Abu al-Barakat Yusuf al-Barbari (al-Tabrizi)

He is traditionally credited as the missionary who brought about the conversion of the Maldives to Islam in 1153 CE. According to tradition he invited the last Buddhist king Dhovemi (who took the name Sultan Muhammad al-Adil upon conversion) to Islam, and the whole island population followed; this date is considered the beginning of nearly six centuries of Islamic rule comprising six dynasties and eighty-four sultans and sultanas. In Maldivian folklore he is said to have ended the terror of a sea-demon named Rannamaari, who exacted tribute from the islands, by reciting the Qur'an through the night, after which the king embraced Islam. His origin is disputed among sources: Ibn Battuta's 14th-century Maldivian account records him as a North African (Maghrebi/Berber) scholar; one view holds he was of Somali/Berbera origin, while a later view identifies him as a Persian scholar from Tabriz (Yusuf Shams al-Din al-Tabrizi) — the near-identical appearance of the epithets 'al-Barbari' and 'al-Tabrizi' in classical Arabic script is regarded as the source of the confusion. His tomb is in the Medhu Ziyaaraiy shrine opposite the Friday Mosque (Hukuru Miskiy) in Malé; the present shrine structure was built in 1906 during the reign of Sultan Muhammad Shamsuddeen III. His date of death is not definitively recorded in the sources.