• Uppukoottan's identity: Unlike his siblings who were raised within different Hindu traditions, Uppukoottan was raised as a Muslim, a detail that reflects the multicultural history of Kerala.He was reportedly raised by a Muslim fisherman named Suleiman and became a salt and cotton trader.

Umar remembered, ‘When I was in the eighth grade, my father was taught to master the reading of Quranic Arabic. He did so with such zeal because he realized that he was so backward in terms of his own education. He felt that he was not “civilized”. In order to better himself, he knew that he needed to learn those languages.’ It was around this time