Tamil Muslims are Tamils who practise Islam and Muslims who consider themselves as "Tamils". The community is at least 4.5 million people in India, primarily in the state of Tamil Nadu. The Tamil-speaking Muslims are descendants of marriages between early West Asian Muslims and Tamil women as well as local converts. The community is predominantly urban. There is a substantial diaspora, particularly in Southeast Asia, which has seen their presence as early as the 13th century. In the late 20th century, the diaspora expanded to Western Europe, Gulf Countries and North America. A separate predominantly Tamil-speaking Muslim population also exists in Sri Lanka known as the Sri Lankan Moors, who do not identify as Tamils but are a mixture of Arab, Persian, South Indian and Malay ancestries of w