There is evidence that Maldives has been inhibited for at least 2,500 years which goes a long way as the first adventurers and traders began to sail the Indian Ocean. Many renowned and adventurous travellers discovered Maldives and it is recorded that the tiny Maldivian islands would seem to offer standing room only to these political exiles around 300BC.

Dhivehi and Sinhala developed from a common “indic” language that was carried into Maldives and Sri Lanka around 500BC according to linguistic research.

Being on the sea routes to Malacca and China, people from different parts of the world came across this small island nation. The first settlers could have been “Naga” and “Yakka” people from Sri Lanka and Dravidians from southern India.

They refer to their country as “Dhiveli Raajje” which means “Island Kingdom”, the Maldivians also refer to themselves as Islanders. The early settlers in the Maldives had a bog boost from the Graeco-Roman maritime trade that involved many of the coastal people from Arabia to India, Sri Lanka and beyond. Maldives had the valuable commodities of cowry shells, turtle shells, ambergris and coir rope to trade.

There are records which confirms that Maldivian ambassadors bringing gifts to the court of the Roman Empire Julianus in 362 AD. Before embracing Islam, many areas of the country practiced different forms of Buddhism. The Southern section of the country is thought to have come under the influence of Sri Lankan immigrants.

There is so much connection Sri Lanka has to the Maldives. There is continuous research and debate conducted to discover the role of the Sinhalese (people of Sri Lanka) in the Maldivian history. The archeologist H.C.P. Bell assumed their pre-eminence largely based on the language and the evidence of Buddhism, but the Sinhalese did not have a sea going tradition. But there is much in the language which is shared, along with a blend in words from Sanskrit, Pali, Malayalam, Tamil and Malay as well as some dialects from the sub continent. Provided these instances many of the more distant atolls, islands continue to vary in terms of religion, race, colour and culture.

Way back in 1153 the country was converted to Islam. This is the pivotal event in the Maldivian history. From this date on, the entire society would begin to restructure itself. There would be new religious practices, new alliances and new attitudes, both to the metaphysical and to the matters of everyday life.

Only once was Islam threatened as the state religion. That threat arrived with the Portuguese, who rounded the Cape of Good Hope and sailed up into the Indian Ocean in 198. This admirable feat of navigation by Vasco da Gama, six years after Columbus set anchor in the Caribbean, plunged the region into a period of economic havoc and religious prosecution that was remarkable mostly for its piratical brutality.