Volume 5 Issue 1 June 2018 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926 http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 215 The Visibility of Muslim Women in the Islamic History of South India: A Review Ayshath Shamah Rahmath  Raihanah M.M  Ruzy Suliza Hashim  Abstract Reading different historical accounts can provide the changing views of the past, proving that the historical truths can be un-reliable at times. Reviewing the prevailing history of South Indian Muslim community, we attempt to explicate the visibility of Muslim women in the socio-cultural and political discourses. Their contribution to the growth and propagation of Islam during its commencement in South India is not evidently recorded by historians. There are studies that delineate the matrilineal heritage of ancestral Islam in South India. But they fail to discuss the role of women in the cultural assimilation of Islam into a traditionally variant culture. The legal implications of Shariah and constitutional laws are still in dispute. The inconsistency in the existing jurisdiction often fails to provide her lawful rights. The participation of Muslim women in the social reform movements are largely unexplored. The literary history also does not attribute reasonable space for Muslim women writers. Our attempt is to bring in these disparities in the existing history, where Muslim women is posited invisible in the social, religious and literary discourses. We invite future studies in this area, which can explicate the visibility of Muslim women in the social and religious discourses of South India, marking her struggles at different junctures of socio-religious and literary history. Keywords: Muslim women, South India, Matrilineal heritage, Legal implications, Socio- religious and literary history.  Ayshath Shamah Rahmath is pursuing her PhD in Postcolonial literature at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia). She has worked in several educational institutions, both in the public and private sectors, in Kerala, India. Email: shamah514@gmail.com  Raihanah M.M. is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, UKM. Her research includes minority fiction and comparative literature. She won the National Academic Award in 2014. Emal: raihanah.mydin@gmail.com  Ruzy Suliza Hashim is Professor of Literature at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, UKM. Her research interests include gender issues in literature and comparative literature. Her book, Out of the Shadows: Women in Malay Court Narratives, won the National Book Award in 2003. Email: ruzyhashim@gmail.com