WI : Muslim Sri Lanka

Now if you think about it, the island of Ceylon/Sri Lanka is just right there in the middle of muslim trade route to the east. Yet while Maldives converted pretty early (not surprising, given the size), Sri Lanka has always clinged to its Buddhist roots. What the reason behind it ? My tentative assumption so far is that 1) the island has been not as depended to foreign trade for its economy, despite it's very exposed position, and 2) the island hasn't undergone political revolutions as frequent as Indonesian islands typically did, which for the later being one of the primary reasons why Islam was able to entrench itself there.

Based on two assumptions above, how do we change it in order to enable the island's conversion to Islam ?
 
I'd argue that a third factor was that Buddhism was was seen as a distinguishing factor between the Sinhala and the mostly Hindu ceylonese Tamils and so was an integral part of the Sinhalese identity
 
The Sri Lankan Moors (descendants of medieval Arab traders, forming about 8 to 9 percent of the population today) might be a place to start - maybe one of them could marry into a royal family, or start a dynasty with a mercenary army at his back. Although in that case, the result might be another Bhopal or Hyderabad, with a Muslim dynasty reigning over a mostly non-Muslim population.
 
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