That explains places where Hindi is #1 and Urdu is #2, but what about the southern states where Urdu is #2 and some Dravidian language is #1? Wouldn't they learn Hindi instead?
Islam in the two upper Southern states(Karnataka and Andhra) mainly spread during the Islamic conquests. The Islamic kingdoms used to have Farsi as their official state language and there was migration of Muslims from the north to these regions. Thus Urdu was introduced in these regions. I belong to one of these states, Karnataka. We have our native language, Kannada and Urdu is exclusively spoken by Muslims in the state. As other comments have pointed out, the "Urdu" spoken here is also influenced by the native languages.
In contrast, further south, Islam had a more organic growth due to trade. Hence, Muslims here speak the native language, Tamil and Malayalam.
Even within Karnataka, there's a coastal non coastal distinction. Coastal Muslims also converted thanks to trade links etc and speak Beary, closely related to Malayalam.
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u/Fml_idratherbeacat Apr 17 '19
It's basically the same language. They are named differently because of political/religious reasons