This chapter lays out the central themes of the book: the study of Sri Lankan Malay history and culture via the trope of mobility in its many forms, with a particular focus on exile and its literary, religious and imaginative associations with the island; the Sri Lankan Malays’ history and literary culture from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth century; connected histories across the Indian Ocean as viewed through the prism of Malay linguistic continuity and writing practices in Ceylon and the Indonesian-Malay world, as well as a range of multilingual texts from the two regions. The chapter introduces the methodology and comparative approach employed in writing which seeks to explore the Sri Lankan Malays’ history, literature and perspectives on exile through multiple lenses and from different shores, integrating sources in Malay, Javanese, Arabic, Dutch and English to present the views of colonized and colonizer in the Dutch and British periods, poetic and prose depictions of exile, single texts that move between and across languages, religious traditions relating to Ceylon and documents ranging from letters to family diaries to theological manuals and charms.