Malabar region present known as Mappilas) in India. Though the name is sometimes extended to the entire south-western coast of the peninsula, called the Malabar Coast. Malabar is also used by ecologists to refer to the tropical and subtropical moist broad-leaf forests of south-western India (present-day Kerala). Malabar District, a part of the ancient Malabar (or Malabar Coast) was a part of the British East India Company-controlled state. It included the northern half of the state of Kerala and some coastal regions of present-day Karnataka. The area is predominantly Hindu, but a part of Kerala's Muslim population (Mappila) also live in this
Syro-Malabar Catholic Archeparchy of Kottayam Jewish populations of Judea were dead, enslaved or in flight. Many of the Persian and Arabian Jews fled abroad, Jewish colonies were founded on the Malabar Coast and at other well known trading posts. Twenty years or so after the First Council of Nicaea, wealthy merchant Thomas of Cana brought a colony of 400 Syrian Christians (from 72 families, belonging to seven clans: Bagi, Belkuth, Hadai, Kujalig, Koja, Mugmuth, and Thegmuth) from southern Mesopotamia to the Malabar Coast in 345 and strengthened the church founded by Thomas the Apostle. According to Syrian writings, the Knanaya migration was a mission from