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This first elected president of the country introduced several reforms. While serving as prime minister during the 1940s, Muhammad Amin Didi nationalized the fish export industry. As president he is remembered as a reformer of the education system and a promoter of women's rights. Muslim conservatives in Malé eventually ousted his government, and during a riot over food shortages, Didi was beaten by a mob and died on a nearby island.

Maldives' nearest neighbors are Sri Lanka and India, both of which have had cultural and economic ties with Maldives for centuries. Although under nominal Portuguese, Dutch, and British influences after the sixteenth century, Maldivians were left to govern themselves under a long line of sultans and occasionally sultanas.

The early history of the Maldives is obscure. According to Maldivian legend, a Sinhalese prince named Koimale was stranded with his bride-daughter of the king of Sri Lanka-in a Maldivian lagoon and stayed on to rule as the first sultan.

In 1558 the Portuguese established themselves on Maldives, which they administered from Goa on India's west coast. Fifteen years later, a local guerrilla leader named Muhammad Thakurufaanu Al-Azam organized a popular revolt and drove the Portuguese out of Maldives. This event is now commemorated as National Day, and a small museum and memorial center honor the hero on his home island of Utim on South Tiladummati Atoll.

Muhammad Thakurufaanu was the son of Khatheeb (island chief) Husain of Utheemu in Thaladhummathi Atoll and Lady Amina Dio. After the invasion, the Portuguese ruled most cruelly over the Maldive islands in a period which the chronicles describe as ‘‘a time when intolerable enormities were committed by the invading infidels, a time when the sea grew red with Maldivian blood, a time when people were sunk in despair…’’

On 26 December 2004 the Maldives were devastated by a tsunami following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. The Maldives' shallow coastal waters reduced the destructive impact, preventing the waves from reaching much more than 1.2 - 1.5 meters in height. Despite this, the archipelago's low lying nature (one of the lowest lying countries on Earth) meant that nearly all of the country was swamped.

The person responsible for the conversion to Islam was a Sunni Muslim visitor named Abu al Barakat. His venerated tomb now stands on the grounds of Hukuru Mosque, or miski, in the capital of Malé. Built in 1656, this is the oldest mosque in Maldives. Arab interest in Maldives also was reflected in the residence there in the 1340s of the well-known North African traveler Ibn Battutah.