Bohra History a non religious perspective

[Bohra spring]

Hello brothers, sisters and fellow Bohras

A lot of history I have heard is based on religious events, Syedi this and Diai that. Does any one have stories and records to share about Bohra history of who we were before becoming Muslims, events that shaped out community outside the religion,etc. photos will help too.

Are we a mixed race, ?

Why do we spend most of the time speaking about faith ?

[Bohra spring]

Is this history of any relevance to our beginnings ?

By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net,

Exactly 600 years ago, four Ahmads stood by the side of the river Sabarmati with a rope in hand laying the foundation of the city of Ahmedabad. Presence of these four Ahmads was no accident; these were chosen after a vision by the newly-crowned Sultan of Gujarat Ahmad Shah I. According to his vision, the first planned city of medieval India was to be established by four persons named Ahmad who had not missed any of their obligatory prayers. After a frantic search across Gujarat four Ahmads - Sultan Ahmad Shah I, Shaikh Ahmad Khattu of Sarkhez, Qazi Ahmad Jod of Patan, and scholar Malik Ahmad came together on 7 Zil Qa’da 813 ( 2-3 March 1411) to establish a city that has survived many ups and downs in its 600-year-old history.

But Muslim history of Gujarat does not begin with the establishment of Ahmedabad. In fact, Muslims were already in Gujarat for 600 years before Allauddin Khilji’s army appeared in this region in 1297. Just like Muslims arrival in Malabar in Kerala, as soon as Islam began spreading in Arabian Peninsula, Muslims began to make their presence felt in the coastal region of Gujarat. The first Muslim foray into Gujarat appears to be in 15 hijri or the year 635 CE when governor of Bahrain sent an expedition to Thana and Bhaurch. The contact with Muslim continued for several centuries in the form of raid, trade, and migration.




Famous jali of Sidi Saeed Masjid of Ahmedabad
After Sindh, it is Gujarat where the first Muslim rule was established in Indian sub-continent. Sanjan, a small town on the coast saw the establishment of an independent principality. Three rulers Fadl Ibn Mahan, Muhammad bin Fadl, and Mahan ibn Fadl ibn Mahan ruled successively from 813 CE to 841 CE. Sanjan, which was called Sandan by Arabs find references in travelogues of Arab writers as an important port and industrial town.

Jama Masjid established by the Mahan dynasty continued to function even after the end of dynasty. Local Hindu rulers allowed Muslim population to live, trade, and pray. But Sanjan was not the only Muslim inhabitation. Historigrapher Abul Hasan Ali Masudi reached Cambay in 915 CE and he saw a large number of Arab Muslim settled in Cambay, Chembur, Thana, Sopara, Sanjan, and Bharuch. He wrote that Muslim led honourable life under Hindu kings and they had built a number of mosques where regular prayers were offered.

A number of these mosques have survived, making Gujarat site of some of the oldest mosques of India. Sanjan still has a functioning jama masjid but its date cannot be confirmed. The oldest mosque in Gujarat is the Jama Masjid of Bharuch which was completed in the year 1065. Also in Bharuch is probably the oldest Islamic structure Madrasa Maulana Ishaq built in 1038 CE. Both buildings were constructed well before Muslim ruled Bharuch.

While riches of Gujarat attracted traders and migration, it also made an attractive target for Mahmood Ghaznavi who attacked the temple at Somnath in the year 1024. About 150 years later it was Shahabuddin Ghori who attacked Gujarat but failed twice and not until 1197 when his general Qutubuddin Aibak had some success in Gujarat.

The story of modern Gujarat doesn’t begin till we see the establishment of sovereign Sultanate of Gujarat by Muzaffar Shah I by declaring his independence in 1407. Four years later his grandson Ahmad Shah I, founder of Ahmedabad, becomes the Sultan and start giving shape to a region that we recognize as present day Gujarat.

[Bohra spring]

A fellow brother kindly sent me a copy of Mullahs on mainframe and I will paste some extracts

Further study would be required to determine the extent to which less privileged segments of Bohra society subscribe to the values of the elite stratum that provided the statistical basis of my survey.

Modern scholars have noted that the idea of an imamate passed down in secret from the second/eighth to the fourth/tenth centuries seems to have been first articulated during Fatimid times: if such a doctrine was propagated contemporaneously, the veil of taqiyya prevented it from appearing in the documentary record.

It was also under Imam al-Aziz that the Fatimid tradition of religious tolerance reached its greatest height. While the practice was honored by some caliphs in the breach, on the whole the Fatimids accorded their sub jects more latitude in matters of conscience than did many contemporary regimes. As a small elite ruling over a population composed primarily of Sunnis with a sizable Christian minority, most of the Fatimid caliphs were careful not to trample the religious sensibilities of their subjects.

Origins of the Community in India
Satish Misra pays eloquent tribute to the rise of the Bohras (and Khojahs) under difficult historical circumstances: [ else was the penetration of Islam as peaceful or the rise of the new communities so imperceptible. No other Muslim community in India suffered more at the hands of the iconoclastic Sunni rulers.” The story of the Bohras in India is in deed one of a nonconfrontational mercantilist community, which has achieved great prosperity and cultural strength while staving off the twin threats of internal schism and external religious persecution.
The first part of the Indian subcontinent to experience a significant Ismaili presence was not Gujarat, but Sindh. Ismaili da’is—both orthodox and Qarmati—had been active here since pre-Fatimid times, and the region was a refuge for Ismailis and other dissidents of the Abbasid empire. The ruler of Multan seems to have been converted in 347/958, although the level of doctrinal congruence between the Qarmati-influenced local da and Fatimid orthodoxy remains unclear. When the traveler Shams ud-din Muhammad ibn Ahmad Bashshari Muqaddasi visited Multan in 375/985, he reported that the Friday khutba was being recited in the name of the Fatimid caliph, indicating that the region was a Fatimid vassal state. This outpost of Ismailism would be short-lived: In 396/1005 Mahmud of Ghazna invaded from Afghanistan and forced the king of Multan to transfer his allegiance; five years later Mahmud annexed the territory completely and massacred Multan’s Ismaili population.
The faith fared far better to the south, in the neighboring western Indian region of Gujarat. As discussed above, missionary activity was initiated here by Imam al-
32
Mustansir, whose surviving correspondence documents the historical (rather than solely mythical) provenance of early conversions. The year traditionally given for the beginning of the Ismaili mission to Gujarat is 450/1067. According to legend, a da’i named Ahmad was responsible for the first dawat contact, but was unable to make much progress owing to difficulties of language. He is said to have brought two Gujarati orphans (Abdullah and Nuruddin) back to Cairo with him for training, and returned them to their homeland after extensive instruction on all aspects of Ismaili doctrine. Bohra myth credits Abdullah with planting the lasting roots of the faith in Indian soil. His first two converts (tradition holds) were an elderly couple named Kaka Akela and his wife Kaki Akeli,* to whom he showed the power of God by causing a well to fill magically with water in the midst of a drought. (Water, it should be remembered, is a common Islamic metaphor for spiritual knowledge.) Kaka Akela was the gardener of the local monarch’s vizier, who became Abdullah’s next con- vert when he saw his own garden suddenly burst into miraculous lushness while all other vegetation in the kingdom withered away.
Although the mass of the converts were of Vaishya background, tradition attributes the major impetus to the conversion of the Rajput raja of Patan himself. According to myth, Siddharaj jayasingha (also known as Bharmal) sent an army to capture Abdullah, only to have his forces turned back by a mysterious wall of flame. Another legend has Abdullah making one of the icons in the royal temple speak—and declare the truth of Islam to an astonished court. The most famous story of Bharmal’s conversion is less overtly mythological. Abdullah is said to have won the king away from Hinduism by showing him the emptiness of the magic practiced by his court pandits. A huge icon of the elephant-headed deity Ganesh is said to have been miraculously suspended above the floor of the temple, perma nent proof of the mysteries of the faith; Abdullah, legend goes, found that the trick had been accomplished by embedding four powerful magnets in the walls of the temple. He removed the magnets, sending both the icon and the monarch’s devotion to Hinduism tumbling to the ground. It is said that when Siddharaj accepted Islam in 1143, so many other twice-born Hindus followed his example that the pile of discarded sacred threads weighed 260 pounds.
While Siddharaj Jayasingha was a verifiable historical figure, there is no textual evidence that he ever gave up his Shaivite faith. Not only do the Khojahs claim conversion of Siddharaj, but three different Sub tariqa also lay stake to him as an early initiate. The earliest dynasty of Bohra wales (chief da’is for India during the period of the Yemeni dawat) claimed direct descent from Bharmal, as did the Rajput dynasty to which most da’is al-mutlaq from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century belonged.
Bohras and other Gujarati Shi’a suffered little persecution under Hindu rule, but during Sunni regimes there were periods of tranquility inter spersed with times of severe repression. The first such time was ushered in by Zafar Khan Muzaffar, who invaded Gujarat in 793/1391 as the pro consul of the Tughluq shah Muhammad III. Zafar Khan established his own sultanate in Gujarat, which remained independent for nearly two centuries (810 until its annexation by the Mughal badshah Akbar. Under Zafar Khan and his son Ahmad I (the founder of Ahmed abad) the Bohras began the practice of taqiyya, which they would main tain up to and during the Mughal era.

[Bohra spring]

It is rather strange that there is no satisfactory history or documented records of why so many Viashya tribes men converted to Islam through silent conversion by Yemeni missionaries and hence become the modern day Bohras.

I have researched that Hindus were under oppression from Mogul government to pay heft taxes if they were non-Muslims, is this one of the reason...that is to escape taxes since the tribe was merchants and liable for tax ?

Is that also a reason why over centuries Bohras have leaned over Indian traditions rather those Arab traditions?

Is that why in the 21st Century Bohra ideology has evolved to be deviant from broader Islamic association and traditions? They wanted to be like Muslims to escape Mogul oppression but not Arab Muslims where they could not change to the fundamental practises. There must have been something material. There is no record of violent wars or invasions that would have made tribes captive and converted.

It is important to trace our roots and find out why we are Muslim Bohras, what influenced our conversion and whether there was an economic reason to seek refuge in Islam based on the issues of the 10th Century. Are we really descendants of true converts to Islam without fear, or did circumstance influence our conversions...were we refugees, was there need to "modernise" in the era of conversions, was Hinduism causing the Gujarati tribesmen to question the rationale of theior Hindu faith. If the later is true why are there not many Hindus converting in 21st Century to Bohras.

If the excuse is we stopped missionary work when was this ? who instructed the Diais to stop propogating Islam

However there are plenty of examples where people are changing faith because they are conquered, they want to assimilate e.g. Europe where Indians are converting to Christianity, or Asians converting to Christians. There were cases of Africans converting to Islam in 18 Century to escape slavery in the Americas. American Indians ...what I really mean hundreds of Hindu tribesmen will not one day wake up and say we will change our faith because we think someone visiting from far lans says he has a better alternative. Even our Prophet SAW had to go into jihad to force change.

Some thoughts to trace our roots are welcome.

[level_headed]

Bohra spring - I am amazed. You talk of leading a revolution and talk the big talk . Your knowledge of Bohra history and traditions is sadly zero. And you plan to start a revolution and get organized. For a change, I have to agree with Humsafar and AZ - you are indeed Don Quixote.

[Bohra spring]

Level headed what history do you know that I cannot, how authentic are your records ?

I would have appreciated your comments if your responded with facts.

Yes I have tried to know what Bohraism is after realising that both reformist or orthodox Bohras are not keen on being Islamic , following fundamental or practise what the rest of Muslims want to ...and to understand why they behave in such a way it is important we review the roots of Bohraism. When one does try to dig deep into what is our history that they realise the are gaps and blanks...unless they are secret documents, and even so how reliable are the secret historical theories ?

I am happy to be corrected if someone can present reliable statements of what Bohra conversion was all about, go back in time. I am not prepared to accept everything was hunky dory and Hindu merchants were so dazzled that they gave up their Hindu faith and customs especially if they were Brahmins and changed their faith. There is some history intentionally doctored or erased. We have seen this as recently as in last 50 years and its is suspect that in last 400-600 years a lot of Bohra history was manipulated and only the good has been documented to praise the dawat.

I may be the few who have asked this point blank questions but will not be the last.

[genesis]

Bohra spring wrote :-
If the excuse is we stopped missionary work when was this ? who instructed the Diais to stop propogating Islam

This is not possible because the very meaning of "Dai" is "one who does Dawah ( propagation) . The whole jing-bang of Dr.Zakir Naik call themselves "daiees". And mind you , they are not 52 or 53 but several hundreds of them. The no-growth or zero-growth pattern of the Bohra population along the horizontal base plane ( ie.,excluding the genetic increase) is of course a point to ponder. All in all, this subject deserves contribution and debate.

[think]

yes,I for one always had this question , where and how did the bohras come into being. Were these actually a small group of lower cast hindus who started following a mullah of the time to dissassociate themselves from the brahmins because of second class treatment. What was the real reason how and why this bohra religion evoved as it did? And why is there so much importance about doing bijjiness , rather than flourishing intellectually.

[Grayson]

In regards to our history and how we as Bohra's came to being, the juxtaposition of our practices with our past is justified. Particularly in regards to mob mentality and sociocultural evolution.

In context to the present however, as individuals seeking change and realignment with religious principles rather than societal, this history only offers words of past understandings, not future undertakings.

As a community there are many things that we've borrowed and (unfortunately) integrated into our religious practices, but for that we're not victim alone. The same can be said for Muslims in Africa and East Asia (among many other places). Early Islamic practices themselves also take a page out of the book of Arab culture during that era.

There are no doubt outright unIslamic misdeeds that we partake in (the subservient attitude of lingering caste influence for example) that need to be denounced (and gradually eradicated), but I think reverting to the old ways of Rasulallah is rather extreme. That was a different era, a different time, a different place. We need to adapt according to our locale and era in such a way that we understand Islamic principles, relate with the culture and influences surrounding us and don't undermine our core religious foundation in the process.

Educating ourselves (and sharing what we've learned), in honorable and well-meaning ways, is a good start to establishing an approach on how to progress.

[ghulam muhammed]

Were these actually a small group of lower cast hindus who started following a mullah of the time to dissassociate themselves from the brahmins because of second class treatment.

This is exactly what I had said in one of my earlier posts and to which there was NO response from any members. I had also questioned the age old stories recited by Bohra Mullas about Sawa Mann (1.25 quintals) Janoi (Sacred thread worn by Brahmins) supposed to have been removed by the Brahmins who one fine day suddenly got attracted to Bohraism and were ready to forego their vice like grip over the lower caste whom they ruled and exploited for centuries. They were almost a ruling class enjoying all the privileges of a ruler !

[badrijanab]

In Hindustaan, only Bohra community is the sect of Islam which was spread as per Islamic and Quranic criterion to appeal the intellect of intelligent. So the School Teachers, Kings, Parlimentarians or alike got convinced with the philosophy of Islam per Bohra version and got converted from Kufr into Islam (Bohra).

Where else, the tyrant Sunni rulers like Aurangzeb, Ahmed Shah Abdali, Temur, etc they acted against the command of Quran (lakum deenokum wayadeen) and threatening for life they converted terrified Hindus into Sunni.

[Al Zulfiqar]

Yes I have tried to know what Bohraism is after realising that reformist Bohras are not keen on being Islamic , following fundamental or practise what the rest of Muslims want to ...

is it your habit to make such blatantly fraudulent comments without any basis in facts? you can accuse the abde fanatics and their tyrant leaders of being islamic pariahs and devils for all i care, but on what grounds do you call the reformists 'not keen on being islamic and not following fundamentals of islam'?

have you ever interacted with any reformist jamaat anywhere, have you bothered to observe their practices meticulously? do the reformists have to do what 'the rest of muslims want to..'???

are you on some sort of hallucinatory drugs? where do you get these false and far-fetched notions from and who gave you the right to hurl such unfounded allegations as and when you please? the whole problem with neophyte johnny-come-lately's like you is you have a tiny modicum of knowledge and you come in swinging, attempting to show off, making stupid assumptions and in the bargain not only making yourself look completely retarded but also damaging the cause of reform.

i have said this before, take your platform of righteous democracy and elections for dai, join forces with that other great savant of logic (grayson) who needs proof to see that abdes are being shafted 'royally', and together you can create your own little wonderland where you can reside with your friends - alice and the wizard of oz.

[ghulam muhammed]

In Hindustaan, only Bohra community is the sect of Islam which was spread as per Islamic and Quranic criterion to appeal the intellect of intelligent.

That is why have soooooooooo many Bohras here even after its inception some 600 years ago and as regards "Intellect of intelligent", the abdes are a glaring example.

[Bohra spring]

Just to add some mathematical modelling

If we add all Bohras Alawi, Dawoodi and Sunni 1.5Million and assume we are all linked through decendency
Population doubles every 50 years so 600 years there would have been around 6,000 bohras living in that era of which Dawoodi would have had 4,000 forefathers.

It is a mystery how 6,000 converts were convinced to change without force or good reason.

GM's theory is probably plausible that we were decendenats of low caste converts and this was an escape route to acceptance while Moguls were chasing Hindus ...hence this Brahmin roots are morelikely hogwash BS to make us look acceptable.

Next question is was the Ismaili mysticism seemed more attractive and acceptable to the btribesmen than Sunni beliefs available through Mogul missionaries ?

[anajmi]

In Hindustaan, only Bohra community is the sect of Islam which was spread as per Islamic and Quranic criterion to appeal the intellect of intelligent.

And how did you do that with an Imam who was hiding?

[badrijanab]

In Hindustaan, only Bohra community is the sect of Islam which was spread as per Islamic and Quranic criterion to appeal the intellect of intelligent.

And how did you do that with an Imam who was hiding?

The true Islamic conversion from Kufr to Islam (Bohra) started under regime of Molana wa aaqa wa Syyedna Imam Mustansir Billah alay'his'salam

[Al Zulfiqar]

bohra spring,

should i add cowardice to your other weaknesses? i see that you have decided to tuck your tail under your legs and run...

Yes I have tried to know what Bohraism is after realising that reformist Bohras are not keen on being Islamic , following fundamental or practise what the rest of Muslims want to ...

is it your habit to make such blatantly fraudulent comments without any basis in facts? you can accuse the abde fanatics and their tyrant leaders of being islamic pariahs and devils for all i care, but on what grounds do you call the reformists 'not keen on being islamic and not following fundamentals of islam'?

have you ever interacted with any reformist jamaat anywhere, have you bothered to observe their practices meticulously? do the reformists have to do what 'the rest of muslims want to..'???

are you on some sort of hallucinatory drugs? where do you get these false and far-fetched notions from and who gave you the right to hurl such unfounded allegations as and when you please? the whole problem with neophyte johnny-come-lately's like you is you have a tiny modicum of knowledge and you come in swinging, attempting to show off, making stupid assumptions and in the bargain not only making yourself look completely retarded but also damaging the cause of reform.

i have said this before, take your platform of righteous democracy and elections for dai, join forces with that other great savant of logic (grayson) who needs proof to see that abdes are being shafted 'royally', and together you can create your own little wonderland where you can reside with your friends - alice and the wizard of oz.

[Bohra spring]

GM...do you know how to source any documented and validated history of the original Gujrat tribes men who convereted to Ismailism ?

For Bohras who study history at University in Gujarat , is there any records that we can obtain for discussion.