basket and walk towards a refugee camp in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, in September.(AP)

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The authority of Myanmar lies in the fact that the horns of illegal immigrants arrived in Rakhine after Burma’s independence in 1948 and after the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971.

 

In the 1940s, the separatist movement of the Rogynge emerged, whose goal was to unite with Eastern Pakistan (modern Bangladesh).

The mutual hatred between the Buddhists of Aracana (as traditionally called Rakhine) and the Muslim rogindia escalated particularly during the Second World War, when the British Burma was captured by Japan. The Muslim rugby actors spoke on the side of the British and started a partisan struggle. The local Buddhists of Arakan supported the Japanese invaders who promised to give the country independence, and began to massively join the alliance of Tokyo, the Burmese Army of Independence. At its head was General Aung San, one of the founders of the Communist Party of Burma and father of the state adviser of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi, who now heads the government of the country.

 

In June 2012, a series of Muslim-rugby conflicts with the Army of the Salvation Rohingya of Arakan and the local Buddhist population took place. – Muslims.

 

Source: CNN

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Rakhine has been the scene of communal violence at the hands of Buddhist extremists since 2012.

 

AP

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Since August 2017 more than 670,000 Rohingya, lawfully present in Myanmar, have been intentionally deported across the international border into Bangladesh.

The United Nations said the military operation that caused the Rohingya to flee their homes into Bangladesh constitutes ethnic cleansing.

 They are spoken in the language of roginkah, which belongs to Indo-Aryan languages. It is estimated that the number of rogindgs in Myanmar, before the crisis of 2016-2017, was more than 1 million. According to the UN, they are one of the most persecuted national minorities in the world.

 

 

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), formerly known as the al-Yaqeen Faith Movement, released a statement under its new name in March 2017, saying it was obligated to “defend, salvage and protect [the] Rohingya community”.

The group said it would do so “with our best capacities as we have the legitimate right under international law to defend ourselves in line with the principle of self-defence”, report Al-Jazeera.

 

Rights group Fortify Rights said it has documented that fighters with the ARSA “are also accused of killing civilians – suspected government ‘informants’ – in recent days and months, as well as preventing men and boys from fleeing Maungdaw Township”

 

Nearly 700,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar to Bangladesh following a military crackdown last August/ Reuters

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The group is considered a “terrorist” organisation by the Myanmar government.

Myanmar government regards the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh despite the ethnic minority living there for generations.

 

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100 faces of Rohingya refugees 

They are an ethnic group, the majority of whom are Muslim, who have lived for centuries in the majority Buddhist Myanmar. Currently, there are about 1.1 million Rohingya in the Southeast Asian country.

 

 

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Religious Tourism

Sources:

• aljazeera.com
• uk.wikipedia.org
• unicef.org.au

Photo:theguardian.com