Why go to authorities to seek freedom ! there is no need to complain about misaaq and Ejamaat card, Its foolish bravery to fight for someone who does not wish to be saved ! just ignore the misaaq and e jamat card and if someone wants to stay in the fold for socializing purposes or fear of ex-communication then pay the dues as Entertaiment or Fear tax ! we are paying many such useless taxes world around ! once you pay, use the services to optimum, don’t bend and crawl !
Misaq is a mere ritual, abdes themselves don’t take it seriously, many don’t even understand the wordings or even remember the clauses !! for them it’s a passage to maturity. Another occasion for Kothar to loot and abdes to feast !!
The legacy of Sayedna Mohammed Burhanuddin
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Re: Criticism of Burhanuddin: A Legacy of oppression
On the Dawoodi Bohra Reformist Struggle: Interview with Abid Adeeb
The Dawoodi Bohras, ethnic Gujaratis, are a roughly million strong group of the Mustalian branch of the Ismaili Shia Muslims. They are controlled by an elaborate hierarchy of priests, headed by the dai-e mutlaq, who claims to be the representative of the 21st imam of the community, who is believe to have gone into seclusion or ghayba in the eleventh century. Faced with stern Sunni opposition, the 24th dai of the community shifted to Gujarat in the twelfth century. The present dai, Syedna Burhanuddin, is the 52nd dai of the community, and this year he will celebrate his 100th birthday.
For several years, a number of Bohras have been speaking out against the corruption and oppressive practices of Burhanuddin, also accusing him of levying a number of taxes on the community and various other un-Islamic practices. The Bohra reformist struggle was launched in Udaipur in the 1970s, and today has spread to different parts of the world where Bohras live. Last week, some three thousand Bohras gathered at Udaipur to participate in the 14th World Dawoodi Bohra Conference in order to galvanise the movement against the Syedna's oppression.
In this interview given to Yoginder Sikand for NewAgeIslam.com, the chief organiser of the conference, Abid Adeeb, President of the Dawoodi Bohra Jamaat of Udaipur, and Vice-President of the Central Board of the Dawoodi Bohra Community, the international federation of reformist Bohras, speaks about the ongoing movement against the Syedna's oppression that, lamentably, has received little media attention.
Q: You are among the pioneers of the the reformist movement in Udaipur, which later spread elsewhere. How did it all begin?
A: As a young man, in the 1950s, I saw for myself how the Syedna and his Kothar, the Bohra religious establishment, were crassly misusing religion to make money by fleecing the credulous in the name of Islam. I saw, even at that young age, how it was all about money and nothing to do with religion, although religion was routinely invoked to legitimise this big business. I saw how when people refused to pay up to the Syedna and his cronies, they were cruelly insulted. And that is why I decided to speak out.
In the mid-1960s, a group of young Bohras in Udaipur had started a group, called the Saifi Imdadia Committee, to help needy members of the community. We collected old textbooks to give to students, and unused medicines to donate to the poor. Gradually, our work for empowering the community bore fruit, and we helped a lot of young Bohras to go in for higher education. A Bohra trader in East Africa helped us with money for our projects. This was not liked by the Syedna and his men. They did not want us to progress, to get educated, because they feared that this would undermine their influence and authority. The Syedna instructed us to stop working with this Bohra trader, calling him a 'hypocrite'. We refused to listen to this order. We said we could not call someone who helped the needy in our community as our enemy. The Syedna's men even offered me money to relent, but I refused to accept it. Gradually, some Bohra youths began to see through the tricks of the Syedna, but, barring myself and a few others, they were too scared to speak out for fear of being excommunicated.
In the 1970 municipal elections in Udaipur, we in the Saifi Imdadia Committee decided to field four candidates, including myself, but the Syedna and his men opposed us and fielded four other Bohras, who were their henchmen, instead. Because of the community work we had done, and also because we had helped a number of Bohras who had been hit by a wave of communal riots, we won the elections, and the four candidates of the Syedna lost. The Syedna took this to be a personal insult. Some time later, we organised a joint Eid-Diwali function to promote communal harmony, as Udaipur had just then been rocked by deadly communal violence, in which many Bohras suffered greatly. The Syedna issued an order denouncing this, labelling us as kafirs for organising a function to celebrate what he called a kafir festival. But we refused to relent.
By this time, a number of educated Bohra youth, thoroughly fed-up of the corrupt ways of the Syedna and his Kothar, set up a group of their own, the Bohra Youth Association, to work for the educational and empowerment of the community. To help Bohra families establish and expand their businesses, we established the Udaipur Urban Cooperative Bank. This the Syedna took as a threat to him and his authority, and he issued a farman calling for the banning of both our association and the bank. He even sent a letter to the Reserve Bank of India, asking it to inquire into our bank's affairs. The Reserve Bank sent a team and found that the allegations against the bank were false, and they gave us a certificate of approval. Now the bank is one of the most successful cooperative banks in Rajasthan, with more than a dozen branches. So, the Syedna's machinations to stop the mounting resentment against him within the community failed.
Then, the Syedna used the most dangerous weapon that he has in his armoury—baraat, or excommunication. He declared that all of us—several dozen people—to be out of the Bohra fold. No Bohras could have any social relations with us. We could no longer even meet our relatives, not even speak to them on the phone. He even ordered that our marriages had been dissolved, and so dozens of men and women who dared to challenge his authority were automatically divorced. We were banned from the Bohra mosques. He issued a farman saying that no Bohra could pray in a Bohra mosque without his permission or raza, and this rule continues till today. And, to strengthen his control over the community he declared that he was the sole trustee of all the many Bohra trusts all over India. Shortly after, in order to deviously project himself as a pious Muslim, and also to drive a wedge between the reformists and his followers, he issued a fatwa making it mandatory for all Bohra men to wear a special sort of cap and for Bohra women to wear a distinctive form of burqa, although this was not the case before.
For several years we reformists here in Udaipur were faced with heinous oppression. Numerous Bohra businesses were destroyed as employees who dared to question the Syedna's dictatorship were forcibly thrown out of their jobs. Scored of Bohras were denied the right to be buried in Bohra cemeteries, and there were several cases in which the police had to be called in to allow deceased Bohras to be buried. Three times curfew had to be imposed to prevent clashes in the town as the Syedna's cronies attacked us.
By the early 1980s, news of the reformist struggle in Udaipur spread to other parts of India. Elsewhwere too, increasing numbers of Bohras were fed up of the corrupt ways of the Syedna. Some of them dared to speak out, and were inevitably excommunicated. But the vast majority were and are forced into silence for fear of being ex-communicated, although they know well the rampant corruption of the Syedna and his establishment.
To spearhead the Bohra reformist struggle, every three years the Central Board of the Dawoodi Bohra Community, the international body of reformist Bohras, of which I am the Vice-President, organises a conference to campaign against the corruption of the Bohra priesthood. Because of the vast political and financial clout that the Syedna wields, political parties and the media are loathe to touch him. But we have to continue to speak out.
Q: The Syedna is regarded by the Bohras as dai-e mutlaq, or absolute guide of the community, and you say that he is misusing this position to enrich himself. Is this a new development? Doesn't the very position of dai-e mutlaq lend itself to abuse because of the totalitarian powers that go with it?
A: The Bohras believe that before their 21st Imam went into seclusion, he established the institution of dai-e mutlaq to protect the community and to guide its affairs at a time when the Ismailis were being hounded by their Sunni opponents as heretics. In that historical context, the institution of dai played a key role in keeping the community together. It implied merely religious control, but the present Syedna's father, the 51st dai, Tahir Saifuddin, changed it to mean total control over every aspect of the Bohras' lives. He claimed to be 'the master of their lives and properties' (jan-o-mal ka malik)! And the present dai continues in that tradition set by his father. This is what we are against. We say that this is a total abuse of the position of dai, that this is a new innovation that has no sanction in our religion. What we are saying is that the Syedna has deviated from our religion, that we want the dai to be our religious leader but not to exceed the bounds of a dai, in accordance with the established principles of our faith. But the Syedna and his cronies persist in spreading misinformation about us, wrongly accusing us of being against religion, and of being heretics.
To set the record straight, corruption among the dais did not start with Syedna Burhanuddin. The story goes back to the 47th dai, Abdul Qadir Najmuddin, who established the hereditary rule of a single family that still continues. He was the great-grandfather of Burhanuddin. There are terrible stories alleging how he came to power by removing the 46th dai. Some even claim that the 46th dai was poisoned. Corruption and rampant nepotism began with Najmuddin, who filled the Kothar with his men. The 51st dai, Tahir Saifuddin, father of Burhanuddin, went to enormous lengths in corruption. He dispossessed rich Bohras of their wealth. He even commanded the Bohras to prostrate before him, although sajda or prostration is, in Islam, meant for God alone. In a statement before the Bombay High Court, he even declared, in complete violation of Islam, that he was God on earth (ilah ul-ard). Scores of irate Bohras instituted cases in the courts against him for his corrupt practices.
In Tahir Saifuddin's time, between the two world wars, a small number of Bohras witnessed considerable economic prosperity. Some of them won lucrative government contracts. Many migrated abroad and prospered. And so, new avenues were opened to Tahir Saifuddin to make money. He imposed new taxes on the Bohras, many of which have no sanction whatsoever in Islam. Today, the Bohras have to cough up money to the priests, to the Syedna and his amils or representatives, on every conceivable occasion, including birth, marriage or opening a new business. If they refuse, they can easily be excommunicated. Tahir Saifuddin, and then, after him, his son Burhanuddin, have become immensely rich in this way. Burhanuddin lives and behaves like a king. He styles his sons as shehzadas or 'princes', and his daughters as shehzadis or 'princesses'. This has no sanction at all in our religion. Burhanuddin's extended family is almost 1000 in number, and most of them are exceedingly rich. But this is not their hard-earned money. Rather, they have fattened on the taxes they extract from the Bohras, for which they refuse to provide the community with accounts. They care nothing at all for the poor in the community, who, too, are forced to part with their money. This entire family, which was once poor, now has assets worth thousands of crores! I can't even begin to explain and recount the terrible, criminal scandals, financial and moral, of the family.
Faced with the challenge of the reformists, Burhanuddin once in a while makes a big show of donating some small sums of money ostensibly to the poor, but most of even this meagre amount does not reach the intended beneficiaries because the money is eaten up by his henchmen, particularly the amils, whom he has appointed in every town where Bohras live.
Q: You have been struggling for years to highlight the oppression and corruption of the Bohra priesthood. What has the reaction to your struggle been from political parties? Have they supported the cause?
A: Political parties are simply too scared of taking on the Syedna. In fact, there must certainly be some sort of give-and-take, including exchange of money, between the Syedna and various political parties, a relationship that works both ways. In this way, the Syedna keeps the parties happy and they refuse to take any action against him, despite clear evidence of his oppression ad corruption. They remain silent on the enormous corruption in the Bohra priesthood for fear of losing Bohra votes. It is common knowledge that the Syedna has a very good relationship even with Narendra Modi, the man behind the 2002 Gujarat anti-Muslim genocide.
Let me illustrate my claim about the give-and-take relationship between the Syedna and political parties with an anecdote. Many years ago, when VP Singh was a Minister in Rajiv Gandhi's cabinet, a delegation of Bohra reformists went to meet him. He very categorically told the delegation that parties give many influential Sunni Muslim maulvis money and, in turn, the latter supply them with Muslim votes, but that the case of the Bohras was exceptional—in their case, the Syedna provided parties with both money and votes.
Q: I am always struck by the fact that while the Quran stridently opposes the institution of priesthood, the maulvis, who function like clergy or priests, continue to enjoy a vast influence among Muslims. Of course, in the Bohra case this is even more extreme than among the Sunnis. How do you account for this?
A: In the Sunni case, part of the reason for this has to do with widespread illiteracy and poverty, and the consequent lack of true knowledge of Islam. So, people blindly believe, without thinking, whatever they maulvis tell them, wrongly taking that to be the real Islam. Many maulvis conveniently twist religion to bolster their own authority and worldly interests. It's all a question of their vested interests, not piety. If people understood Islam really as it is, they would know how important it is to think for themselves—the Quran repeatedly stresses this. They would know that Islam does not countenance priesthood. But many mullahs don't want people to know all this as it would undermine their authority. And so they conveniently distort Islamic teachings to suit themselves. They do not want people to understand Islam as it really is. This is not a new development, of course. It goes back to early times, when people started fabricating hadith reports on a massive scale and falsely attributed them to the Prophet simply in order to promote their vested interests. Lamentably, when the reformists point all this out, they are quickly branded by the clerics as heretics, simply because what we say undermines their authority and worldly interests.
Q: If, as you allege, the present Syedna is so terribly oppressive and corrupt, why don't the reformists simply leave the Dawoodi Bohra community, especially given the fact that most Dawoodi Bohras, despite possibly being aware of all this, still regard him as their religious leader and so will probably not support your cause?
A: That is precisely what the Syedna wants, because if we take such a step we will cease to be Dawoodi Bohras and then shall have no standing or right to criticise his ways from within. In this way, Burhanuddin he can continue with his dictatorial and corrupt ways free of any internal pressure. We reformers are followers of our religious tradition and are pained to see how it is being misused. Why should we abandon our faith just because some people are misusing it? Instead of seceding from our community, like some dissenting groups have in the past, we want to reform it from within. That is why we say that we recognise Syedna Burhanuddin as the dai-e mutlaq, but we insist that he should not exceed the limits of the dai-e mutlaq by claiming, as he does, to be the 'master of our lives and property'. Instead, as in the case of the dais before the 47th dai, he should confine himself to purely religious roles. He must cease forthwith the un-Islamic taxes he imposes on us and the financial scandals, which have turned him and his vast family into billionaires. He should give us proper accounts as to how the enormous wealth that he earns from us is being used. He must also cease un-Islamic practices such as forcing Bohras to prostrate before him and claiming that if without his assistance or if we incur his wrath, Bohras will be doomed to hell. We refuse to stop speaking out because Islam tells us to stand up for what is right and true and to denounce oppression, even if some people wrongly seek to justify oppression in its name.
A regular columnist for NewAgeIslam.com, Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion at the National Law School, Bangalore.
URL:
http://www.newageislam.com/interview/on ... eeb/d/4166
The Dawoodi Bohras, ethnic Gujaratis, are a roughly million strong group of the Mustalian branch of the Ismaili Shia Muslims. They are controlled by an elaborate hierarchy of priests, headed by the dai-e mutlaq, who claims to be the representative of the 21st imam of the community, who is believe to have gone into seclusion or ghayba in the eleventh century. Faced with stern Sunni opposition, the 24th dai of the community shifted to Gujarat in the twelfth century. The present dai, Syedna Burhanuddin, is the 52nd dai of the community, and this year he will celebrate his 100th birthday.
For several years, a number of Bohras have been speaking out against the corruption and oppressive practices of Burhanuddin, also accusing him of levying a number of taxes on the community and various other un-Islamic practices. The Bohra reformist struggle was launched in Udaipur in the 1970s, and today has spread to different parts of the world where Bohras live. Last week, some three thousand Bohras gathered at Udaipur to participate in the 14th World Dawoodi Bohra Conference in order to galvanise the movement against the Syedna's oppression.
In this interview given to Yoginder Sikand for NewAgeIslam.com, the chief organiser of the conference, Abid Adeeb, President of the Dawoodi Bohra Jamaat of Udaipur, and Vice-President of the Central Board of the Dawoodi Bohra Community, the international federation of reformist Bohras, speaks about the ongoing movement against the Syedna's oppression that, lamentably, has received little media attention.
Q: You are among the pioneers of the the reformist movement in Udaipur, which later spread elsewhere. How did it all begin?
A: As a young man, in the 1950s, I saw for myself how the Syedna and his Kothar, the Bohra religious establishment, were crassly misusing religion to make money by fleecing the credulous in the name of Islam. I saw, even at that young age, how it was all about money and nothing to do with religion, although religion was routinely invoked to legitimise this big business. I saw how when people refused to pay up to the Syedna and his cronies, they were cruelly insulted. And that is why I decided to speak out.
In the mid-1960s, a group of young Bohras in Udaipur had started a group, called the Saifi Imdadia Committee, to help needy members of the community. We collected old textbooks to give to students, and unused medicines to donate to the poor. Gradually, our work for empowering the community bore fruit, and we helped a lot of young Bohras to go in for higher education. A Bohra trader in East Africa helped us with money for our projects. This was not liked by the Syedna and his men. They did not want us to progress, to get educated, because they feared that this would undermine their influence and authority. The Syedna instructed us to stop working with this Bohra trader, calling him a 'hypocrite'. We refused to listen to this order. We said we could not call someone who helped the needy in our community as our enemy. The Syedna's men even offered me money to relent, but I refused to accept it. Gradually, some Bohra youths began to see through the tricks of the Syedna, but, barring myself and a few others, they were too scared to speak out for fear of being excommunicated.
In the 1970 municipal elections in Udaipur, we in the Saifi Imdadia Committee decided to field four candidates, including myself, but the Syedna and his men opposed us and fielded four other Bohras, who were their henchmen, instead. Because of the community work we had done, and also because we had helped a number of Bohras who had been hit by a wave of communal riots, we won the elections, and the four candidates of the Syedna lost. The Syedna took this to be a personal insult. Some time later, we organised a joint Eid-Diwali function to promote communal harmony, as Udaipur had just then been rocked by deadly communal violence, in which many Bohras suffered greatly. The Syedna issued an order denouncing this, labelling us as kafirs for organising a function to celebrate what he called a kafir festival. But we refused to relent.
By this time, a number of educated Bohra youth, thoroughly fed-up of the corrupt ways of the Syedna and his Kothar, set up a group of their own, the Bohra Youth Association, to work for the educational and empowerment of the community. To help Bohra families establish and expand their businesses, we established the Udaipur Urban Cooperative Bank. This the Syedna took as a threat to him and his authority, and he issued a farman calling for the banning of both our association and the bank. He even sent a letter to the Reserve Bank of India, asking it to inquire into our bank's affairs. The Reserve Bank sent a team and found that the allegations against the bank were false, and they gave us a certificate of approval. Now the bank is one of the most successful cooperative banks in Rajasthan, with more than a dozen branches. So, the Syedna's machinations to stop the mounting resentment against him within the community failed.
Then, the Syedna used the most dangerous weapon that he has in his armoury—baraat, or excommunication. He declared that all of us—several dozen people—to be out of the Bohra fold. No Bohras could have any social relations with us. We could no longer even meet our relatives, not even speak to them on the phone. He even ordered that our marriages had been dissolved, and so dozens of men and women who dared to challenge his authority were automatically divorced. We were banned from the Bohra mosques. He issued a farman saying that no Bohra could pray in a Bohra mosque without his permission or raza, and this rule continues till today. And, to strengthen his control over the community he declared that he was the sole trustee of all the many Bohra trusts all over India. Shortly after, in order to deviously project himself as a pious Muslim, and also to drive a wedge between the reformists and his followers, he issued a fatwa making it mandatory for all Bohra men to wear a special sort of cap and for Bohra women to wear a distinctive form of burqa, although this was not the case before.
For several years we reformists here in Udaipur were faced with heinous oppression. Numerous Bohra businesses were destroyed as employees who dared to question the Syedna's dictatorship were forcibly thrown out of their jobs. Scored of Bohras were denied the right to be buried in Bohra cemeteries, and there were several cases in which the police had to be called in to allow deceased Bohras to be buried. Three times curfew had to be imposed to prevent clashes in the town as the Syedna's cronies attacked us.
By the early 1980s, news of the reformist struggle in Udaipur spread to other parts of India. Elsewhwere too, increasing numbers of Bohras were fed up of the corrupt ways of the Syedna. Some of them dared to speak out, and were inevitably excommunicated. But the vast majority were and are forced into silence for fear of being ex-communicated, although they know well the rampant corruption of the Syedna and his establishment.
To spearhead the Bohra reformist struggle, every three years the Central Board of the Dawoodi Bohra Community, the international body of reformist Bohras, of which I am the Vice-President, organises a conference to campaign against the corruption of the Bohra priesthood. Because of the vast political and financial clout that the Syedna wields, political parties and the media are loathe to touch him. But we have to continue to speak out.
Q: The Syedna is regarded by the Bohras as dai-e mutlaq, or absolute guide of the community, and you say that he is misusing this position to enrich himself. Is this a new development? Doesn't the very position of dai-e mutlaq lend itself to abuse because of the totalitarian powers that go with it?
A: The Bohras believe that before their 21st Imam went into seclusion, he established the institution of dai-e mutlaq to protect the community and to guide its affairs at a time when the Ismailis were being hounded by their Sunni opponents as heretics. In that historical context, the institution of dai played a key role in keeping the community together. It implied merely religious control, but the present Syedna's father, the 51st dai, Tahir Saifuddin, changed it to mean total control over every aspect of the Bohras' lives. He claimed to be 'the master of their lives and properties' (jan-o-mal ka malik)! And the present dai continues in that tradition set by his father. This is what we are against. We say that this is a total abuse of the position of dai, that this is a new innovation that has no sanction in our religion. What we are saying is that the Syedna has deviated from our religion, that we want the dai to be our religious leader but not to exceed the bounds of a dai, in accordance with the established principles of our faith. But the Syedna and his cronies persist in spreading misinformation about us, wrongly accusing us of being against religion, and of being heretics.
To set the record straight, corruption among the dais did not start with Syedna Burhanuddin. The story goes back to the 47th dai, Abdul Qadir Najmuddin, who established the hereditary rule of a single family that still continues. He was the great-grandfather of Burhanuddin. There are terrible stories alleging how he came to power by removing the 46th dai. Some even claim that the 46th dai was poisoned. Corruption and rampant nepotism began with Najmuddin, who filled the Kothar with his men. The 51st dai, Tahir Saifuddin, father of Burhanuddin, went to enormous lengths in corruption. He dispossessed rich Bohras of their wealth. He even commanded the Bohras to prostrate before him, although sajda or prostration is, in Islam, meant for God alone. In a statement before the Bombay High Court, he even declared, in complete violation of Islam, that he was God on earth (ilah ul-ard). Scores of irate Bohras instituted cases in the courts against him for his corrupt practices.
In Tahir Saifuddin's time, between the two world wars, a small number of Bohras witnessed considerable economic prosperity. Some of them won lucrative government contracts. Many migrated abroad and prospered. And so, new avenues were opened to Tahir Saifuddin to make money. He imposed new taxes on the Bohras, many of which have no sanction whatsoever in Islam. Today, the Bohras have to cough up money to the priests, to the Syedna and his amils or representatives, on every conceivable occasion, including birth, marriage or opening a new business. If they refuse, they can easily be excommunicated. Tahir Saifuddin, and then, after him, his son Burhanuddin, have become immensely rich in this way. Burhanuddin lives and behaves like a king. He styles his sons as shehzadas or 'princes', and his daughters as shehzadis or 'princesses'. This has no sanction at all in our religion. Burhanuddin's extended family is almost 1000 in number, and most of them are exceedingly rich. But this is not their hard-earned money. Rather, they have fattened on the taxes they extract from the Bohras, for which they refuse to provide the community with accounts. They care nothing at all for the poor in the community, who, too, are forced to part with their money. This entire family, which was once poor, now has assets worth thousands of crores! I can't even begin to explain and recount the terrible, criminal scandals, financial and moral, of the family.
Faced with the challenge of the reformists, Burhanuddin once in a while makes a big show of donating some small sums of money ostensibly to the poor, but most of even this meagre amount does not reach the intended beneficiaries because the money is eaten up by his henchmen, particularly the amils, whom he has appointed in every town where Bohras live.
Q: You have been struggling for years to highlight the oppression and corruption of the Bohra priesthood. What has the reaction to your struggle been from political parties? Have they supported the cause?
A: Political parties are simply too scared of taking on the Syedna. In fact, there must certainly be some sort of give-and-take, including exchange of money, between the Syedna and various political parties, a relationship that works both ways. In this way, the Syedna keeps the parties happy and they refuse to take any action against him, despite clear evidence of his oppression ad corruption. They remain silent on the enormous corruption in the Bohra priesthood for fear of losing Bohra votes. It is common knowledge that the Syedna has a very good relationship even with Narendra Modi, the man behind the 2002 Gujarat anti-Muslim genocide.
Let me illustrate my claim about the give-and-take relationship between the Syedna and political parties with an anecdote. Many years ago, when VP Singh was a Minister in Rajiv Gandhi's cabinet, a delegation of Bohra reformists went to meet him. He very categorically told the delegation that parties give many influential Sunni Muslim maulvis money and, in turn, the latter supply them with Muslim votes, but that the case of the Bohras was exceptional—in their case, the Syedna provided parties with both money and votes.
Q: I am always struck by the fact that while the Quran stridently opposes the institution of priesthood, the maulvis, who function like clergy or priests, continue to enjoy a vast influence among Muslims. Of course, in the Bohra case this is even more extreme than among the Sunnis. How do you account for this?
A: In the Sunni case, part of the reason for this has to do with widespread illiteracy and poverty, and the consequent lack of true knowledge of Islam. So, people blindly believe, without thinking, whatever they maulvis tell them, wrongly taking that to be the real Islam. Many maulvis conveniently twist religion to bolster their own authority and worldly interests. It's all a question of their vested interests, not piety. If people understood Islam really as it is, they would know how important it is to think for themselves—the Quran repeatedly stresses this. They would know that Islam does not countenance priesthood. But many mullahs don't want people to know all this as it would undermine their authority. And so they conveniently distort Islamic teachings to suit themselves. They do not want people to understand Islam as it really is. This is not a new development, of course. It goes back to early times, when people started fabricating hadith reports on a massive scale and falsely attributed them to the Prophet simply in order to promote their vested interests. Lamentably, when the reformists point all this out, they are quickly branded by the clerics as heretics, simply because what we say undermines their authority and worldly interests.
Q: If, as you allege, the present Syedna is so terribly oppressive and corrupt, why don't the reformists simply leave the Dawoodi Bohra community, especially given the fact that most Dawoodi Bohras, despite possibly being aware of all this, still regard him as their religious leader and so will probably not support your cause?
A: That is precisely what the Syedna wants, because if we take such a step we will cease to be Dawoodi Bohras and then shall have no standing or right to criticise his ways from within. In this way, Burhanuddin he can continue with his dictatorial and corrupt ways free of any internal pressure. We reformers are followers of our religious tradition and are pained to see how it is being misused. Why should we abandon our faith just because some people are misusing it? Instead of seceding from our community, like some dissenting groups have in the past, we want to reform it from within. That is why we say that we recognise Syedna Burhanuddin as the dai-e mutlaq, but we insist that he should not exceed the limits of the dai-e mutlaq by claiming, as he does, to be the 'master of our lives and property'. Instead, as in the case of the dais before the 47th dai, he should confine himself to purely religious roles. He must cease forthwith the un-Islamic taxes he imposes on us and the financial scandals, which have turned him and his vast family into billionaires. He should give us proper accounts as to how the enormous wealth that he earns from us is being used. He must also cease un-Islamic practices such as forcing Bohras to prostrate before him and claiming that if without his assistance or if we incur his wrath, Bohras will be doomed to hell. We refuse to stop speaking out because Islam tells us to stand up for what is right and true and to denounce oppression, even if some people wrongly seek to justify oppression in its name.
A regular columnist for NewAgeIslam.com, Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion at the National Law School, Bangalore.
URL:
http://www.newageislam.com/interview/on ... eeb/d/4166
Re: Criticism of Burhanuddin: A Legacy of oppression
Mr shezada; since the inception of this web site there have been an abundant flow of the attrocities of the clergy which is even on going today. The illiterate as well as the educated are followers of this cult. Let us chanel our energies on how to teach thwe illiterate and educate the educated between right and wrong.
man has been given the freedom of choice. At every step, in every round of life, he has the freedom to choose. Freedom entails responsibility. Man is responsible for the choice he makes. God is not involved.
man has been given the freedom of choice. At every step, in every round of life, he has the freedom to choose. Freedom entails responsibility. Man is responsible for the choice he makes. God is not involved.
Re: Criticism of Burhanuddin: A Legacy of oppression
Our lives is filled with struggles. But the Dai's and his family are given everything without any struggle. This create the laziness in them. They even stop using their brains. They become so selfish and insensitive to the hard life of poor, old and deserving. This is the major building block of the lives of Kothar and Dais. We on the other end work and strive for what we achieve. They will remain stupid and lazy forever. It will make them ungrateful and unhappy. Ghanu Jewo so that you can achieve nothing but pain. It shows upon their Noorani Chehra.
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fustrate_Bohra
- Posts: 678
- Joined: Mon Nov 25, 2013 6:46 am
RTI against Syedna
State honours, Tricolour for Syedna : What for ?
February 27, 2014
Funeral procession of Dr Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin
Funeral procession of Dr Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin
Akela
A right to information activist (RTI) Manoranjan Roy has complained against Maharashtra state government for giving state funeral with police honour, covering dead body with national flag of one-million strong Dawoodi Bohra community’s 52nd spiritual head, Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin. Roy has threatened that if government failed to take appropriate action on responsible person, he will be left with no option, but to knock the door of High Court.
Syedna, 102, passed away on January 17, 2014 around 2.30am after a heart attack in Saify Mahal (his house in Malabar Hill). He was buried on January 18 in the renowned Raudat Tahera, the mausoleum which has the Syedna’s father’s Syedna Taher Saifuddin’s tomb, in Bhendi Bazaar area of South Mumbai which is community-dominated. At least 70,000 mourners-across 40 countries-attended the funeral of their spiritual leader. According to Roy he saw on television that Burhanuddin’s dead body was covered with national flag and was given state funeral with police honour.
RTI activist Manoranjan Roy
On January 20, 2014 Roy filed an RTI application (copy with ABI) in Public Information Officer (PIO) in Chief Minister and Chief Secretary’s office, Mantralaya, Mumbai. Roy demanded copy of permission given to cover the dead body of Burhanuddin with national flag.
On January 24, PIO replied (copy available with ABI) that matter does not relate to his office. Hence his office has forwarded application to concerned department.
“As per my knowledge Burhanuddin other than only being a spiritual leader of a particular community and he had no other achievement of eminence, nor had he done nothing for the nation. Then why he was given state funeral with police honor? I was shocked. I decided to know the facts,” said Roy.
On Feburary18, 2014 general administration (protocol) department replied (copy available with ABI) that on January 17, deputy secretary, Ajay Ambekar has informed in writing to Commissioner of police, Mumbai that state government has decided to accord state funeral with police honour to Sydneha. Ambekar has also forwarded order copy to the secretary of the governor, Raj Bhavan, The additional Chief Secretary to the Chief Minister, Mantralaya, The Secretary to the deputy Chief Minister, Mantralaya and The Collector, Mumbai.
The activist found that the reply given to him is not on an official Letterhead as the national emblem is not displayed on it, and has two mistakes , Firstly January 18 ,was a Saturday and Ambekar has wrongly mentioned it as Tuesday.
The second error is – Ambekar states that state government’s decision copy was already sent to Additional Chief Secretary’s office but, earlier PIO replied that the matter does not relate to Additional Chief Secretary’s office and he had passed on the query to the concerned department. Then what is the truth?
On February 24, Roy complained (copy available with ABI) to Pranab Mukherjee, President of India, Sushil Shinde, Central Home Minister, Governor of Maharashtra and Chief Minister of Maharashtra demanding action on responsible person. Roy has threatened that if authorities failed to take action in 30 days, he will file suit in Bombay High Court.
State funerals have long been an honour reserved for those holding constitutional posts, besides ex-prime ministers and ex-presidents. If proved that proper procedures were not followed in conferring state funeral to Sydnea, the policy will be termed as discriminatory and will be termed as appeasement policy by many.
This would not only result in more and more community leaders asking for state funeral for their religion guru’s but would dilute the sanctity attached to the honour.
Community Speaks
“What can I say (comment) on this. Ask them (government) who has awarded the honour. Our guru (Syedna) was Ambassador of peace. Not even Hindustan he also visited abroad for Aman-Shanti (peace) especially United Nation. He has done lots of work for social, education, health and our community. Saifee hospital in Charni Road and Bhindi Bazar redevelopment projects are their example,” said Burhanuddin’s media associate, Shaikh Qureish Raghib.
Source: http://abinet.org/state-honours-tricolo ... -what-for/
February 27, 2014
Funeral procession of Dr Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin
Funeral procession of Dr Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin
Akela
A right to information activist (RTI) Manoranjan Roy has complained against Maharashtra state government for giving state funeral with police honour, covering dead body with national flag of one-million strong Dawoodi Bohra community’s 52nd spiritual head, Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin. Roy has threatened that if government failed to take appropriate action on responsible person, he will be left with no option, but to knock the door of High Court.
Syedna, 102, passed away on January 17, 2014 around 2.30am after a heart attack in Saify Mahal (his house in Malabar Hill). He was buried on January 18 in the renowned Raudat Tahera, the mausoleum which has the Syedna’s father’s Syedna Taher Saifuddin’s tomb, in Bhendi Bazaar area of South Mumbai which is community-dominated. At least 70,000 mourners-across 40 countries-attended the funeral of their spiritual leader. According to Roy he saw on television that Burhanuddin’s dead body was covered with national flag and was given state funeral with police honour.
RTI activist Manoranjan Roy
On January 20, 2014 Roy filed an RTI application (copy with ABI) in Public Information Officer (PIO) in Chief Minister and Chief Secretary’s office, Mantralaya, Mumbai. Roy demanded copy of permission given to cover the dead body of Burhanuddin with national flag.
On January 24, PIO replied (copy available with ABI) that matter does not relate to his office. Hence his office has forwarded application to concerned department.
“As per my knowledge Burhanuddin other than only being a spiritual leader of a particular community and he had no other achievement of eminence, nor had he done nothing for the nation. Then why he was given state funeral with police honor? I was shocked. I decided to know the facts,” said Roy.
On Feburary18, 2014 general administration (protocol) department replied (copy available with ABI) that on January 17, deputy secretary, Ajay Ambekar has informed in writing to Commissioner of police, Mumbai that state government has decided to accord state funeral with police honour to Sydneha. Ambekar has also forwarded order copy to the secretary of the governor, Raj Bhavan, The additional Chief Secretary to the Chief Minister, Mantralaya, The Secretary to the deputy Chief Minister, Mantralaya and The Collector, Mumbai.
The activist found that the reply given to him is not on an official Letterhead as the national emblem is not displayed on it, and has two mistakes , Firstly January 18 ,was a Saturday and Ambekar has wrongly mentioned it as Tuesday.
The second error is – Ambekar states that state government’s decision copy was already sent to Additional Chief Secretary’s office but, earlier PIO replied that the matter does not relate to Additional Chief Secretary’s office and he had passed on the query to the concerned department. Then what is the truth?
On February 24, Roy complained (copy available with ABI) to Pranab Mukherjee, President of India, Sushil Shinde, Central Home Minister, Governor of Maharashtra and Chief Minister of Maharashtra demanding action on responsible person. Roy has threatened that if authorities failed to take action in 30 days, he will file suit in Bombay High Court.
State funerals have long been an honour reserved for those holding constitutional posts, besides ex-prime ministers and ex-presidents. If proved that proper procedures were not followed in conferring state funeral to Sydnea, the policy will be termed as discriminatory and will be termed as appeasement policy by many.
This would not only result in more and more community leaders asking for state funeral for their religion guru’s but would dilute the sanctity attached to the honour.
Community Speaks
“What can I say (comment) on this. Ask them (government) who has awarded the honour. Our guru (Syedna) was Ambassador of peace. Not even Hindustan he also visited abroad for Aman-Shanti (peace) especially United Nation. He has done lots of work for social, education, health and our community. Saifee hospital in Charni Road and Bhindi Bazar redevelopment projects are their example,” said Burhanuddin’s media associate, Shaikh Qureish Raghib.
Source: http://abinet.org/state-honours-tricolo ... -what-for/
Last edited by fustrate_Bohra on Tue Apr 22, 2014 3:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: RTI against Sayedna
one more proof of muffys stupidity, there was no need of Indian flag, kale matus shadat was the right thing to put on late syedna's janaza.
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fustrate_Bohra
- Posts: 678
- Joined: Mon Nov 25, 2013 6:46 am
Re: Developments during the era of 52nd Dai
I think this thread will also go unanswered like Quality(ies) of Muffy.Akhtiar Wahid wrote:Members of this forum please list out developments and welfare in our community done by 52nd Dai Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin (RA)
"i need some optimistic responses"
Re: Developments during the era of 52nd Dai
you mean development of his extended family?
here are their development
1)those guys married beautiful babes and have few hundred kid's
2)own houses in expensive locations of europe and india/srilanka
3)gained lot of weight due to free meals from last 100 years
4)they have few millions in swiss accounts
5)expensive cars and expensive perfumes are regular for them
6)first class flights are normal for them
7)they have few rooms full of expensive gifts and gold
here are their development
1)those guys married beautiful babes and have few hundred kid's
2)own houses in expensive locations of europe and india/srilanka
3)gained lot of weight due to free meals from last 100 years
4)they have few millions in swiss accounts
5)expensive cars and expensive perfumes are regular for them
6)first class flights are normal for them
7)they have few rooms full of expensive gifts and gold
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ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: The legacy of Sayedna Mohammed Burhanuddin
This reminds one of the utterly confusing Nass episodemustansir_g wrote:The activist found that the reply given to him is not on an official Letterhead as the national emblem is not displayed on it, and has two mistakes , Firstly January 18 ,was a Saturday and Ambekar has wrongly mentioned it as Tuesday.
Re: The Tyrant who rules over the Dawoodi Bohras
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2011/06/ ... ohras.html
The Tyrant who rules over the Dawoodi Bohras
Dawoodi Bohras have always been known for their business gene. But few know they are being choked by a tyrannical and all-powerful religious head. Anumeha Yadav reports how every attempt to rein him in is crushed
THE BOHRA Muslims have always been read through a dominant stereotype: their capacity for business. That’s probably one reason why even chief minister Narendra Modi has found it convenient to reach out to them as part of his PR measures to improve his scoreboard with Muslims in Gujarat. But few Indians would know that the Dawoodi Bohras have been living with — and fighting — deeply suffocating customs under the regime of their spiritual head, the 100-year old Syedna Mohamed Burhanuddin.
This story is not a new one. Three decades ago, the Janata Party-led government in Gujarat allowed the Nathwani Commission, set up by then PM Morarji Desai, to examine complaints of civil rights violations by the Syedna. But even after 1979, when the commission published its findings, the priest and his family have continued to wield overwhelming power over the community through the threats of baraat (community boycott), of denying ruqo chitthi (a letter obtained from the Syedna at a hefty sum so that the dead may enter heaven) and seven kinds of taxes arbitrarily levied on all, including foetuses.
This February, when the Syedna turned 100, one of his seven sons, Huzefa Mohiuddin, walked in for the celebrations in Ahmedabad with Chief Minister Narendra Modi and BJP leaders Vijay Rupani, Asit Vohra and Jayanti Barot. Inside the brightly- lit hall, Mohiuddin praised governance in ‘vibrant Gujarat’. Modi related anecdotes about his closeness with the Syedna over the years. Cell phone cameras clicked. Jointly holding the knife, Modi and Mohiuddin cut a cake to chants of Allaho- Akbar, and congratulated each other.
Modi’s attempts to appear more palatable to minorities by playing footsie with this sect are fairly recent. But those Bohras, who have been trying to resist the Syedna’s chokehold over their civil rights, say they have for decades witnessed their priest grow more powerful with covert support from various state and Central governments and corporate giants. Political expediency takes precedence over reform. (See pictures on next page)
Dawoodi Bohras are predominantly traders concentrated in western India — Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra — and Madhya Pradesh. The men wear distinctive white-and-gold caps while the women wear colourful burqas called rida.
They believe their Imam represents the Prophet on earth and that their 21st Imam had to go into exile in the 12th century. The Syedna, appointed hereditarily since the present Syedna’s grandfather’s time, is supposed to be the spiritual representative in the Imam’s absence.
Blind faith The Syedna, at 100 years, commands a large following that keeps the faith — mostly out of fear
Udaipur has been a centre of reformist struggle since the early 1970s, when a section of Bohras defied the Syedna’s choice of candidates to nominate their own candidates in civic elections. In Bohrwadi, Udaipur, sitting in the reformist Dawoodi Bohra Youth Association office, Zehra Naaz, in her mid-40s, describes how the Syedna’s men attacked a Moharram majlis (assembly) at Moiyyadpura mosque in 1975. “They pushed me from the second floor. I was 14,” she recalls. Her spine was damaged so badly that she could not stand up for two years, having to drop out of school. Now, when the call for the namaz is heard at the mosque at 2 pm, the reformists are confined to a small enclosure.
The Syedna, who claims ownership over the minds and bodies of his followers as well as all communal property, staked claim to the mosque, the largest of eight in the city, in an Udaipur civil court in 1984. When a violent clash broke out during Ramzan in 2004, the administration divided the prayer hall. Reformists got a small portion behind iron bars.
“The Syedna insists that all mosques and communal property be vested in him rather than waqf boards. Last September, through an RTI, we found that he and his coterie submitted a forged certificate in 2000 to the municipal corporation to get permits for new properties,” says Yusuf Ali RG, a reformist whose father defied the Syedna. The family has been socially boycotted on the Syedna’s orders since.
Bohras need the Syedna’s permission to start a school, a charity, marry, even bury their dead
Reformists say the Syedna runs a parallel autocratic government. All Dawoodi Bohras, including those in the US, UK, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Indonesia, Thailand and the Gulf, must pay taxes to the Syedna but cannot ask what is done with the money. They need the Syedna’s permission to establish charities, start a school, marry, even to bury their dead. “The priest charges Rs 2-10 lakh for permission for burial in Bohra cemeteries even when the land is leased from the municipal corporation. The Bohras cannot have what the Constitution allows them because we need the Syedna’s permission for everything,” says Asghar Ali Engineer, a Mumbai-based reformer, who says he accepts the institution of the Syedna, but is fighting for civil rights.
Taxes and control of finances of charities or trusts form the financial basis of the Syedna’s empire. The 1979 commission, led by retired judges NP Nathwani and VM Tarkunde, pointed out, “All trust properties of the community are at the Syedna’s disposal, whether he is legally the sole trustee or not. Thus, he can take decisions as to the application of the income of any trust for such purposes as he considers charitable. Any person challenging his decision has to face the consequences.”
THE COMMISSION’S estimate was that trusts the Syedna controlled in Maharashtra alone were worth Rs 50 crore. It recommended that these trusts be regulated by laws similar to those which govern other Muslim trusts such as the Dargah Khwaja Sahab Act. Norman Contractor, a Dawoodi Bohra businessman and reformist who died in 1983, alleged that the Syedna and his family were embezzling charity funds. Reformists requested the Central government to probe financial details of two trusts headed by the Sydena — Dawat-e-Hadiya and the Syedna Taher Saifuddin Memorial Foundation — in 1977, alleging the priest was investing in industries that followers were then forced to buy shares in.
“In private, income tax authorities told us they cannot investigate this, given the pressure from higher authorities,” says Saifuddin Insaf, general secretary of the Dawoodi Bohras’ Central Board.
The government stayed silent even when the Tanzanian government expelled the Syedna for his alleged complicity in transferring money out of that country in 1967, and nine years later when Sheikh Abdul Qayum Kaderbhoy, the Bohra priest in Sri Lanka, was caught smuggling jewels in his robes by the Sri Lankan government.
Anil Ambani Mukesh Ambani Prithviraj Chavan
top cop LK Advani Narendra Modi
Appeasing the gods (from left) Anil Ambani, Mukesh Ambani, Prithviraj Chavan, top cops, LK Advani and Narendra Modi pay obeisance to the Syedna. This deals a further blow to reformists’ attempts to bring transparency and democracy
Photo: AFP
In fact, 1967 was when the present Syedna imposed a new Constitution on the community. He took over all secular powers vested in local panchayat-like councils, the jamaat. On reaching puberty, a child must take misaaq, an oath of allegiance to the Syedna. With this oath, he signs off all his rights — religious and secular — and agrees that if he disobeys the Syedna, he will have to divorce his spouse, or give up his property, and be cut off from the community as the Syedna wills. This oath was originally a way to assert one’s loyalty for the Ismailis, who were part of an underground movement against the Abbasid Empire. Ironically, a custom that originated during a reform movement has become a tool in the hands of a theocracy.
A glimpse into how the Syedna operates his empire is possible from a UK government inquiry into the Dawat-e-Hadiya trust, of which he is the sole trustee. In July 2001, Charity Commission UK began investigating this public trust with an annual turnover of £2 million (approximately Rs 15 crore). The commission found that of six nominees appointed to administer the trust, four were Syedna’s sons. It ordered them to pay Rs 3 crore back to the trust because the Syedna and the nominees had made payments to themselves, violating their fiduciary responsibilities.
Besides money from taxes and public trusts, the Syedna and his appointees charge money to make appearances. A follower must pay a minimum of Rs 5,000 to apply to see the Syedna at his Mumbairesidence Shaify Mahal in Malabar Hill, where he lives with 300-odd members of his family. A mail circulated prior to Syedna’s visit to California in May asked every household to pay $14,000 ( Rs 5.6 lakh) for the Syedna’s youngest son to inaugurate a mosque in Los Angeles.
The Bohra situation is not a remnant of archaic despotism, it was exacerbated by the greater affluence that came with economic changes post-independence. The threat of social boycott has remained powerful because the community, estimated to be a little over a million, is still fairly insular, often choosing to marry and do business within the community.
“A few years after I returned from the US after completing my PhD, they declared a baraat against me for not wearing the Dawoodi Bohra dress. They asked Muslim civic organisations I was active in to expel me. They tried to target my cousin Ismail Kanga, then India’s ambassador to Yemen, to make an example of what happens if the theocracy is not obeyed,” says professor JS Bandukwala, a prominent social activist and physicist at MS University, Vadodara.
DAWOODI BOHRA l ocalities resound with stories of being threatened, ostracised, beaten and in some instances even being driven to suicide. “My siblings, my relatives, neighbours, everyone stopped talking to me. Some Bohras even tried to burn the house I lived in with my aged mother,” says Zehra Cyclewallah, who lived under police protection in Surat for 14 years after going to court against the Syedna.
Cyclewallah invited the priest’s wrath when she refused to step down as manager of a cooperative bank that the Syedna first inaugurated and then several years later tried to shut down with a fatwa, accusing it of charging interest. The priest and his coterie had similarly tried to shut down Bombay Mercantile Cooperative Bank in Mumbai in 1982. The chairman of the bank, Hoseini Doctor, had then accused the priestly family of trying to gain control of the bank by forcing Bohra employees in the bank to resign or face a social boycott.
Recognising that social boycott is a weapon to deprive Dawoodi Bohras of their constitutional rights, the Bombay State Legislature had passed the Prevention of Excommunication Act in 1948. The Bombay High Court upheld the law but in 1961, a four-member Bench of the Supreme Court accepted the Syedna’s contention that excommunication on religious ground was his prerogative. In a dissenting judgment, then Chief Justice Sinha expressed his discomfort with the judgment. “I am not satisfied that the right to excommunication is a purely religious matter… one is inclined to think that the position of an excommunicated person becomes that of an untouchable,” he remarked. Reformists’ appealed for a review of the verdict but a hearing has been pending for 15 years.
The Syedna, who is the wealthiest of all Muslim clergy, has used his ties with Muslim leaders to serve his own ends, resisting any government scrutiny by raising the bogey of interference in minority culture. In cities with a history of reform within the community such as Udaipur, reformists’ numbers have dwindled. Even former leaders such as Ghulam Hussain, a former president of reformist Bohra Youth Association, have had to apologise and seek refuge with the Syedna.
“If they don’t obey the Syedna, they are not Dawoodi Bohras. Our trusts are run as per India’s laws,” says Quresh Ragib, the Syedna’s public relations officer.
Engineer, who led the movement despite six incidents of physical attacks, including a stabbing attempt in 1976, reels off a list of the high and mighty to whom he appealed to end the Syedna’s chokehold. “Indira Gandhi, Zail Singh, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, VP Singh, Rajiv Gandhi. I stopped trying after Narasimha Rao,” he says. He acknowledges that the underground movement is dead. “Hundreds used to collect in secret meetings in Ahmedabad, Indore, Kolkata. Now 10-15 people turn up. They say they are sympathisers but the fear of punishment is too great,” he says.
If the movement is completely snuffed out, what do the reformists ultimately lose? “The freedom to do what our conscience says, to live with dignity,” he says.
Anumeha Yadav is a Senior Correspondent with Tehelka.
anumeha@tehelka.com
The Tyrant who rules over the Dawoodi Bohras
Dawoodi Bohras have always been known for their business gene. But few know they are being choked by a tyrannical and all-powerful religious head. Anumeha Yadav reports how every attempt to rein him in is crushed
THE BOHRA Muslims have always been read through a dominant stereotype: their capacity for business. That’s probably one reason why even chief minister Narendra Modi has found it convenient to reach out to them as part of his PR measures to improve his scoreboard with Muslims in Gujarat. But few Indians would know that the Dawoodi Bohras have been living with — and fighting — deeply suffocating customs under the regime of their spiritual head, the 100-year old Syedna Mohamed Burhanuddin.
This story is not a new one. Three decades ago, the Janata Party-led government in Gujarat allowed the Nathwani Commission, set up by then PM Morarji Desai, to examine complaints of civil rights violations by the Syedna. But even after 1979, when the commission published its findings, the priest and his family have continued to wield overwhelming power over the community through the threats of baraat (community boycott), of denying ruqo chitthi (a letter obtained from the Syedna at a hefty sum so that the dead may enter heaven) and seven kinds of taxes arbitrarily levied on all, including foetuses.
This February, when the Syedna turned 100, one of his seven sons, Huzefa Mohiuddin, walked in for the celebrations in Ahmedabad with Chief Minister Narendra Modi and BJP leaders Vijay Rupani, Asit Vohra and Jayanti Barot. Inside the brightly- lit hall, Mohiuddin praised governance in ‘vibrant Gujarat’. Modi related anecdotes about his closeness with the Syedna over the years. Cell phone cameras clicked. Jointly holding the knife, Modi and Mohiuddin cut a cake to chants of Allaho- Akbar, and congratulated each other.
Modi’s attempts to appear more palatable to minorities by playing footsie with this sect are fairly recent. But those Bohras, who have been trying to resist the Syedna’s chokehold over their civil rights, say they have for decades witnessed their priest grow more powerful with covert support from various state and Central governments and corporate giants. Political expediency takes precedence over reform. (See pictures on next page)
Dawoodi Bohras are predominantly traders concentrated in western India — Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra — and Madhya Pradesh. The men wear distinctive white-and-gold caps while the women wear colourful burqas called rida.
They believe their Imam represents the Prophet on earth and that their 21st Imam had to go into exile in the 12th century. The Syedna, appointed hereditarily since the present Syedna’s grandfather’s time, is supposed to be the spiritual representative in the Imam’s absence.
Blind faith The Syedna, at 100 years, commands a large following that keeps the faith — mostly out of fear
Udaipur has been a centre of reformist struggle since the early 1970s, when a section of Bohras defied the Syedna’s choice of candidates to nominate their own candidates in civic elections. In Bohrwadi, Udaipur, sitting in the reformist Dawoodi Bohra Youth Association office, Zehra Naaz, in her mid-40s, describes how the Syedna’s men attacked a Moharram majlis (assembly) at Moiyyadpura mosque in 1975. “They pushed me from the second floor. I was 14,” she recalls. Her spine was damaged so badly that she could not stand up for two years, having to drop out of school. Now, when the call for the namaz is heard at the mosque at 2 pm, the reformists are confined to a small enclosure.
The Syedna, who claims ownership over the minds and bodies of his followers as well as all communal property, staked claim to the mosque, the largest of eight in the city, in an Udaipur civil court in 1984. When a violent clash broke out during Ramzan in 2004, the administration divided the prayer hall. Reformists got a small portion behind iron bars.
“The Syedna insists that all mosques and communal property be vested in him rather than waqf boards. Last September, through an RTI, we found that he and his coterie submitted a forged certificate in 2000 to the municipal corporation to get permits for new properties,” says Yusuf Ali RG, a reformist whose father defied the Syedna. The family has been socially boycotted on the Syedna’s orders since.
Bohras need the Syedna’s permission to start a school, a charity, marry, even bury their dead
Reformists say the Syedna runs a parallel autocratic government. All Dawoodi Bohras, including those in the US, UK, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Indonesia, Thailand and the Gulf, must pay taxes to the Syedna but cannot ask what is done with the money. They need the Syedna’s permission to establish charities, start a school, marry, even to bury their dead. “The priest charges Rs 2-10 lakh for permission for burial in Bohra cemeteries even when the land is leased from the municipal corporation. The Bohras cannot have what the Constitution allows them because we need the Syedna’s permission for everything,” says Asghar Ali Engineer, a Mumbai-based reformer, who says he accepts the institution of the Syedna, but is fighting for civil rights.
Taxes and control of finances of charities or trusts form the financial basis of the Syedna’s empire. The 1979 commission, led by retired judges NP Nathwani and VM Tarkunde, pointed out, “All trust properties of the community are at the Syedna’s disposal, whether he is legally the sole trustee or not. Thus, he can take decisions as to the application of the income of any trust for such purposes as he considers charitable. Any person challenging his decision has to face the consequences.”
THE COMMISSION’S estimate was that trusts the Syedna controlled in Maharashtra alone were worth Rs 50 crore. It recommended that these trusts be regulated by laws similar to those which govern other Muslim trusts such as the Dargah Khwaja Sahab Act. Norman Contractor, a Dawoodi Bohra businessman and reformist who died in 1983, alleged that the Syedna and his family were embezzling charity funds. Reformists requested the Central government to probe financial details of two trusts headed by the Sydena — Dawat-e-Hadiya and the Syedna Taher Saifuddin Memorial Foundation — in 1977, alleging the priest was investing in industries that followers were then forced to buy shares in.
“In private, income tax authorities told us they cannot investigate this, given the pressure from higher authorities,” says Saifuddin Insaf, general secretary of the Dawoodi Bohras’ Central Board.
The government stayed silent even when the Tanzanian government expelled the Syedna for his alleged complicity in transferring money out of that country in 1967, and nine years later when Sheikh Abdul Qayum Kaderbhoy, the Bohra priest in Sri Lanka, was caught smuggling jewels in his robes by the Sri Lankan government.
Anil Ambani Mukesh Ambani Prithviraj Chavan
top cop LK Advani Narendra Modi
Appeasing the gods (from left) Anil Ambani, Mukesh Ambani, Prithviraj Chavan, top cops, LK Advani and Narendra Modi pay obeisance to the Syedna. This deals a further blow to reformists’ attempts to bring transparency and democracy
Photo: AFP
In fact, 1967 was when the present Syedna imposed a new Constitution on the community. He took over all secular powers vested in local panchayat-like councils, the jamaat. On reaching puberty, a child must take misaaq, an oath of allegiance to the Syedna. With this oath, he signs off all his rights — religious and secular — and agrees that if he disobeys the Syedna, he will have to divorce his spouse, or give up his property, and be cut off from the community as the Syedna wills. This oath was originally a way to assert one’s loyalty for the Ismailis, who were part of an underground movement against the Abbasid Empire. Ironically, a custom that originated during a reform movement has become a tool in the hands of a theocracy.
A glimpse into how the Syedna operates his empire is possible from a UK government inquiry into the Dawat-e-Hadiya trust, of which he is the sole trustee. In July 2001, Charity Commission UK began investigating this public trust with an annual turnover of £2 million (approximately Rs 15 crore). The commission found that of six nominees appointed to administer the trust, four were Syedna’s sons. It ordered them to pay Rs 3 crore back to the trust because the Syedna and the nominees had made payments to themselves, violating their fiduciary responsibilities.
Besides money from taxes and public trusts, the Syedna and his appointees charge money to make appearances. A follower must pay a minimum of Rs 5,000 to apply to see the Syedna at his Mumbairesidence Shaify Mahal in Malabar Hill, where he lives with 300-odd members of his family. A mail circulated prior to Syedna’s visit to California in May asked every household to pay $14,000 ( Rs 5.6 lakh) for the Syedna’s youngest son to inaugurate a mosque in Los Angeles.
The Bohra situation is not a remnant of archaic despotism, it was exacerbated by the greater affluence that came with economic changes post-independence. The threat of social boycott has remained powerful because the community, estimated to be a little over a million, is still fairly insular, often choosing to marry and do business within the community.
“A few years after I returned from the US after completing my PhD, they declared a baraat against me for not wearing the Dawoodi Bohra dress. They asked Muslim civic organisations I was active in to expel me. They tried to target my cousin Ismail Kanga, then India’s ambassador to Yemen, to make an example of what happens if the theocracy is not obeyed,” says professor JS Bandukwala, a prominent social activist and physicist at MS University, Vadodara.
DAWOODI BOHRA l ocalities resound with stories of being threatened, ostracised, beaten and in some instances even being driven to suicide. “My siblings, my relatives, neighbours, everyone stopped talking to me. Some Bohras even tried to burn the house I lived in with my aged mother,” says Zehra Cyclewallah, who lived under police protection in Surat for 14 years after going to court against the Syedna.
Cyclewallah invited the priest’s wrath when she refused to step down as manager of a cooperative bank that the Syedna first inaugurated and then several years later tried to shut down with a fatwa, accusing it of charging interest. The priest and his coterie had similarly tried to shut down Bombay Mercantile Cooperative Bank in Mumbai in 1982. The chairman of the bank, Hoseini Doctor, had then accused the priestly family of trying to gain control of the bank by forcing Bohra employees in the bank to resign or face a social boycott.
Recognising that social boycott is a weapon to deprive Dawoodi Bohras of their constitutional rights, the Bombay State Legislature had passed the Prevention of Excommunication Act in 1948. The Bombay High Court upheld the law but in 1961, a four-member Bench of the Supreme Court accepted the Syedna’s contention that excommunication on religious ground was his prerogative. In a dissenting judgment, then Chief Justice Sinha expressed his discomfort with the judgment. “I am not satisfied that the right to excommunication is a purely religious matter… one is inclined to think that the position of an excommunicated person becomes that of an untouchable,” he remarked. Reformists’ appealed for a review of the verdict but a hearing has been pending for 15 years.
The Syedna, who is the wealthiest of all Muslim clergy, has used his ties with Muslim leaders to serve his own ends, resisting any government scrutiny by raising the bogey of interference in minority culture. In cities with a history of reform within the community such as Udaipur, reformists’ numbers have dwindled. Even former leaders such as Ghulam Hussain, a former president of reformist Bohra Youth Association, have had to apologise and seek refuge with the Syedna.
“If they don’t obey the Syedna, they are not Dawoodi Bohras. Our trusts are run as per India’s laws,” says Quresh Ragib, the Syedna’s public relations officer.
Engineer, who led the movement despite six incidents of physical attacks, including a stabbing attempt in 1976, reels off a list of the high and mighty to whom he appealed to end the Syedna’s chokehold. “Indira Gandhi, Zail Singh, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, VP Singh, Rajiv Gandhi. I stopped trying after Narasimha Rao,” he says. He acknowledges that the underground movement is dead. “Hundreds used to collect in secret meetings in Ahmedabad, Indore, Kolkata. Now 10-15 people turn up. They say they are sympathisers but the fear of punishment is too great,” he says.
If the movement is completely snuffed out, what do the reformists ultimately lose? “The freedom to do what our conscience says, to live with dignity,” he says.
Anumeha Yadav is a Senior Correspondent with Tehelka.
anumeha@tehelka.com
Re: Criticism of Burhanuddin: A Legacy of oppression
A apple doesn't fall far from the tree. No big difference in 51st, 52nd and 53rd.
Re: Criticism of Burhanuddin: A Legacy of oppression
Reform movement gathers forces in the Bohra community
Charges against Bohra religious head range from tyranny to corruption
Yoginder Sikand
Bengaluru
With a population of just over a million, the Dawoodi Bohras are ethnic Gujaratis, mostly small traders. Last month, when 3,000 Dawoodi Bohras gathered at Udaipur for their 14th world conference, the thrust was on galvanising the ongoing movement against what the organisers described as the draconian rule of their spiritual head or dai-e-mutlaq, Syedna Burhanuddin.
The Dawoodis are one of the many branches of the Ismaili Shia sect. Throughout their history, the Ismailis have faced dissensions over succession to the post of Imam, whom they believe to be appointed by God as the Prophet’s deputy. The Dawoodis believe that their 21st Imam, Tayyeb, who resided in Yemen, went into seclusion, and that in his absence he had appointed a dai-e-mutlaq, a deputy with absolute powers over his followers, to control the community.
Faced with violent opposition from Sunni Muslims, the Dawoodi branch of the Ismailis carried on an underground religio-political movement in Yemen. But when Sunni opposition became severe, the 24th dai shifted to Gujarat. Following this, missionaries of the sect made numerous converts in Gujarat, particularly among Lohana traders (called Bohras in Gujarati). The Dawoodi Bohras, the largest of the various Bohra groups, are followers of the 27th dai.
The present dai, Syedna Burhanuddin, is the 52nd in line. Today, he finds himself in the centre of a brewing controversy, faced with angry protests from reformist Bohras amidst allegations of corruption.
Related
Udaipur Bohra Conf reinforces will to reform
A case, Sirs, for Muslim quotas in AP
Deoband power struggle
In his address to the Udaipur conference, noted Islamic scholar Asghar Ali Engineer, general secretary of the Central Board of the Dawoodi Bohra Community, recounted how the Syedna and his cronies have consistently sought to scuttle the reformist movement, not hesitating to use force in many cases. In an interview with this writer, Engineer spoke of the total control that the Syedna imposes on his followers, including demanding that they prostrate before him, although in Islam prostration is to be made only before God.
He referred to Burhanuddin’s father, Tahir Saifuddin, the 51st dai-e-mutlaq, who in a statement made in the Bombay High Court even declared himself to be “God on earth” (Ilah-ul-ard), a claim that is unambiguously unIslamic. He added that the Bohras are made to believe, quite contrary to Islamic teachings, that entry to heaven is dependent entirely on the Syedna’s goodwill.
The chief guest of the conference, social activist Medha Patkar, linked the struggle of the Bohra reformists to the wider struggle for social justice, stressing the need for internal democracy within religious communities and for challenging the autocracy of self-styled religious heads.
Syed Shahid Mehdi, former vice- chancellor of Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia, characterised the Syedna’s dictatorial powers over the Bohras as ‘religious apartheid’. Tahir Mahmood, former chairman of the National Minorities Commission, castigated the Syedna for making exorbitant demands on the Bohras and for allegedly making claims for himself that even the Prophet Muhammad had never done.
Noting how the reformist Bohras were being hounded by the Syedna for speaking out against their oppression, he called for a law to protect religious dissenters.
Over three days, dozens of Bohras expressed their anguish at the oppressive practices of the Syedna and his vast family of around a thousand members. Abid Adeeb, president of the Udaipur Dawoodi Bohra Jamaat, spoke of how the present Syedna levies a number of taxes on the Bohras that had no sanction in Islam.
Through his representatives or amils, he said, the Syedna extracts several crores of rupees from his followers annually, demanding payment on almost every conceivable occasion. Even prayer spaces in Bohra mosques in the month of Ramzan are now up for sale, he revealed.
He felt that opposition to the Syedna’s exploitation was mounting but those who dare to do so are immediately excommunicated. Adeeb recounted numerous cases of excommunicated dissidents being forced by the Syedna to divorce their spouses.
The reformists had taken the issue of baraat, the power of excommunication that the Syedna claimed for himself, to the courts several years ago, but the case was still pending. He noted that various political parties were hand-in-glove with the Syedna, owing to the vast economic clout that he wields and the votes he can deliver, because of which these parties are, he alleged, indifferent to demands for reform. He pointed out that the Syedna even had close links with Narendra Modi, despite the fact that Bohras, along with other Muslims, had suffered immensely in the anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002.
He also claimed that the Syedna routinely paid various Sunni Muslim institutions money so as to project himself as a pious Muslim as well as to buy their support and their silence on his un-Islamic practices and exploitative ways.
Likewise, he said, the mainstream media, which routinely sensationalises Muslim issues, had largely ignored the scandals that abound in the Bohra religious establishment. “The Syedna spends vast sums of money to place advertisements for himself in the newspapers, and I would not be surprised if the Syedna’s men pay some mediapersons hefty sums to keep off writing on the corruption of the Bohra
religious establishment or to praise the Syedna,” he added.
Zainab Bano, president of the Bohra Youth Association Udaipur, spoke of the origins of the reformist movement in Udaipur in the 1970s, recounting the torments they have had to suffer over the years as a result, including being beaten up by Burhanuddin’s men, forcibly divorced from their spouses, banned from Bohra mosques and denied access to graveyards.
She pointed out that the present Syedna had invented new titles for his sons and daughters, styling them as ‘princes’ (shehzada) and ‘princesses’ (shehzadi). He had, she added, appointed key members of his family as amils in towns with a sizable Bohra population, and many of them had amassed vast fortunes by levying a host of taxes on Bohras and through shady deals.
Saifuddin Insaf, 70, one of the pioneers of the Bohra reformist movement, and editor of the reformist journal Bohra Chronicle, traced the degeneration in the Bohra priesthood to the 47th dai, Abdul Qadir Najmuddin, great-grandfather of Syedna Burhanuddin, who had established hereditary rule.
In order to dispossess the Bohras of the numerous trusts that Bohra philanthropists had set up across the country, the present Syedna had gone so far as to claim to be their sole trustee. The reformists had challenged this claim in the courts years ago but, Insaf lamented, the verdict was still pending.
Insaf revealed that in order to impose total control on the Bohras, the Syedna insists that no Bohra can pray in a mosque or marry without his permission. “This is a complete violation of Islamic teachings. It is a tool to ensure complete slavery. If a Bohra marries without the Syedna’s permission, the marriage is considered illegal and the offspring of that union illegitimate,” he explained.
He spoke of how Tahir Saifuddin had invented a new rule demanding that every Bohra adolescent give an oath of allegiance (mithaq) to him, rather than, as in the past, to the Imam who is believed to be in seclusion. This new oath insisted on complete surrender to the Syedna’s will, and required that every Bohra declare himself to be the “slave of the Syedna” (abd-e syedna). The present Syedna, he said, continues with this mithaq, which he castigated as “wholly unIslamic”.
Next month, Burhanuddin turns 100 and lavish preparations are underway to celebrate his centenary. Conference participants revealed that instructions have been sent to every Bohra family to cough up a substantial amount of money to fund his birthday revelries. Speaker after speaker also spoke of battles behind the scenes between rival factions among Burhanuddin’s several brothers and sons to succeed him as head of the vast empire he controls once he dies since he has not as yet revealed his successor. When that happens, they do not rule out the community splintering into rival sects, which would only be in consonance with the Ismaili historical tradition.
Sikand is a sociologist and critic
http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main48 ... HRASII.asp
Charges against Bohra religious head range from tyranny to corruption
Yoginder Sikand
Bengaluru
With a population of just over a million, the Dawoodi Bohras are ethnic Gujaratis, mostly small traders. Last month, when 3,000 Dawoodi Bohras gathered at Udaipur for their 14th world conference, the thrust was on galvanising the ongoing movement against what the organisers described as the draconian rule of their spiritual head or dai-e-mutlaq, Syedna Burhanuddin.
The Dawoodis are one of the many branches of the Ismaili Shia sect. Throughout their history, the Ismailis have faced dissensions over succession to the post of Imam, whom they believe to be appointed by God as the Prophet’s deputy. The Dawoodis believe that their 21st Imam, Tayyeb, who resided in Yemen, went into seclusion, and that in his absence he had appointed a dai-e-mutlaq, a deputy with absolute powers over his followers, to control the community.
Faced with violent opposition from Sunni Muslims, the Dawoodi branch of the Ismailis carried on an underground religio-political movement in Yemen. But when Sunni opposition became severe, the 24th dai shifted to Gujarat. Following this, missionaries of the sect made numerous converts in Gujarat, particularly among Lohana traders (called Bohras in Gujarati). The Dawoodi Bohras, the largest of the various Bohra groups, are followers of the 27th dai.
The present dai, Syedna Burhanuddin, is the 52nd in line. Today, he finds himself in the centre of a brewing controversy, faced with angry protests from reformist Bohras amidst allegations of corruption.
Related
Udaipur Bohra Conf reinforces will to reform
A case, Sirs, for Muslim quotas in AP
Deoband power struggle
In his address to the Udaipur conference, noted Islamic scholar Asghar Ali Engineer, general secretary of the Central Board of the Dawoodi Bohra Community, recounted how the Syedna and his cronies have consistently sought to scuttle the reformist movement, not hesitating to use force in many cases. In an interview with this writer, Engineer spoke of the total control that the Syedna imposes on his followers, including demanding that they prostrate before him, although in Islam prostration is to be made only before God.
He referred to Burhanuddin’s father, Tahir Saifuddin, the 51st dai-e-mutlaq, who in a statement made in the Bombay High Court even declared himself to be “God on earth” (Ilah-ul-ard), a claim that is unambiguously unIslamic. He added that the Bohras are made to believe, quite contrary to Islamic teachings, that entry to heaven is dependent entirely on the Syedna’s goodwill.
The chief guest of the conference, social activist Medha Patkar, linked the struggle of the Bohra reformists to the wider struggle for social justice, stressing the need for internal democracy within religious communities and for challenging the autocracy of self-styled religious heads.
Syed Shahid Mehdi, former vice- chancellor of Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia, characterised the Syedna’s dictatorial powers over the Bohras as ‘religious apartheid’. Tahir Mahmood, former chairman of the National Minorities Commission, castigated the Syedna for making exorbitant demands on the Bohras and for allegedly making claims for himself that even the Prophet Muhammad had never done.
Noting how the reformist Bohras were being hounded by the Syedna for speaking out against their oppression, he called for a law to protect religious dissenters.
Over three days, dozens of Bohras expressed their anguish at the oppressive practices of the Syedna and his vast family of around a thousand members. Abid Adeeb, president of the Udaipur Dawoodi Bohra Jamaat, spoke of how the present Syedna levies a number of taxes on the Bohras that had no sanction in Islam.
Through his representatives or amils, he said, the Syedna extracts several crores of rupees from his followers annually, demanding payment on almost every conceivable occasion. Even prayer spaces in Bohra mosques in the month of Ramzan are now up for sale, he revealed.
He felt that opposition to the Syedna’s exploitation was mounting but those who dare to do so are immediately excommunicated. Adeeb recounted numerous cases of excommunicated dissidents being forced by the Syedna to divorce their spouses.
The reformists had taken the issue of baraat, the power of excommunication that the Syedna claimed for himself, to the courts several years ago, but the case was still pending. He noted that various political parties were hand-in-glove with the Syedna, owing to the vast economic clout that he wields and the votes he can deliver, because of which these parties are, he alleged, indifferent to demands for reform. He pointed out that the Syedna even had close links with Narendra Modi, despite the fact that Bohras, along with other Muslims, had suffered immensely in the anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002.
He also claimed that the Syedna routinely paid various Sunni Muslim institutions money so as to project himself as a pious Muslim as well as to buy their support and their silence on his un-Islamic practices and exploitative ways.
Likewise, he said, the mainstream media, which routinely sensationalises Muslim issues, had largely ignored the scandals that abound in the Bohra religious establishment. “The Syedna spends vast sums of money to place advertisements for himself in the newspapers, and I would not be surprised if the Syedna’s men pay some mediapersons hefty sums to keep off writing on the corruption of the Bohra
religious establishment or to praise the Syedna,” he added.
Zainab Bano, president of the Bohra Youth Association Udaipur, spoke of the origins of the reformist movement in Udaipur in the 1970s, recounting the torments they have had to suffer over the years as a result, including being beaten up by Burhanuddin’s men, forcibly divorced from their spouses, banned from Bohra mosques and denied access to graveyards.
She pointed out that the present Syedna had invented new titles for his sons and daughters, styling them as ‘princes’ (shehzada) and ‘princesses’ (shehzadi). He had, she added, appointed key members of his family as amils in towns with a sizable Bohra population, and many of them had amassed vast fortunes by levying a host of taxes on Bohras and through shady deals.
Saifuddin Insaf, 70, one of the pioneers of the Bohra reformist movement, and editor of the reformist journal Bohra Chronicle, traced the degeneration in the Bohra priesthood to the 47th dai, Abdul Qadir Najmuddin, great-grandfather of Syedna Burhanuddin, who had established hereditary rule.
In order to dispossess the Bohras of the numerous trusts that Bohra philanthropists had set up across the country, the present Syedna had gone so far as to claim to be their sole trustee. The reformists had challenged this claim in the courts years ago but, Insaf lamented, the verdict was still pending.
Insaf revealed that in order to impose total control on the Bohras, the Syedna insists that no Bohra can pray in a mosque or marry without his permission. “This is a complete violation of Islamic teachings. It is a tool to ensure complete slavery. If a Bohra marries without the Syedna’s permission, the marriage is considered illegal and the offspring of that union illegitimate,” he explained.
He spoke of how Tahir Saifuddin had invented a new rule demanding that every Bohra adolescent give an oath of allegiance (mithaq) to him, rather than, as in the past, to the Imam who is believed to be in seclusion. This new oath insisted on complete surrender to the Syedna’s will, and required that every Bohra declare himself to be the “slave of the Syedna” (abd-e syedna). The present Syedna, he said, continues with this mithaq, which he castigated as “wholly unIslamic”.
Next month, Burhanuddin turns 100 and lavish preparations are underway to celebrate his centenary. Conference participants revealed that instructions have been sent to every Bohra family to cough up a substantial amount of money to fund his birthday revelries. Speaker after speaker also spoke of battles behind the scenes between rival factions among Burhanuddin’s several brothers and sons to succeed him as head of the vast empire he controls once he dies since he has not as yet revealed his successor. When that happens, they do not rule out the community splintering into rival sects, which would only be in consonance with the Ismaili historical tradition.
Sikand is a sociologist and critic
http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main48 ... HRASII.asp
Re: Criticism of Burhanuddin: A Legacy of oppression
http://indianmuslimobserver.com/2011/03 ... blishment/
While followers of Mohammad Burhanuddin, 52nd dai-e mutlaq (‘summoner to the faith with absolute powers) of the Dawoodi Bohra community, celebrate his 100th birthday this week with much fanfare, one man keeps up his valiant struggle to, as he puts it, ‘expose the draconian face of the Bohra dai’. Moinduddin Ajmeri edits the Mumbai-based Urdu magazine Sirat, which, for almost two years now, has been carrying a regular weekly column highlighting what he calls the ‘un-Islamic, exploitative and dictatorial practices’ of the Bohra high priest and his religious establishment, the Kothar.
In an article revealingly titled ‘Oppressive Bohra Dai: The Tricks of the Worshippers of Wealth’ (27th January-2nd February, 2011), Ajmeri writes, ‘Ordinary mullahs and maulvis easily fool and rob people in the name of religion, but the Bohras have devised a full-fledged and regular organization for this purpose. Donning white clothes, the mafia gang of the Bohra dai loots their people, though few are aware of this.’ And this is how, he alleges, Burhanuddin, ‘who was born in a broken-down house in an obscure gulley in Jhaniya Bazar, Surat, now lives in the lavish Saifi Mahal in Malabar Hill [one of the most plush parts of Mumbai], and has become extremely rich, although he has no business of his own.’ Ajmeri claims that the secret of this rags-to-riches story of the Bohra high priest lies in his ‘looting people in the name of Islam’. He describes Burhanuddin’s family as ‘heads of a mafia’ whose members are spread throughout the world and who work as the family’s agents. These agents, he goes on, are engaged in extracting money from the Bohras, and many of them are also involved in ‘corrupt deals’. ‘The Bohra dai and his eight sons have all become old earning money. His sons and their sons and their sons’ sons—a total of around one thousand people—are all millionaires, and they still live on the bones thrown by the Bohras. His relatives are generally appointed as his agents (amils) in places where rich Bohras live,’ Ajmeri writes. ‘The Bohra dai Burhanuddin and his entire family and administration have become entirely dishonest (be-iman) and shameless (be-sharam),’ he alleges.
‘The Bohra dai earns crores of rupees every year from the Bohras, but does not spend a pie for their welfare,’ Ajmeri continues. When some reformist Bohras raised this issue, Ajmeri says, Burhanuddin, ‘in order to fool the public’, set up the Qarz-e Hasana Trust and began giving loans to some needy Bohras. However, this money was not given to the poor directly, but, instead, through Burhanuddin’s local agents or amils. ‘The amils often misuse this money for their own purposes,’ Ajmeri claims, adding that many amils distribute only a small portion of the money they receive and pocket the rest.
Ajmeri provides interesting anecdotes to substantiate his allegations about the rampant corruption in the Bohra dai’s massive family, members of which are styled as ‘princes’ (shahzada) and ‘princesses’ (shahezadi). One of these is a close relative of Burhanuddin, a certain Syed ul-Khair, amil of the Bohras of Surat, who has been accused by a fellow Bohra, Tahir Husain, a Surat-based trader, of stealing money ostensibly meant for poor Bohras. Tahir Husain alleged that in 2006, 2 crores had been sent to Surat to distribute to poor Bohras, but that Syed ul-Khair had distributed only 20 lakhs and loaned the rest to rich traders, charging them, in return, 25% of their profits, thereby making a fast buck for himself. Ajmeri quotes Tahir Husain as alleging that one of Syed ul-Khair’s cronies, a certain Shabbir Amin, was caught stealing money from the Bohra jaamat’s office in Surat, but Syed ul-Khair ‘forgave him and tried to hush up the controversy’. Not stopping at this, Syed ul-Khair, Ajmeri writes, was allegedly involved in corruption scandals involving several crore rupees involving transactions for procuring materials for the principal Bohra madrasa, the Jamia Saifia in Surat. Ajmeri accuses Syed ul-Khair of appointing his cronies to administer Bohra religious functions, such as lectures during the mourning month of Muharram, that, he says, ‘provide further opportunities to these men to engage in loot’. Ajmeri also notes that Syed ul-Khair has numerous court cases pending against him.
In another article about the Syedna’s cronies, titled ‘The Bohra Dai is Filling His Own Treasury’ (Sirat, 10th-16th February, 2011), Ajmeri uncovers other skeletons in the Kothar’s cupboard. Burhanuddin, he alleges, following in the footsteps of his father Tahir Saifuddin, the 51st dai-e mutlaq, has occupied vast properties of rich Bohras, including inns, hospitals, jamaat khanas and even the palaces where Burhanuddin and his vast family now reside. Most of these institutions were built between the First and Second World Wars, when some Bohras became exceedingly rich, partly from contracts from the British. Many of these institutions were ‘captured’, Ajmeri says, by Tahir Saifuddin, who ‘appointed himself as their owner’. For instance, he dispossessed the Peerbhoy family of their mansion in Bombay and occupied it (This is the enormous ‘Saifi Mahal’ where Burhanuddin now lives). Likewise, he took over the sanitarium established by the Peerbhoy family and converted it into the ‘Saifi Hospital’. He also rechristened a religious school set up by a certain Abdul Ali as the ‘Jamia Saifia’. ‘In this way,’ Ajmeri remarks, ‘the impression was sought to be created that all these institutions were built by Tahir Saifuddin himself. In actual fact, these were all established by [other] members of the community, but are now a source of untold riches for the Bohra dai.’
Ajmeri provides interesting details of what he alleges to be rampant corruption in the Jamia Saifia. This madrasa, housed in a massive, plush campus, caters to almost a thousand students. The madrasa’s kitchen is located in the ground floor of its main building. Every year, the kitchen gets flooded, and so for several weeks food for the students and staff has to be got from outside. This involves an additional expense of several lakh rupees every year, and also provides, so Ajmeri says, lucrative additional opportunities for corruption. Further, every year a contract involving a large sum of money is given to two Bohra businessmen to drain the kitchen of the accumulated water—again a massive drain on the community’s resources, and, so Ajmeri says, yet another opportunity for corrupt financial dealings. Ajmeri estimates that almost two lakh rupees is spent daily on the kitchen expenses of the madrasa, and the amount increases substantially when the Syedna and his huge entourage visit Surat, when special food is cooked for them. Ajmeri claims that the Bohra men who have received the contract to run the kitchen generally cook far more food than what is required and that this is then siphoned off to be sold to hotels, and so, in this way, they have become ‘exceedingly rich’.
‘The shehzadas of the Syedna are busy looting the funds of the community,’ Ajmeri alleges. The most ‘notorious’ of these, he writes, is one Badr Jamal, of Burhanuddin’s many nephews. He worked out a plan with a Mumbai-based firm to install a steam cooking plant in the Jamia Saifia’s kitchen. The plant was inaugurated by Burhanuddin himself but it failed and so was shut down. This aborted venture cost the community a whopping 7 ½ crore rupees, and Ajmeri claims that much of this money must have been pocketed by the men involved in this shady venture.
Ajmeri’s Sirat continues to highlight anecdotes like these (that the ‘mainstream’ media, either owing to indifference or else to pressure or inducement from the Bohra religious establishment, ignores), exposing Burhanuddin and his henchmen and their alleged shady deals. He insists that they are far from being the pious Muslims they never tire of projecting themselves as.
[Moinuddin Ajmeri can be contacted on haftrozaseerat@yahoo.co.in]
While followers of Mohammad Burhanuddin, 52nd dai-e mutlaq (‘summoner to the faith with absolute powers) of the Dawoodi Bohra community, celebrate his 100th birthday this week with much fanfare, one man keeps up his valiant struggle to, as he puts it, ‘expose the draconian face of the Bohra dai’. Moinduddin Ajmeri edits the Mumbai-based Urdu magazine Sirat, which, for almost two years now, has been carrying a regular weekly column highlighting what he calls the ‘un-Islamic, exploitative and dictatorial practices’ of the Bohra high priest and his religious establishment, the Kothar.
In an article revealingly titled ‘Oppressive Bohra Dai: The Tricks of the Worshippers of Wealth’ (27th January-2nd February, 2011), Ajmeri writes, ‘Ordinary mullahs and maulvis easily fool and rob people in the name of religion, but the Bohras have devised a full-fledged and regular organization for this purpose. Donning white clothes, the mafia gang of the Bohra dai loots their people, though few are aware of this.’ And this is how, he alleges, Burhanuddin, ‘who was born in a broken-down house in an obscure gulley in Jhaniya Bazar, Surat, now lives in the lavish Saifi Mahal in Malabar Hill [one of the most plush parts of Mumbai], and has become extremely rich, although he has no business of his own.’ Ajmeri claims that the secret of this rags-to-riches story of the Bohra high priest lies in his ‘looting people in the name of Islam’. He describes Burhanuddin’s family as ‘heads of a mafia’ whose members are spread throughout the world and who work as the family’s agents. These agents, he goes on, are engaged in extracting money from the Bohras, and many of them are also involved in ‘corrupt deals’. ‘The Bohra dai and his eight sons have all become old earning money. His sons and their sons and their sons’ sons—a total of around one thousand people—are all millionaires, and they still live on the bones thrown by the Bohras. His relatives are generally appointed as his agents (amils) in places where rich Bohras live,’ Ajmeri writes. ‘The Bohra dai Burhanuddin and his entire family and administration have become entirely dishonest (be-iman) and shameless (be-sharam),’ he alleges.
‘The Bohra dai earns crores of rupees every year from the Bohras, but does not spend a pie for their welfare,’ Ajmeri continues. When some reformist Bohras raised this issue, Ajmeri says, Burhanuddin, ‘in order to fool the public’, set up the Qarz-e Hasana Trust and began giving loans to some needy Bohras. However, this money was not given to the poor directly, but, instead, through Burhanuddin’s local agents or amils. ‘The amils often misuse this money for their own purposes,’ Ajmeri claims, adding that many amils distribute only a small portion of the money they receive and pocket the rest.
Ajmeri provides interesting anecdotes to substantiate his allegations about the rampant corruption in the Bohra dai’s massive family, members of which are styled as ‘princes’ (shahzada) and ‘princesses’ (shahezadi). One of these is a close relative of Burhanuddin, a certain Syed ul-Khair, amil of the Bohras of Surat, who has been accused by a fellow Bohra, Tahir Husain, a Surat-based trader, of stealing money ostensibly meant for poor Bohras. Tahir Husain alleged that in 2006, 2 crores had been sent to Surat to distribute to poor Bohras, but that Syed ul-Khair had distributed only 20 lakhs and loaned the rest to rich traders, charging them, in return, 25% of their profits, thereby making a fast buck for himself. Ajmeri quotes Tahir Husain as alleging that one of Syed ul-Khair’s cronies, a certain Shabbir Amin, was caught stealing money from the Bohra jaamat’s office in Surat, but Syed ul-Khair ‘forgave him and tried to hush up the controversy’. Not stopping at this, Syed ul-Khair, Ajmeri writes, was allegedly involved in corruption scandals involving several crore rupees involving transactions for procuring materials for the principal Bohra madrasa, the Jamia Saifia in Surat. Ajmeri accuses Syed ul-Khair of appointing his cronies to administer Bohra religious functions, such as lectures during the mourning month of Muharram, that, he says, ‘provide further opportunities to these men to engage in loot’. Ajmeri also notes that Syed ul-Khair has numerous court cases pending against him.
In another article about the Syedna’s cronies, titled ‘The Bohra Dai is Filling His Own Treasury’ (Sirat, 10th-16th February, 2011), Ajmeri uncovers other skeletons in the Kothar’s cupboard. Burhanuddin, he alleges, following in the footsteps of his father Tahir Saifuddin, the 51st dai-e mutlaq, has occupied vast properties of rich Bohras, including inns, hospitals, jamaat khanas and even the palaces where Burhanuddin and his vast family now reside. Most of these institutions were built between the First and Second World Wars, when some Bohras became exceedingly rich, partly from contracts from the British. Many of these institutions were ‘captured’, Ajmeri says, by Tahir Saifuddin, who ‘appointed himself as their owner’. For instance, he dispossessed the Peerbhoy family of their mansion in Bombay and occupied it (This is the enormous ‘Saifi Mahal’ where Burhanuddin now lives). Likewise, he took over the sanitarium established by the Peerbhoy family and converted it into the ‘Saifi Hospital’. He also rechristened a religious school set up by a certain Abdul Ali as the ‘Jamia Saifia’. ‘In this way,’ Ajmeri remarks, ‘the impression was sought to be created that all these institutions were built by Tahir Saifuddin himself. In actual fact, these were all established by [other] members of the community, but are now a source of untold riches for the Bohra dai.’
Ajmeri provides interesting details of what he alleges to be rampant corruption in the Jamia Saifia. This madrasa, housed in a massive, plush campus, caters to almost a thousand students. The madrasa’s kitchen is located in the ground floor of its main building. Every year, the kitchen gets flooded, and so for several weeks food for the students and staff has to be got from outside. This involves an additional expense of several lakh rupees every year, and also provides, so Ajmeri says, lucrative additional opportunities for corruption. Further, every year a contract involving a large sum of money is given to two Bohra businessmen to drain the kitchen of the accumulated water—again a massive drain on the community’s resources, and, so Ajmeri says, yet another opportunity for corrupt financial dealings. Ajmeri estimates that almost two lakh rupees is spent daily on the kitchen expenses of the madrasa, and the amount increases substantially when the Syedna and his huge entourage visit Surat, when special food is cooked for them. Ajmeri claims that the Bohra men who have received the contract to run the kitchen generally cook far more food than what is required and that this is then siphoned off to be sold to hotels, and so, in this way, they have become ‘exceedingly rich’.
‘The shehzadas of the Syedna are busy looting the funds of the community,’ Ajmeri alleges. The most ‘notorious’ of these, he writes, is one Badr Jamal, of Burhanuddin’s many nephews. He worked out a plan with a Mumbai-based firm to install a steam cooking plant in the Jamia Saifia’s kitchen. The plant was inaugurated by Burhanuddin himself but it failed and so was shut down. This aborted venture cost the community a whopping 7 ½ crore rupees, and Ajmeri claims that much of this money must have been pocketed by the men involved in this shady venture.
Ajmeri’s Sirat continues to highlight anecdotes like these (that the ‘mainstream’ media, either owing to indifference or else to pressure or inducement from the Bohra religious establishment, ignores), exposing Burhanuddin and his henchmen and their alleged shady deals. He insists that they are far from being the pious Muslims they never tire of projecting themselves as.
[Moinuddin Ajmeri can be contacted on haftrozaseerat@yahoo.co.in]
Re: Criticism of Burhanuddin: A Legacy of oppression
'Bohras are not Muslims'
It was reported in the English daily Indian Express and the Hindi daily Pratakal on 4 April 2002 that a group of Dawoodi Bohras in Gujarat claimed that they are "Not Hindus. No. Not Muslims either. They are Dawoodi Bohras caught in the crossfire.
"When the Maulana gives us any direction, we follow. When he asked us to return to business, we had to," said Shabbir Moiz Vohra, who set up shop in Kawant a week ago.
Shabbir suffered losses to the tune of Rs 6 lakh when his three shops were looted and burnt but did not accept any compensation, saying he would "be better off without it."
"We don't fear anything after hearing from the Maulana. We don't want to take revenge because we love peace," said Aliajgar Jainnudin Vohra, who has reopened one of his three damaged shops.
Both of them clarify that they "are not Muslims, but are Dawoodi Bohras." So does Nadir Badruddin Vohra. "We do break bread with them but marriages are taboo. They offer namaz five times a day, we do it only thrice; our mosques are also different," he stressed.
These Bohras claim that "When the Maulana gives us any direction, we follow." It is obvious that whatever they have said regarding their not being Muslims is as per dictates of Sayedna Saheb.
There is no corrective statement issued regarding this claim from Sayedna's side either. So one will take it as official statement of Sayedna that Dawoodi Bohras are not Muslims.
In fact any one who follows the basic principles of Islam and believes in Allah, His book the Qura'n and His Prophet, Mohammed (PBUH) is a Muslim. Dawoodi Bohras are very much believers of these three essentials and are, therefore Muslims. They also believe in Walayat of Hazrat Ali and therefore they are a sub-sect of Shia Muslims. They combine Zohar and Isha prayers and again Asar and Magrib prayers and pray five times prayers in three times. But they do observe all five prayers. Their mosques are known as masjids and not by any other name like temple, church or synagogues. They believe in five pillars of Islam, Wehdat, Salat, Zakat, Haj and Jihad. So it is wrong to say that they are not Muslims.
Being a business community it is true that by and large the Bohra community is a peace-loving community. It is unfortunate that their present religious heads have adopted a life of luxury and in order to amass wealth they have imposed several un-Islamic taxes and practices on the followers. In order that their followers do not mix with other Muslims and know the true Islam they make systematic efforts to assert on the minds of the followers that they are quite different than other Muslims.
But the hypocrisy of their religious leaders becomes evident when they order their followers to close down their bank accounts saying that the interest is prohibited for Muslims. Or when the Bohra religious head take pride in being the Chancellor of Alighar Muslim University. Or his representative being on the Central Haj Committee and Muslim Personal Law Board. They make announcements of their being the real well-wishers of the Muslim world.
But when the time comes for them to be accountable under Islamic law or Muslim Waqf Act, or to save their skin in a situation like in Gujarat now, they feel no shame in claiming that they are not Muslims.
Furthermore, the Dawoodi Bohras statements, presumably under instruction from Sayedna Saheb, that they are peace-loving is most dangerous under the present circumstances. Which directly implies that the other Muslims are not peace loving and they are trouble-makers.
Violent attacks on reformist Bohras time and again by fanatic followers of Sayedna and their proud and arrogant behaviour with other Muslims, cursing the Muslim Khalifas and creating riots, are for any one to judge how peace-loving these followers of Bohra high priest are?
It is the duty of Sayedna to immediately refute the statements made by his followers that they are not Muslims.
We also insist on Muslim organizations like Muslim Personal Law Board, Haj Committee, Aligarh Muslim University etc. to seriously note this contention on behalf of Sayedna Muhammed Burhanuddin.
It was reported in the English daily Indian Express and the Hindi daily Pratakal on 4 April 2002 that a group of Dawoodi Bohras in Gujarat claimed that they are "Not Hindus. No. Not Muslims either. They are Dawoodi Bohras caught in the crossfire.
"When the Maulana gives us any direction, we follow. When he asked us to return to business, we had to," said Shabbir Moiz Vohra, who set up shop in Kawant a week ago.
Shabbir suffered losses to the tune of Rs 6 lakh when his three shops were looted and burnt but did not accept any compensation, saying he would "be better off without it."
"We don't fear anything after hearing from the Maulana. We don't want to take revenge because we love peace," said Aliajgar Jainnudin Vohra, who has reopened one of his three damaged shops.
Both of them clarify that they "are not Muslims, but are Dawoodi Bohras." So does Nadir Badruddin Vohra. "We do break bread with them but marriages are taboo. They offer namaz five times a day, we do it only thrice; our mosques are also different," he stressed.
These Bohras claim that "When the Maulana gives us any direction, we follow." It is obvious that whatever they have said regarding their not being Muslims is as per dictates of Sayedna Saheb.
There is no corrective statement issued regarding this claim from Sayedna's side either. So one will take it as official statement of Sayedna that Dawoodi Bohras are not Muslims.
In fact any one who follows the basic principles of Islam and believes in Allah, His book the Qura'n and His Prophet, Mohammed (PBUH) is a Muslim. Dawoodi Bohras are very much believers of these three essentials and are, therefore Muslims. They also believe in Walayat of Hazrat Ali and therefore they are a sub-sect of Shia Muslims. They combine Zohar and Isha prayers and again Asar and Magrib prayers and pray five times prayers in three times. But they do observe all five prayers. Their mosques are known as masjids and not by any other name like temple, church or synagogues. They believe in five pillars of Islam, Wehdat, Salat, Zakat, Haj and Jihad. So it is wrong to say that they are not Muslims.
Being a business community it is true that by and large the Bohra community is a peace-loving community. It is unfortunate that their present religious heads have adopted a life of luxury and in order to amass wealth they have imposed several un-Islamic taxes and practices on the followers. In order that their followers do not mix with other Muslims and know the true Islam they make systematic efforts to assert on the minds of the followers that they are quite different than other Muslims.
But the hypocrisy of their religious leaders becomes evident when they order their followers to close down their bank accounts saying that the interest is prohibited for Muslims. Or when the Bohra religious head take pride in being the Chancellor of Alighar Muslim University. Or his representative being on the Central Haj Committee and Muslim Personal Law Board. They make announcements of their being the real well-wishers of the Muslim world.
But when the time comes for them to be accountable under Islamic law or Muslim Waqf Act, or to save their skin in a situation like in Gujarat now, they feel no shame in claiming that they are not Muslims.
Furthermore, the Dawoodi Bohras statements, presumably under instruction from Sayedna Saheb, that they are peace-loving is most dangerous under the present circumstances. Which directly implies that the other Muslims are not peace loving and they are trouble-makers.
Violent attacks on reformist Bohras time and again by fanatic followers of Sayedna and their proud and arrogant behaviour with other Muslims, cursing the Muslim Khalifas and creating riots, are for any one to judge how peace-loving these followers of Bohra high priest are?
It is the duty of Sayedna to immediately refute the statements made by his followers that they are not Muslims.
We also insist on Muslim organizations like Muslim Personal Law Board, Haj Committee, Aligarh Muslim University etc. to seriously note this contention on behalf of Sayedna Muhammed Burhanuddin.
Re: Criticism of Burhanuddin: A Legacy of oppression
The iron grasp of the high priest
Dawoodi Bohras have always been known for their business gene. But few know they are being choked by a tyrannical and all-powerful religious head. Anumeha Yadav reports how every attempt to rein him in is crushed
THE BOHRA Muslims have always been read through a dominant stereotype: their capacity for business. That’s probably one reason why even chief minister Narendra Modi has found it convenient to reach out to them as part of his PR measures to improve his scoreboard with Muslims in Gujarat. But few Indians would know that the Dawoodi Bohras have been living with — and fighting — deeply suffocating customs under the regime of their spiritual head, the 100-year old Syedna Mohamed Burhanuddin.
This story is not a new one. Three decades ago, the Janata Party-led government in Gujarat allowed the Nathwani Commission, set up by then PM Morarji Desai, to examine complaints of civil rights violations by the Syedna. But even after 1979, when the commission published its findings, the priest and his family have continued to wield overwhelming power over the community through the threats of baraat (community boycott), of denying ruqo chitthi (a letter obtained from the Syedna at a hefty sum so that the dead may enter heaven) and seven kinds of taxes arbitrarily levied on all, including foetuses.
Related
Reform movement gathers forces in the Bohra community
Udaipur Bohra conference reinforces will to reform
Deoband power struggle could change the face of Muslim society in India
This February, when the Syedna turned 100, one of his seven sons, Huzefa Mohiuddin, walked in for the celebrations in Ahmedabad with Chief Minister Narendra Modi and BJP leaders Vijay Rupani, Asit Vohra and Jayanti Barot. Inside the brightly- lit hall, Mohiuddin praised governance in ‘vibrant Gujarat’. Modi related anecdotes about his closeness with the Syedna over the years. Cell phone cameras clicked. Jointly holding the knife, Modi and Mohiuddin cut a cake to chants of Allaho- Akbar, and congratulated each other.
Modi’s attempts to appear more palatable to minorities by playing footsie with this sect are fairly recent. But those Bohras, who have been trying to resist the Syedna’s chokehold over their civil rights, say they have for decades witnessed their priest grow more powerful with covert support from various state and Central governments and corporate giants. Political expediency takes precedence over reform. (See pictures on next page)
Dawoodi Bohras are predominantly traders concentrated in western India — Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra — and Madhya Pradesh. The men wear distinctive white-and-gold caps while the women wear colourful burqas called rida.
They believe their Imam represents the Prophet on earth and that their 21st Imam had to go into exile in the 12th century. The Syedna, appointed hereditarily since the present Syedna’s grandfather’s time, is supposed to be the spiritual representative in the Imam’s absence.
Blind faith The Syedna, at 100 years, commands a large following that keeps the faith — mostly out of fear
Udaipur has been a centre of reformist struggle since the early 1970s, when a section of Bohras defied the Syedna’s choice of candidates to nominate their own candidates in civic elections. In Bohrwadi, Udaipur, sitting in the reformist Dawoodi Bohra Youth Association office, Zehra Naaz, in her mid-40s, describes how the Syedna’s men attacked a Moharram majlis (assembly) at Moiyyadpura mosque in 1975. “They pushed me from the second floor. I was 14,” she recalls. Her spine was damaged so badly that she could not stand up for two years, having to drop out of school. Now, when the call for the namaz is heard at the mosque at 2 pm, the reformists are confined to a small enclosure.
The Syedna, who claims ownership over the minds and bodies of his followers as well as all communal property, staked claim to the mosque, the largest of eight in the city, in an Udaipur civil court in 1984. When a violent clash broke out during Ramzan in 2004, the administration divided the prayer hall. Reformists got a small portion behind iron bars.
“The Syedna insists that all mosques and communal property be vested in him rather than waqf boards. Last September, through an RTI, we found that he and his coterie submitted a forged certificate in 2000 to the municipal corporation to get permits for new properties,” says Yusuf Ali RG, a reformist whose father defied the Syedna. The family has been socially boycotted on the Syedna’s orders since.
Bohras need the Syedna’s permission to start a school, a charity, marry, even bury their dead
Reformists say the Syedna runs a parallel autocratic government. All Dawoodi Bohras, including those in the US, UK, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Indonesia, Thailand and the Gulf, must pay taxes to the Syedna but cannot ask what is done with the money. They need the Syedna’s permission to establish charities, start a school, marry, even to bury their dead. “The priest charges Rs 2-10 lakh for permission for burial in Bohra cemeteries even when the land is leased from the municipal corporation. The Bohras cannot have what the Constitution allows them because we need the Syedna’s permission for everything,” says Asghar Ali Engineer, a Mumbai-based reformer, who says he accepts the institution of the Syedna, but is fighting for civil rights.
Taxes and control of finances of charities or trusts form the financial basis of the Syedna’s empire. The 1979 commission, led by retired judges NP Nathwani and VM Tarkunde, pointed out, “All trust properties of the community are at the Syedna’s disposal, whether he is legally the sole trustee or not. Thus, he can take decisions as to the application of the income of any trust for such purposes as he considers charitable. Any person challenging his decision has to face the consequences.”
THE COMMISSION’S estimate was that trusts the Syedna controlled in Maharashtra alone were worth Rs 50 crore. It recommended that these trusts be regulated by laws similar to those which govern other Muslim trusts such as the Dargah Khwaja Sahab Act. Norman Contractor, a Dawoodi Bohra businessman and reformist who died in 1983, alleged that the Syedna and his family were embezzling charity funds. Reformists requested the Central government to probe financial details of two trusts headed by the Sydena — Dawat-e-Hadiya and the Syedna Taher Saifuddin Memorial Foundation — in 1977, alleging the priest was investing in industries that followers were then forced to buy shares in.
“In private, income tax authorities told us they cannot investigate this, given the pressure from higher authorities,” says Saifuddin Insaf, general secretary of the Dawoodi Bohras’ Central Board.
The government stayed silent even when the Tanzanian government expelled the Syedna for his alleged complicity in transferring money out of that country in 1967, and nine years later when Sheikh Abdul Qayum Kaderbhoy, the Bohra priest in Sri Lanka, was caught smuggling jewels in his robes by the Sri Lankan government.
Anil Ambani Mukesh Ambani Prithviraj Chavan
top cop LK Advani Narendra Modi
Appeasing the gods (from left) Anil Ambani, Mukesh Ambani, Prithviraj Chavan, top cops, LK Advani and Narendra Modi pay obeisance to the Syedna. This deals a further blow to reformists’ attempts to bring transparency and democracy
Photo: AFP
In fact, 1967 was when the present Syedna imposed a new Constitution on the community. He took over all secular powers vested in local panchayat-like councils, the jamaat. On reaching puberty, a child must take misaaq, an oath of allegiance to the Syedna. With this oath, he signs off all his rights — religious and secular — and agrees that if he disobeys the Syedna, he will have to divorce his spouse, or give up his property, and be cut off from the community as the Syedna wills. This oath was originally a way to assert one’s loyalty for the Ismailis, who were part of an underground movement against the Abbasid Empire. Ironically, a custom that originated during a reform movement has become a tool in the hands of a theocracy.
A glimpse into how the Syedna operates his empire is possible from a UK government inquiry into the Dawat-e-Hadiya trust, of which he is the sole trustee. In July 2001, Charity Commission UK began investigating this public trust with an annual turnover of £2 million (approximately Rs 15 crore). The commission found that of six nominees appointed to administer the trust, four were Syedna’s sons. It ordered them to pay Rs 3 crore back to the trust because the Syedna and the nominees had made payments to themselves, violating their fiduciary responsibilities.
Besides money from taxes and public trusts, the Syedna and his appointees charge money to make appearances. A follower must pay a minimum of Rs 5,000 to apply to see the Syedna at his Mumbairesidence Shaify Mahal in Malabar Hill, where he lives with 300-odd members of his family. A mail circulated prior to Syedna’s visit to California in May asked every household to pay $14,000 ( Rs 5.6 lakh) for the Syedna’s youngest son to inaugurate a mosque in Los Angeles.
The Bohra situation is not a remnant of archaic despotism, it was exacerbated by the greater affluence that came with economic changes post-independence. The threat of social boycott has remained powerful because the community, estimated to be a little over a million, is still fairly insular, often choosing to marry and do business within the community.
“A few years after I returned from the US after completing my PhD, they declared a baraat against me for not wearing the Dawoodi Bohra dress. They asked Muslim civic organisations I was active in to expel me. They tried to target my cousin Ismail Kanga, then India’s ambassador to Yemen, to make an example of what happens if the theocracy is not obeyed,” says professor JS Bandukwala, a prominent social activist and physicist at MS University, Vadodara.
DAWOODI BOHRA l ocalities resound with stories of being threatened, ostracised, beaten and in some instances even being driven to suicide. “My siblings, my relatives, neighbours, everyone stopped talking to me. Some Bohras even tried to burn the house I lived in with my aged mother,” says Zehra Cyclewallah, who lived under police protection in Surat for 14 years after going to court against the Syedna.
Cyclewallah invited the priest’s wrath when she refused to step down as manager of a cooperative bank that the Syedna first inaugurated and then several years later tried to shut down with a fatwa, accusing it of charging interest. The priest and his coterie had similarly tried to shut down Bombay Mercantile Cooperative Bank in Mumbai in 1982. The chairman of the bank, Hoseini Doctor, had then accused the priestly family of trying to gain control of the bank by forcing Bohra employees in the bank to resign or face a social boycott.
Recognising that social boycott is a weapon to deprive Dawoodi Bohras of their constitutional rights, the Bombay State Legislature had passed the Prevention of Excommunication Act in 1948. The Bombay High Court upheld the law but in 1961, a four-member Bench of the Supreme Court accepted the Syedna’s contention that excommunication on religious ground was his prerogative. In a dissenting judgment, then Chief Justice Sinha expressed his discomfort with the judgment. “I am not satisfied that the right to excommunication is a purely religious matter… one is inclined to think that the position of an excommunicated person becomes that of an untouchable,” he remarked. Reformists’ appealed for a review of the verdict but a hearing has been pending for 15 years.
The Syedna, who is the wealthiest of all Muslim clergy, has used his ties with Muslim leaders to serve his own ends, resisting any government scrutiny by raising the bogey of interference in minority culture. In cities with a history of reform within the community such as Udaipur, reformists’ numbers have dwindled. Even former leaders such as Ghulam Hussain, a former president of reformist Bohra Youth Association, have had to apologise and seek refuge with the Syedna.
“If they don’t obey the Syedna, they are not Dawoodi Bohras. Our trusts are run as per India’s laws,” says Quresh Ragib, the Syedna’s public relations officer.
Engineer, who led the movement despite six incidents of physical attacks, including a stabbing attempt in 1976, reels off a list of the high and mighty to whom he appealed to end the Syedna’s chokehold. “Indira Gandhi, Zail Singh, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, VP Singh, Rajiv Gandhi. I stopped trying after Narasimha Rao,” he says. He acknowledges that the underground movement is dead. “Hundreds used to collect in secret meetings in Ahmedabad, Indore, Kolkata. Now 10-15 people turn up. They say they are sympathisers but the fear of punishment is too great,” he says.
If the movement is completely snuffed out, what do the reformists ultimately lose? “The freedom to do what our conscience says, to live with dignity,” he says.
Anumeha Yadav is a Senior Correspondent with Tehelka.
anumeha@tehelka.com
Dawoodi Bohras have always been known for their business gene. But few know they are being choked by a tyrannical and all-powerful religious head. Anumeha Yadav reports how every attempt to rein him in is crushed
THE BOHRA Muslims have always been read through a dominant stereotype: their capacity for business. That’s probably one reason why even chief minister Narendra Modi has found it convenient to reach out to them as part of his PR measures to improve his scoreboard with Muslims in Gujarat. But few Indians would know that the Dawoodi Bohras have been living with — and fighting — deeply suffocating customs under the regime of their spiritual head, the 100-year old Syedna Mohamed Burhanuddin.
This story is not a new one. Three decades ago, the Janata Party-led government in Gujarat allowed the Nathwani Commission, set up by then PM Morarji Desai, to examine complaints of civil rights violations by the Syedna. But even after 1979, when the commission published its findings, the priest and his family have continued to wield overwhelming power over the community through the threats of baraat (community boycott), of denying ruqo chitthi (a letter obtained from the Syedna at a hefty sum so that the dead may enter heaven) and seven kinds of taxes arbitrarily levied on all, including foetuses.
Related
Reform movement gathers forces in the Bohra community
Udaipur Bohra conference reinforces will to reform
Deoband power struggle could change the face of Muslim society in India
This February, when the Syedna turned 100, one of his seven sons, Huzefa Mohiuddin, walked in for the celebrations in Ahmedabad with Chief Minister Narendra Modi and BJP leaders Vijay Rupani, Asit Vohra and Jayanti Barot. Inside the brightly- lit hall, Mohiuddin praised governance in ‘vibrant Gujarat’. Modi related anecdotes about his closeness with the Syedna over the years. Cell phone cameras clicked. Jointly holding the knife, Modi and Mohiuddin cut a cake to chants of Allaho- Akbar, and congratulated each other.
Modi’s attempts to appear more palatable to minorities by playing footsie with this sect are fairly recent. But those Bohras, who have been trying to resist the Syedna’s chokehold over their civil rights, say they have for decades witnessed their priest grow more powerful with covert support from various state and Central governments and corporate giants. Political expediency takes precedence over reform. (See pictures on next page)
Dawoodi Bohras are predominantly traders concentrated in western India — Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra — and Madhya Pradesh. The men wear distinctive white-and-gold caps while the women wear colourful burqas called rida.
They believe their Imam represents the Prophet on earth and that their 21st Imam had to go into exile in the 12th century. The Syedna, appointed hereditarily since the present Syedna’s grandfather’s time, is supposed to be the spiritual representative in the Imam’s absence.
Blind faith The Syedna, at 100 years, commands a large following that keeps the faith — mostly out of fear
Udaipur has been a centre of reformist struggle since the early 1970s, when a section of Bohras defied the Syedna’s choice of candidates to nominate their own candidates in civic elections. In Bohrwadi, Udaipur, sitting in the reformist Dawoodi Bohra Youth Association office, Zehra Naaz, in her mid-40s, describes how the Syedna’s men attacked a Moharram majlis (assembly) at Moiyyadpura mosque in 1975. “They pushed me from the second floor. I was 14,” she recalls. Her spine was damaged so badly that she could not stand up for two years, having to drop out of school. Now, when the call for the namaz is heard at the mosque at 2 pm, the reformists are confined to a small enclosure.
The Syedna, who claims ownership over the minds and bodies of his followers as well as all communal property, staked claim to the mosque, the largest of eight in the city, in an Udaipur civil court in 1984. When a violent clash broke out during Ramzan in 2004, the administration divided the prayer hall. Reformists got a small portion behind iron bars.
“The Syedna insists that all mosques and communal property be vested in him rather than waqf boards. Last September, through an RTI, we found that he and his coterie submitted a forged certificate in 2000 to the municipal corporation to get permits for new properties,” says Yusuf Ali RG, a reformist whose father defied the Syedna. The family has been socially boycotted on the Syedna’s orders since.
Bohras need the Syedna’s permission to start a school, a charity, marry, even bury their dead
Reformists say the Syedna runs a parallel autocratic government. All Dawoodi Bohras, including those in the US, UK, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Indonesia, Thailand and the Gulf, must pay taxes to the Syedna but cannot ask what is done with the money. They need the Syedna’s permission to establish charities, start a school, marry, even to bury their dead. “The priest charges Rs 2-10 lakh for permission for burial in Bohra cemeteries even when the land is leased from the municipal corporation. The Bohras cannot have what the Constitution allows them because we need the Syedna’s permission for everything,” says Asghar Ali Engineer, a Mumbai-based reformer, who says he accepts the institution of the Syedna, but is fighting for civil rights.
Taxes and control of finances of charities or trusts form the financial basis of the Syedna’s empire. The 1979 commission, led by retired judges NP Nathwani and VM Tarkunde, pointed out, “All trust properties of the community are at the Syedna’s disposal, whether he is legally the sole trustee or not. Thus, he can take decisions as to the application of the income of any trust for such purposes as he considers charitable. Any person challenging his decision has to face the consequences.”
THE COMMISSION’S estimate was that trusts the Syedna controlled in Maharashtra alone were worth Rs 50 crore. It recommended that these trusts be regulated by laws similar to those which govern other Muslim trusts such as the Dargah Khwaja Sahab Act. Norman Contractor, a Dawoodi Bohra businessman and reformist who died in 1983, alleged that the Syedna and his family were embezzling charity funds. Reformists requested the Central government to probe financial details of two trusts headed by the Sydena — Dawat-e-Hadiya and the Syedna Taher Saifuddin Memorial Foundation — in 1977, alleging the priest was investing in industries that followers were then forced to buy shares in.
“In private, income tax authorities told us they cannot investigate this, given the pressure from higher authorities,” says Saifuddin Insaf, general secretary of the Dawoodi Bohras’ Central Board.
The government stayed silent even when the Tanzanian government expelled the Syedna for his alleged complicity in transferring money out of that country in 1967, and nine years later when Sheikh Abdul Qayum Kaderbhoy, the Bohra priest in Sri Lanka, was caught smuggling jewels in his robes by the Sri Lankan government.
Anil Ambani Mukesh Ambani Prithviraj Chavan
top cop LK Advani Narendra Modi
Appeasing the gods (from left) Anil Ambani, Mukesh Ambani, Prithviraj Chavan, top cops, LK Advani and Narendra Modi pay obeisance to the Syedna. This deals a further blow to reformists’ attempts to bring transparency and democracy
Photo: AFP
In fact, 1967 was when the present Syedna imposed a new Constitution on the community. He took over all secular powers vested in local panchayat-like councils, the jamaat. On reaching puberty, a child must take misaaq, an oath of allegiance to the Syedna. With this oath, he signs off all his rights — religious and secular — and agrees that if he disobeys the Syedna, he will have to divorce his spouse, or give up his property, and be cut off from the community as the Syedna wills. This oath was originally a way to assert one’s loyalty for the Ismailis, who were part of an underground movement against the Abbasid Empire. Ironically, a custom that originated during a reform movement has become a tool in the hands of a theocracy.
A glimpse into how the Syedna operates his empire is possible from a UK government inquiry into the Dawat-e-Hadiya trust, of which he is the sole trustee. In July 2001, Charity Commission UK began investigating this public trust with an annual turnover of £2 million (approximately Rs 15 crore). The commission found that of six nominees appointed to administer the trust, four were Syedna’s sons. It ordered them to pay Rs 3 crore back to the trust because the Syedna and the nominees had made payments to themselves, violating their fiduciary responsibilities.
Besides money from taxes and public trusts, the Syedna and his appointees charge money to make appearances. A follower must pay a minimum of Rs 5,000 to apply to see the Syedna at his Mumbairesidence Shaify Mahal in Malabar Hill, where he lives with 300-odd members of his family. A mail circulated prior to Syedna’s visit to California in May asked every household to pay $14,000 ( Rs 5.6 lakh) for the Syedna’s youngest son to inaugurate a mosque in Los Angeles.
The Bohra situation is not a remnant of archaic despotism, it was exacerbated by the greater affluence that came with economic changes post-independence. The threat of social boycott has remained powerful because the community, estimated to be a little over a million, is still fairly insular, often choosing to marry and do business within the community.
“A few years after I returned from the US after completing my PhD, they declared a baraat against me for not wearing the Dawoodi Bohra dress. They asked Muslim civic organisations I was active in to expel me. They tried to target my cousin Ismail Kanga, then India’s ambassador to Yemen, to make an example of what happens if the theocracy is not obeyed,” says professor JS Bandukwala, a prominent social activist and physicist at MS University, Vadodara.
DAWOODI BOHRA l ocalities resound with stories of being threatened, ostracised, beaten and in some instances even being driven to suicide. “My siblings, my relatives, neighbours, everyone stopped talking to me. Some Bohras even tried to burn the house I lived in with my aged mother,” says Zehra Cyclewallah, who lived under police protection in Surat for 14 years after going to court against the Syedna.
Cyclewallah invited the priest’s wrath when she refused to step down as manager of a cooperative bank that the Syedna first inaugurated and then several years later tried to shut down with a fatwa, accusing it of charging interest. The priest and his coterie had similarly tried to shut down Bombay Mercantile Cooperative Bank in Mumbai in 1982. The chairman of the bank, Hoseini Doctor, had then accused the priestly family of trying to gain control of the bank by forcing Bohra employees in the bank to resign or face a social boycott.
Recognising that social boycott is a weapon to deprive Dawoodi Bohras of their constitutional rights, the Bombay State Legislature had passed the Prevention of Excommunication Act in 1948. The Bombay High Court upheld the law but in 1961, a four-member Bench of the Supreme Court accepted the Syedna’s contention that excommunication on religious ground was his prerogative. In a dissenting judgment, then Chief Justice Sinha expressed his discomfort with the judgment. “I am not satisfied that the right to excommunication is a purely religious matter… one is inclined to think that the position of an excommunicated person becomes that of an untouchable,” he remarked. Reformists’ appealed for a review of the verdict but a hearing has been pending for 15 years.
The Syedna, who is the wealthiest of all Muslim clergy, has used his ties with Muslim leaders to serve his own ends, resisting any government scrutiny by raising the bogey of interference in minority culture. In cities with a history of reform within the community such as Udaipur, reformists’ numbers have dwindled. Even former leaders such as Ghulam Hussain, a former president of reformist Bohra Youth Association, have had to apologise and seek refuge with the Syedna.
“If they don’t obey the Syedna, they are not Dawoodi Bohras. Our trusts are run as per India’s laws,” says Quresh Ragib, the Syedna’s public relations officer.
Engineer, who led the movement despite six incidents of physical attacks, including a stabbing attempt in 1976, reels off a list of the high and mighty to whom he appealed to end the Syedna’s chokehold. “Indira Gandhi, Zail Singh, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, VP Singh, Rajiv Gandhi. I stopped trying after Narasimha Rao,” he says. He acknowledges that the underground movement is dead. “Hundreds used to collect in secret meetings in Ahmedabad, Indore, Kolkata. Now 10-15 people turn up. They say they are sympathisers but the fear of punishment is too great,” he says.
If the movement is completely snuffed out, what do the reformists ultimately lose? “The freedom to do what our conscience says, to live with dignity,” he says.
Anumeha Yadav is a Senior Correspondent with Tehelka.
anumeha@tehelka.com
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Re: Criticism of Burhanuddin: A Legacy of oppression
On the Dawoodi Bohra Reformist Struggle: Interview with Abid Adeeb
http://www.newageislam.com/interview/on ... eeb/d/4166
http://www.newageislam.com/interview/on ... eeb/d/4166
Re: Criticism of Burhanuddin: A Legacy of oppression
In this interview given to Yoginder Sikand for NewAgeIslam.com, the chief organiser of the conference, Abid Adeeb, President of the Dawoodi Bohra Jamaat of Udaipur, and Vice-President of the Central Board of the Dawoodi Bohra Community, the international federation of reformist Bohras, speaks about the ongoing movement against the Syedna's oppression that, lamentably, has received little media attention.
Q: You are among the pioneers of the the reformist movement in Udaipur, which later spread elsewhere. How did it all begin?
A: As a young man, in the 1950s, I saw for myself how the Syedna and his Kothar, the Bohra religious establishment, were crassly misusing religion to make money by fleecing the credulous in the name of Islam. I saw, even at that young age, how it was all about money and nothing to do with religion, although religion was routinely invoked to legitimise this big business. I saw how when people refused to pay up to the Syedna and his cronies, they were cruelly insulted. And that is why I decided to speak out.
In the mid-1960s, a group of young Bohras in Udaipur had started a group, called the Saifi Imdadia Committee, to help needy members of the community. We collected old textbooks to give to students, and unused medicines to donate to the poor. Gradually, our work for empowering the community bore fruit, and we helped a lot of young Bohras to go in for higher education. A Bohra trader in East Africa helped us with money for our projects. This was not liked by the Syedna and his men. They did not want us to progress, to get educated, because they feared that this would undermine their influence and authority. The Syedna instructed us to stop working with this Bohra trader, calling him a 'hypocrite'. We refused to listen to this order. We said we could not call someone who helped the needy in our community as our enemy. The Syedna's men even offered me money to relent, but I refused to accept it. Gradually, some Bohra youths began to see through the tricks of the Syedna, but, barring myself and a few others, they were too scared to speak out for fear of being excommunicated.
In the 1970 municipal elections in Udaipur, we in the Saifi Imdadia Committee decided to field four candidates, including myself, but the Syedna and his men opposed us and fielded four other Bohras, who were their henchmen, instead. Because of the community work we had done, and also because we had helped a number of Bohras who had been hit by a wave of communal riots, we won the elections, and the four candidates of the Syedna lost. The Syedna took this to be a personal insult. Some time later, we organised a joint Eid-Diwali function to promote communal harmony, as Udaipur had just then been rocked by deadly communal violence, in which many Bohras suffered greatly. The Syedna issued an order denouncing this, labelling us as kafirs for organising a function to celebrate what he called a kafir festival. But we refused to relent.
By this time, a number of educated Bohra youth, thoroughly fed-up of the corrupt ways of the Syedna and his Kothar, set up a group of their own, the Bohra Youth Association, to work for the educational and empowerment of the community. To help Bohra families establish and expand their businesses, we established the Udaipur Urban Cooperative Bank. This the Syedna took as a threat to him and his authority, and he issued a farman calling for the banning of both our association and the bank. He even sent a letter to the Reserve Bank of India, asking it to inquire into our bank's affairs. The Reserve Bank sent a team and found that the allegations against the bank were false, and they gave us a certificate of approval. Now the bank is one of the most successful cooperative banks in Rajasthan, with more than a dozen branches. So, the Syedna's machinations to stop the mounting resentment against him within the community failed.
Then, the Syedna used the most dangerous weapon that he has in his armoury—baraat, or excommunication. He declared that all of us—several dozen people—to be out of the Bohra fold. No Bohras could have any social relations with us. We could no longer even meet our relatives, not even speak to them on the phone. He even ordered that our marriages had been dissolved, and so dozens of men and women who dared to challenge his authority were automatically divorced. We were banned from the Bohra mosques. He issued a farman saying that no Bohra could pray in a Bohra mosque without his permission or raza, and this rule continues till today. And, to strengthen his control over the community he declared that he was the sole trustee of all the many Bohra trusts all over India. Shortly after, in order to deviously project himself as a pious Muslim, and also to drive a wedge between the reformists and his followers, he issued a fatwa making it mandatory for all Bohra men to wear a special sort of cap and for Bohra women to wear a distinctive form of burqa, although this was not the case before.
For several years we reformists here in Udaipur were faced with heinous oppression. Numerous Bohra businesses were destroyed as employees who dared to question the Syedna's dictatorship were forcibly thrown out of their jobs. Scored of Bohras were denied the right to be buried in Bohra cemeteries, and there were several cases in which the police had to be called in to allow deceased Bohras to be buried. Three times curfew had to be imposed to prevent clashes in the town as the Syedna's cronies attacked us.
By the early 1980s, news of the reformist struggle in Udaipur spread to other parts of India. Elsewhwere too, increasing numbers of Bohras were fed up of the corrupt ways of the Syedna. Some of them dared to speak out, and were inevitably excommunicated. But the vast majority were and are forced into silence for fear of being ex-communicated, although they know well the rampant corruption of the Syedna and his establishment.
To spearhead the Bohra reformist struggle, every three years the Central Board of the Dawoodi Bohra Community, the international body of reformist Bohras, of which I am the Vice-President, organises a conference to campaign against the corruption of the Bohra priesthood. Because of the vast political and financial clout that the Syedna wields, political parties and the media are loathe to touch him. But we have to continue to speak out.
Q: The Syedna is regarded by the Bohras as dai-e mutlaq, or absolute guide of the community, and you say that he is misusing this position to enrich himself. Is this a new development? Doesn't the very position of dai-e mutlaq lend itself to abuse because of the totalitarian powers that go with it?
A: The Bohras believe that before their 21st Imam went into seclusion, he established the institution of dai-e mutlaq to protect the community and to guide its affairs at a time when the Ismailis were being hounded by their Sunni opponents as heretics. In that historical context, the institution of dai played a key role in keeping the community together. It implied merely religious control, but the present Syedna's father, the 51st dai, Tahir Saifuddin, changed it to mean total control over every aspect of the Bohras' lives. He claimed to be 'the master of their lives and properties' (jan-o-mal ka malik)! And the present dai continues in that tradition set by his father. This is what we are against. We say that this is a total abuse of the position of dai, that this is a new innovation that has no sanction in our religion. What we are saying is that the Syedna has deviated from our religion, that we want the dai to be our religious leader but not to exceed the bounds of a dai, in accordance with the established principles of our faith. But the Syedna and his cronies persist in spreading misinformation about us, wrongly accusing us of being against religion, and of being heretics.
To set the record straight, corruption among the dais did not start with Syedna Burhanuddin. The story goes back to the 47th dai, Abdul Qadir Najmuddin, who established the hereditary rule of a single family that still continues. He was the great-grandfather of Burhanuddin. There are terrible stories alleging how he came to power by removing the 46th dai. Some even claim that the 46th dai was poisoned. Corruption and rampant nepotism began with Najmuddin, who filled the Kothar with his men. The 51st dai, Tahir Saifuddin, father of Burhanuddin, went to enormous lengths in corruption. He dispossessed rich Bohras of their wealth. He even commanded the Bohras to prostrate before him, although sajda or prostration is, in Islam, meant for God alone. In a statement before the Bombay High Court, he even declared, in complete violation of Islam, that he was God on earth (ilah ul-ard). Scores of irate Bohras instituted cases in the courts against him for his corrupt practices.
In Tahir Saifuddin's time, between the two world wars, a small number of Bohras witnessed considerable economic prosperity. Some of them won lucrative government contracts. Many migrated abroad and prospered. And so, new avenues were opened to Tahir Saifuddin to make money. He imposed new taxes on the Bohras, many of which have no sanction whatsoever in Islam. Today, the Bohras have to cough up money to the priests, to the Syedna and his amils or representatives, on every conceivable occasion, including birth, marriage or opening a new business. If they refuse, they can easily be excommunicated. Tahir Saifuddin, and then, after him, his son Burhanuddin, have become immensely rich in this way. Burhanuddin lives and behaves like a king. He styles his sons as shehzadas or 'princes', and his daughters as shehzadis or 'princesses'. This has no sanction at all in our religion. Burhanuddin's extended family is almost 1000 in number, and most of them are exceedingly rich. But this is not their hard-earned money. Rather, they have fattened on the taxes they extract from the Bohras, for which they refuse to provide the community with accounts. They care nothing at all for the poor in the community, who, too, are forced to part with their money. This entire family, which was once poor, now has assets worth thousands of crores! I can't even begin to explain and recount the terrible, criminal scandals, financial and moral, of the family.
Faced with the challenge of the reformists, Burhanuddin once in a while makes a big show of donating some small sums of money ostensibly to the poor, but most of even this meagre amount does not reach the intended beneficiaries because the money is eaten up by his henchmen, particularly the amils, whom he has appointed in every town where Bohras live.
Q: You have been struggling for years to highlight the oppression and corruption of the Bohra priesthood. What has the reaction to your struggle been from political parties? Have they supported the cause?
A: Political parties are simply too scared of taking on the Syedna. In fact, there must certainly be some sort of give-and-take, including exchange of money, between the Syedna and various political parties, a relationship that works both ways. In this way, the Syedna keeps the parties happy and they refuse to take any action against him, despite clear evidence of his oppression ad corruption. They remain silent on the enormous corruption in the Bohra priesthood for fear of losing Bohra votes. It is common knowledge that the Syedna has a very good relationship even with Narendra Modi, the man behind the 2002 Gujarat anti-Muslim genocide.
Let me illustrate my claim about the give-and-take relationship between the Syedna and political parties with an anecdote. Many years ago, when VP Singh was a Minister in Rajiv Gandhi's cabinet, a delegation of Bohra reformists went to meet him. He very categorically told the delegation that parties give many influential Sunni Muslim maulvis money and, in turn, the latter supply them with Muslim votes, but that the case of the Bohras was exceptional—in their case, the Syedna provided parties with both money and votes.
Q: I am always struck by the fact that while the Quran stridently opposes the institution of priesthood, the maulvis, who function like clergy or priests, continue to enjoy a vast influence among Muslims. Of course, in the Bohra case this is even more extreme than among the Sunnis. How do you account for this?
A: In the Sunni case, part of the reason for this has to do with widespread illiteracy and poverty, and the consequent lack of true knowledge of Islam. So, people blindly believe, without thinking, whatever they maulvis tell them, wrongly taking that to be the real Islam. Many maulvis conveniently twist religion to bolster their own authority and worldly interests. It's all a question of their vested interests, not piety. If people understood Islam really as it is, they would know how important it is to think for themselves—the Quran repeatedly stresses this. They would know that Islam does not countenance priesthood. But many mullahs don't want people to know all this as it would undermine their authority. And so they conveniently distort Islamic teachings to suit themselves. They do not want people to understand Islam as it really is. This is not a new development, of course. It goes back to early times, when people started fabricating hadith reports on a massive scale and falsely attributed them to the Prophet simply in order to promote their vested interests. Lamentably, when the reformists point all this out, they are quickly branded by the clerics as heretics, simply because what we say undermines their authority and worldly interests.
Q: If, as you allege, the present Syedna is so terribly oppressive and corrupt, why don't the reformists simply leave the Dawoodi Bohra community, especially given the fact that most Dawoodi Bohras, despite possibly being aware of all this, still regard him as their religious leader and so will probably not support your cause?
A: That is precisely what the Syedna wants, because if we take such a step we will cease to be Dawoodi Bohras and then shall have no standing or right to criticise his ways from within. In this way, Burhanuddin he can continue with his dictatorial and corrupt ways free of any internal pressure. We reformers are followers of our religious tradition and are pained to see how it is being misused. Why should we abandon our faith just because some people are misusing it? Instead of seceding from our community, like some dissenting groups have in the past, we want to reform it from within. That is why we say that we recognise Syedna Burhanuddin as the dai-e mutlaq, but we insist that he should not exceed the limits of the dai-e mutlaq by claiming, as he does, to be the 'master of our lives and property'. Instead, as in the case of the dais before the 47th dai, he should confine himself to purely religious roles. He must cease forthwith the un-Islamic taxes he imposes on us and the financial scandals, which have turned him and his vast family into billionaires. He should give us proper accounts as to how the enormous wealth that he earns from us is being used. He must also cease un-Islamic practices such as forcing Bohras to prostrate before him and claiming that if without his assistance or if we incur his wrath, Bohras will be doomed to hell. We refuse to stop speaking out because Islam tells us to stand up for what is right and true and to denounce oppression, even if some people wrongly seek to justify oppression in its name.
A regular columnist for NewAgeIslam.com, Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion at the National Law School, Bangalore.
URL:
http://www.newageislam.com/interview/on ... eeb/d/4166
Q: You are among the pioneers of the the reformist movement in Udaipur, which later spread elsewhere. How did it all begin?
A: As a young man, in the 1950s, I saw for myself how the Syedna and his Kothar, the Bohra religious establishment, were crassly misusing religion to make money by fleecing the credulous in the name of Islam. I saw, even at that young age, how it was all about money and nothing to do with religion, although religion was routinely invoked to legitimise this big business. I saw how when people refused to pay up to the Syedna and his cronies, they were cruelly insulted. And that is why I decided to speak out.
In the mid-1960s, a group of young Bohras in Udaipur had started a group, called the Saifi Imdadia Committee, to help needy members of the community. We collected old textbooks to give to students, and unused medicines to donate to the poor. Gradually, our work for empowering the community bore fruit, and we helped a lot of young Bohras to go in for higher education. A Bohra trader in East Africa helped us with money for our projects. This was not liked by the Syedna and his men. They did not want us to progress, to get educated, because they feared that this would undermine their influence and authority. The Syedna instructed us to stop working with this Bohra trader, calling him a 'hypocrite'. We refused to listen to this order. We said we could not call someone who helped the needy in our community as our enemy. The Syedna's men even offered me money to relent, but I refused to accept it. Gradually, some Bohra youths began to see through the tricks of the Syedna, but, barring myself and a few others, they were too scared to speak out for fear of being excommunicated.
In the 1970 municipal elections in Udaipur, we in the Saifi Imdadia Committee decided to field four candidates, including myself, but the Syedna and his men opposed us and fielded four other Bohras, who were their henchmen, instead. Because of the community work we had done, and also because we had helped a number of Bohras who had been hit by a wave of communal riots, we won the elections, and the four candidates of the Syedna lost. The Syedna took this to be a personal insult. Some time later, we organised a joint Eid-Diwali function to promote communal harmony, as Udaipur had just then been rocked by deadly communal violence, in which many Bohras suffered greatly. The Syedna issued an order denouncing this, labelling us as kafirs for organising a function to celebrate what he called a kafir festival. But we refused to relent.
By this time, a number of educated Bohra youth, thoroughly fed-up of the corrupt ways of the Syedna and his Kothar, set up a group of their own, the Bohra Youth Association, to work for the educational and empowerment of the community. To help Bohra families establish and expand their businesses, we established the Udaipur Urban Cooperative Bank. This the Syedna took as a threat to him and his authority, and he issued a farman calling for the banning of both our association and the bank. He even sent a letter to the Reserve Bank of India, asking it to inquire into our bank's affairs. The Reserve Bank sent a team and found that the allegations against the bank were false, and they gave us a certificate of approval. Now the bank is one of the most successful cooperative banks in Rajasthan, with more than a dozen branches. So, the Syedna's machinations to stop the mounting resentment against him within the community failed.
Then, the Syedna used the most dangerous weapon that he has in his armoury—baraat, or excommunication. He declared that all of us—several dozen people—to be out of the Bohra fold. No Bohras could have any social relations with us. We could no longer even meet our relatives, not even speak to them on the phone. He even ordered that our marriages had been dissolved, and so dozens of men and women who dared to challenge his authority were automatically divorced. We were banned from the Bohra mosques. He issued a farman saying that no Bohra could pray in a Bohra mosque without his permission or raza, and this rule continues till today. And, to strengthen his control over the community he declared that he was the sole trustee of all the many Bohra trusts all over India. Shortly after, in order to deviously project himself as a pious Muslim, and also to drive a wedge between the reformists and his followers, he issued a fatwa making it mandatory for all Bohra men to wear a special sort of cap and for Bohra women to wear a distinctive form of burqa, although this was not the case before.
For several years we reformists here in Udaipur were faced with heinous oppression. Numerous Bohra businesses were destroyed as employees who dared to question the Syedna's dictatorship were forcibly thrown out of their jobs. Scored of Bohras were denied the right to be buried in Bohra cemeteries, and there were several cases in which the police had to be called in to allow deceased Bohras to be buried. Three times curfew had to be imposed to prevent clashes in the town as the Syedna's cronies attacked us.
By the early 1980s, news of the reformist struggle in Udaipur spread to other parts of India. Elsewhwere too, increasing numbers of Bohras were fed up of the corrupt ways of the Syedna. Some of them dared to speak out, and were inevitably excommunicated. But the vast majority were and are forced into silence for fear of being ex-communicated, although they know well the rampant corruption of the Syedna and his establishment.
To spearhead the Bohra reformist struggle, every three years the Central Board of the Dawoodi Bohra Community, the international body of reformist Bohras, of which I am the Vice-President, organises a conference to campaign against the corruption of the Bohra priesthood. Because of the vast political and financial clout that the Syedna wields, political parties and the media are loathe to touch him. But we have to continue to speak out.
Q: The Syedna is regarded by the Bohras as dai-e mutlaq, or absolute guide of the community, and you say that he is misusing this position to enrich himself. Is this a new development? Doesn't the very position of dai-e mutlaq lend itself to abuse because of the totalitarian powers that go with it?
A: The Bohras believe that before their 21st Imam went into seclusion, he established the institution of dai-e mutlaq to protect the community and to guide its affairs at a time when the Ismailis were being hounded by their Sunni opponents as heretics. In that historical context, the institution of dai played a key role in keeping the community together. It implied merely religious control, but the present Syedna's father, the 51st dai, Tahir Saifuddin, changed it to mean total control over every aspect of the Bohras' lives. He claimed to be 'the master of their lives and properties' (jan-o-mal ka malik)! And the present dai continues in that tradition set by his father. This is what we are against. We say that this is a total abuse of the position of dai, that this is a new innovation that has no sanction in our religion. What we are saying is that the Syedna has deviated from our religion, that we want the dai to be our religious leader but not to exceed the bounds of a dai, in accordance with the established principles of our faith. But the Syedna and his cronies persist in spreading misinformation about us, wrongly accusing us of being against religion, and of being heretics.
To set the record straight, corruption among the dais did not start with Syedna Burhanuddin. The story goes back to the 47th dai, Abdul Qadir Najmuddin, who established the hereditary rule of a single family that still continues. He was the great-grandfather of Burhanuddin. There are terrible stories alleging how he came to power by removing the 46th dai. Some even claim that the 46th dai was poisoned. Corruption and rampant nepotism began with Najmuddin, who filled the Kothar with his men. The 51st dai, Tahir Saifuddin, father of Burhanuddin, went to enormous lengths in corruption. He dispossessed rich Bohras of their wealth. He even commanded the Bohras to prostrate before him, although sajda or prostration is, in Islam, meant for God alone. In a statement before the Bombay High Court, he even declared, in complete violation of Islam, that he was God on earth (ilah ul-ard). Scores of irate Bohras instituted cases in the courts against him for his corrupt practices.
In Tahir Saifuddin's time, between the two world wars, a small number of Bohras witnessed considerable economic prosperity. Some of them won lucrative government contracts. Many migrated abroad and prospered. And so, new avenues were opened to Tahir Saifuddin to make money. He imposed new taxes on the Bohras, many of which have no sanction whatsoever in Islam. Today, the Bohras have to cough up money to the priests, to the Syedna and his amils or representatives, on every conceivable occasion, including birth, marriage or opening a new business. If they refuse, they can easily be excommunicated. Tahir Saifuddin, and then, after him, his son Burhanuddin, have become immensely rich in this way. Burhanuddin lives and behaves like a king. He styles his sons as shehzadas or 'princes', and his daughters as shehzadis or 'princesses'. This has no sanction at all in our religion. Burhanuddin's extended family is almost 1000 in number, and most of them are exceedingly rich. But this is not their hard-earned money. Rather, they have fattened on the taxes they extract from the Bohras, for which they refuse to provide the community with accounts. They care nothing at all for the poor in the community, who, too, are forced to part with their money. This entire family, which was once poor, now has assets worth thousands of crores! I can't even begin to explain and recount the terrible, criminal scandals, financial and moral, of the family.
Faced with the challenge of the reformists, Burhanuddin once in a while makes a big show of donating some small sums of money ostensibly to the poor, but most of even this meagre amount does not reach the intended beneficiaries because the money is eaten up by his henchmen, particularly the amils, whom he has appointed in every town where Bohras live.
Q: You have been struggling for years to highlight the oppression and corruption of the Bohra priesthood. What has the reaction to your struggle been from political parties? Have they supported the cause?
A: Political parties are simply too scared of taking on the Syedna. In fact, there must certainly be some sort of give-and-take, including exchange of money, between the Syedna and various political parties, a relationship that works both ways. In this way, the Syedna keeps the parties happy and they refuse to take any action against him, despite clear evidence of his oppression ad corruption. They remain silent on the enormous corruption in the Bohra priesthood for fear of losing Bohra votes. It is common knowledge that the Syedna has a very good relationship even with Narendra Modi, the man behind the 2002 Gujarat anti-Muslim genocide.
Let me illustrate my claim about the give-and-take relationship between the Syedna and political parties with an anecdote. Many years ago, when VP Singh was a Minister in Rajiv Gandhi's cabinet, a delegation of Bohra reformists went to meet him. He very categorically told the delegation that parties give many influential Sunni Muslim maulvis money and, in turn, the latter supply them with Muslim votes, but that the case of the Bohras was exceptional—in their case, the Syedna provided parties with both money and votes.
Q: I am always struck by the fact that while the Quran stridently opposes the institution of priesthood, the maulvis, who function like clergy or priests, continue to enjoy a vast influence among Muslims. Of course, in the Bohra case this is even more extreme than among the Sunnis. How do you account for this?
A: In the Sunni case, part of the reason for this has to do with widespread illiteracy and poverty, and the consequent lack of true knowledge of Islam. So, people blindly believe, without thinking, whatever they maulvis tell them, wrongly taking that to be the real Islam. Many maulvis conveniently twist religion to bolster their own authority and worldly interests. It's all a question of their vested interests, not piety. If people understood Islam really as it is, they would know how important it is to think for themselves—the Quran repeatedly stresses this. They would know that Islam does not countenance priesthood. But many mullahs don't want people to know all this as it would undermine their authority. And so they conveniently distort Islamic teachings to suit themselves. They do not want people to understand Islam as it really is. This is not a new development, of course. It goes back to early times, when people started fabricating hadith reports on a massive scale and falsely attributed them to the Prophet simply in order to promote their vested interests. Lamentably, when the reformists point all this out, they are quickly branded by the clerics as heretics, simply because what we say undermines their authority and worldly interests.
Q: If, as you allege, the present Syedna is so terribly oppressive and corrupt, why don't the reformists simply leave the Dawoodi Bohra community, especially given the fact that most Dawoodi Bohras, despite possibly being aware of all this, still regard him as their religious leader and so will probably not support your cause?
A: That is precisely what the Syedna wants, because if we take such a step we will cease to be Dawoodi Bohras and then shall have no standing or right to criticise his ways from within. In this way, Burhanuddin he can continue with his dictatorial and corrupt ways free of any internal pressure. We reformers are followers of our religious tradition and are pained to see how it is being misused. Why should we abandon our faith just because some people are misusing it? Instead of seceding from our community, like some dissenting groups have in the past, we want to reform it from within. That is why we say that we recognise Syedna Burhanuddin as the dai-e mutlaq, but we insist that he should not exceed the limits of the dai-e mutlaq by claiming, as he does, to be the 'master of our lives and property'. Instead, as in the case of the dais before the 47th dai, he should confine himself to purely religious roles. He must cease forthwith the un-Islamic taxes he imposes on us and the financial scandals, which have turned him and his vast family into billionaires. He should give us proper accounts as to how the enormous wealth that he earns from us is being used. He must also cease un-Islamic practices such as forcing Bohras to prostrate before him and claiming that if without his assistance or if we incur his wrath, Bohras will be doomed to hell. We refuse to stop speaking out because Islam tells us to stand up for what is right and true and to denounce oppression, even if some people wrongly seek to justify oppression in its name.
A regular columnist for NewAgeIslam.com, Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion at the National Law School, Bangalore.
URL:
http://www.newageislam.com/interview/on ... eeb/d/4166
Re: Criticism of Burhanuddin: A Legacy of oppression
THE BOHRA HIGH PRIEST AND HIS HUNDRED YEARS
- BY DR. ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER.
These days more than a million Bohras worldwide are furiously engaged in celebrating (or being made to celebrate?) 100th birth day of their religious head Syedna Muhammad Burhanuddin who is 52nd Da’i’ (a religious head meaning summoner to the faith). He is 52nd da’i’ in the chain of Du’at (plural of da’i) which started in the Yemen with first da’i’ Zoeb bin Musa who died in 1151 A.D. However, when the political situation in the Yemen became difficult to live with the 23rd da’I Syedna Izzuddin nominated an Indian as his successor and 24th da’i’ known as Yusuf Najmuddin and ever since India has remained main centre of D’awah (mission). The Bohras belong to the Isma’ili Shi’i’ branch of Islam.
The Bohras are all convert from Hinduism to Islam and mainly belonged to middle caste of traders and have mainly remained traders and are found mainly in trading centres of India like Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai, Kolkatta, Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, Cochin, Hyderabad, Indore and so on. They were all converted in Gujarat and speak Gujarati and word Bohra is, likely corruption of the Gujarati word ‘Vohra’ derived from Vyahwar (to trade).
Today they are found in East Africa, U.K., Canada, USA, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Dubai, Kuwait, Yemen (mainly Arabs), Sri Lanka etc. and all of them are of Indian origin and speak Gujarati wherever they are. Since basically they are traders they are, like other trading communities of Indian Muslims i.e. Khojas and Memons, are also prosperous compared to other Indian Muslims (though there is lot of poverty among a section of Bohras many of whom live in slums in cities like Mumbai.
The Bohras and Khojas are two communities in Islam who have developed church-like structure and are tightly controlled, particularly the former, by its priesthood. It is easier for priesthood to control the community if it happens to be of traders as traders have very different psychology, psychology of submission and peace. One hardly finds dissent as it leads to turmoil and affects peaceful conditions needed for trade and commerce. Also, historically immersed in commerce have hardly any time for intellectual activities so vital for dissent.
However, with onset of modernity in the beginning of twentieth century dissent did emerge when children of some traders took to modern education and adopted legal, medic al, engineering and other professions. Two lawyers from Buhanpur challenged the then da’i’ for his refusal to permit modern education and da’i’ responded by ex-communication them.
This was beginning of reform movement in the Dawoodi Bohra community which has continued till today. Modernity brought up issues of modern education and other forms of intellectual dissent by creating space for it. The priestly establishment was not used to any form of dissent and required nothing but total submission which was no longer possible. The Bohra religious establishment (called Kothar in Gujarati), let loose oppression to meet with the situation.
Also, with the British rule trade expanded and modern means of communication like railways, motorable transport, telephone and telegrams trading became much more profitable than before and the Bohra da’i’ became much wealthier by extracting more money from his followers and he also used money power to earn greater political influence. The then da’i’, father of the present da’i’ shrewdly exploited his increased power to ruthlessly put down dissent in the community. The son of Adamjee Peerbhoy who laid down Matheran Railway fought against the high priest and was ruined, in the process.
However, with all this repression dissent did not disappear but flourished. When India became independent reformists had new hope from democratic India. But the priesthood tried to ‘manipulate external democracy’, as an American scholar Theodore Wright Jr. of New York State University put it, ‘to frustrate the internal democracy’ (within the Bohra community). Fat donations to political parties (all except of the left) bought the high priest their support. Even parties like Shiv Sena and BJP obliged the Syedna.
Not only this even all well known Sunni Ulama and Muslim political leaders supported the high priest and he would give donations to their organizations. The reformists initially were accused of ‘heresy’ and ‘non-belief’ and hence, according to these Muslim leaders, had no right to challenge the da’i’. Even when in 1988 the Bohra da’i’ uttered curses on the first three caliphs who are highly revered by Sunni Muslims as companions of the Prophet (PBUH) by the high priest and there were riots between Bohras and Sunni Muslims in which three persons were killed in Mumbai the Sunni leaders and Congress leaders came to his rescue and he tendered apology and matter was hushed up.
The Bohra high priest’s establishment is very powerful and as we have always maintained any religion which becomes an establishment looses its religiosity and spirituality and instead turns into den of corruption. This is the history of all organized religions. Syedna sahib has a large family (more than 200 members) dependent on income from 7 taxes collected in the name of Islam which runs into hundreds of crores every year. The income has multiplied several folds as Bohras went abroad and began to earn in pounds and dollars.
The high priest collects these taxes with ruthless and coercive ways as shown by Justice Nathwani Commission appointed by Shri Jaiprakash Narain in 1978 comprising of legal luminaries and eminent human rights activists like Tarkende and academics like Prof. Alam Khundmiri and Prof. Moin Shakir along with others. The Commission concluded that “Our inquiry has shown that there is large scale infringement of civil liberties and human rights of reformists Bohras at the hands of the priestly class and that those who fail to obey the orders of the Syedna and his Amils (local priests), even in purely secular matters, are subjected to Bharat (ex-communication) resulting in complete social boycott, mental torture and frequent physical assaults (this writer was assaulted five times in different places, including Cairo.
The Report further says, “The Misaq (the oath of unquestioning obedience to the Head Priest) which every Bohra is required to give before he or she attains the age of majority is used as the main instrument for keeping the entire community under the subjugation of the Syedna and his nominees.” Though Nathwani Commission conducted inquiry on violations of human rights in the Bohra community in late seventies and early eighties nothing much has changed until today. The violations go on and hundreds of Bohras continue o suffer.
The reformists want all this to stop and want democratic and accountable functioning by the priesthood. In fact had there been any degree of religiosity there would have been humane treatment of followers. The high priest is going to turn 100 (according to Islamic calendar (but he is 96 according to Roman one) he and his establishment has not mended ways. On the other hand, using modern technology he is becoming much more repressive. His establishment has issued digital cards without which you cannot enter any Bohra mosque or jamaatkhana or mausoleums and the card is issued only if you have paid all taxes and have not showed any sign of dissent.
On his 100th birthday lot of propaganda has been launched through newspaper advertisements projecting him as ‘ambassador of peace, harmony and good will. The Times of India only carried 9 pages of advertisement on 25th March, the day of his birth and several other English, Gujarati and Hindi papers too did the same. Similarly crores are being spent on several events and this will go on for one whole year. Are these the ways of spiritual leader? One is known by action, not by propaganda.
http://www.csss-isla.com/Special%20article.htm
- BY DR. ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER.
These days more than a million Bohras worldwide are furiously engaged in celebrating (or being made to celebrate?) 100th birth day of their religious head Syedna Muhammad Burhanuddin who is 52nd Da’i’ (a religious head meaning summoner to the faith). He is 52nd da’i’ in the chain of Du’at (plural of da’i) which started in the Yemen with first da’i’ Zoeb bin Musa who died in 1151 A.D. However, when the political situation in the Yemen became difficult to live with the 23rd da’I Syedna Izzuddin nominated an Indian as his successor and 24th da’i’ known as Yusuf Najmuddin and ever since India has remained main centre of D’awah (mission). The Bohras belong to the Isma’ili Shi’i’ branch of Islam.
The Bohras are all convert from Hinduism to Islam and mainly belonged to middle caste of traders and have mainly remained traders and are found mainly in trading centres of India like Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai, Kolkatta, Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, Cochin, Hyderabad, Indore and so on. They were all converted in Gujarat and speak Gujarati and word Bohra is, likely corruption of the Gujarati word ‘Vohra’ derived from Vyahwar (to trade).
Today they are found in East Africa, U.K., Canada, USA, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Dubai, Kuwait, Yemen (mainly Arabs), Sri Lanka etc. and all of them are of Indian origin and speak Gujarati wherever they are. Since basically they are traders they are, like other trading communities of Indian Muslims i.e. Khojas and Memons, are also prosperous compared to other Indian Muslims (though there is lot of poverty among a section of Bohras many of whom live in slums in cities like Mumbai.
The Bohras and Khojas are two communities in Islam who have developed church-like structure and are tightly controlled, particularly the former, by its priesthood. It is easier for priesthood to control the community if it happens to be of traders as traders have very different psychology, psychology of submission and peace. One hardly finds dissent as it leads to turmoil and affects peaceful conditions needed for trade and commerce. Also, historically immersed in commerce have hardly any time for intellectual activities so vital for dissent.
However, with onset of modernity in the beginning of twentieth century dissent did emerge when children of some traders took to modern education and adopted legal, medic al, engineering and other professions. Two lawyers from Buhanpur challenged the then da’i’ for his refusal to permit modern education and da’i’ responded by ex-communication them.
This was beginning of reform movement in the Dawoodi Bohra community which has continued till today. Modernity brought up issues of modern education and other forms of intellectual dissent by creating space for it. The priestly establishment was not used to any form of dissent and required nothing but total submission which was no longer possible. The Bohra religious establishment (called Kothar in Gujarati), let loose oppression to meet with the situation.
Also, with the British rule trade expanded and modern means of communication like railways, motorable transport, telephone and telegrams trading became much more profitable than before and the Bohra da’i’ became much wealthier by extracting more money from his followers and he also used money power to earn greater political influence. The then da’i’, father of the present da’i’ shrewdly exploited his increased power to ruthlessly put down dissent in the community. The son of Adamjee Peerbhoy who laid down Matheran Railway fought against the high priest and was ruined, in the process.
However, with all this repression dissent did not disappear but flourished. When India became independent reformists had new hope from democratic India. But the priesthood tried to ‘manipulate external democracy’, as an American scholar Theodore Wright Jr. of New York State University put it, ‘to frustrate the internal democracy’ (within the Bohra community). Fat donations to political parties (all except of the left) bought the high priest their support. Even parties like Shiv Sena and BJP obliged the Syedna.
Not only this even all well known Sunni Ulama and Muslim political leaders supported the high priest and he would give donations to their organizations. The reformists initially were accused of ‘heresy’ and ‘non-belief’ and hence, according to these Muslim leaders, had no right to challenge the da’i’. Even when in 1988 the Bohra da’i’ uttered curses on the first three caliphs who are highly revered by Sunni Muslims as companions of the Prophet (PBUH) by the high priest and there were riots between Bohras and Sunni Muslims in which three persons were killed in Mumbai the Sunni leaders and Congress leaders came to his rescue and he tendered apology and matter was hushed up.
The Bohra high priest’s establishment is very powerful and as we have always maintained any religion which becomes an establishment looses its religiosity and spirituality and instead turns into den of corruption. This is the history of all organized religions. Syedna sahib has a large family (more than 200 members) dependent on income from 7 taxes collected in the name of Islam which runs into hundreds of crores every year. The income has multiplied several folds as Bohras went abroad and began to earn in pounds and dollars.
The high priest collects these taxes with ruthless and coercive ways as shown by Justice Nathwani Commission appointed by Shri Jaiprakash Narain in 1978 comprising of legal luminaries and eminent human rights activists like Tarkende and academics like Prof. Alam Khundmiri and Prof. Moin Shakir along with others. The Commission concluded that “Our inquiry has shown that there is large scale infringement of civil liberties and human rights of reformists Bohras at the hands of the priestly class and that those who fail to obey the orders of the Syedna and his Amils (local priests), even in purely secular matters, are subjected to Bharat (ex-communication) resulting in complete social boycott, mental torture and frequent physical assaults (this writer was assaulted five times in different places, including Cairo.
The Report further says, “The Misaq (the oath of unquestioning obedience to the Head Priest) which every Bohra is required to give before he or she attains the age of majority is used as the main instrument for keeping the entire community under the subjugation of the Syedna and his nominees.” Though Nathwani Commission conducted inquiry on violations of human rights in the Bohra community in late seventies and early eighties nothing much has changed until today. The violations go on and hundreds of Bohras continue o suffer.
The reformists want all this to stop and want democratic and accountable functioning by the priesthood. In fact had there been any degree of religiosity there would have been humane treatment of followers. The high priest is going to turn 100 (according to Islamic calendar (but he is 96 according to Roman one) he and his establishment has not mended ways. On the other hand, using modern technology he is becoming much more repressive. His establishment has issued digital cards without which you cannot enter any Bohra mosque or jamaatkhana or mausoleums and the card is issued only if you have paid all taxes and have not showed any sign of dissent.
On his 100th birthday lot of propaganda has been launched through newspaper advertisements projecting him as ‘ambassador of peace, harmony and good will. The Times of India only carried 9 pages of advertisement on 25th March, the day of his birth and several other English, Gujarati and Hindi papers too did the same. Similarly crores are being spent on several events and this will go on for one whole year. Are these the ways of spiritual leader? One is known by action, not by propaganda.
http://www.csss-isla.com/Special%20article.htm
Re: Criticism of Burhanuddin: A Legacy of oppression
And they will continue to tyrannize us cruelly and oppressively until we stop existing. Their main objective is the rule our minds and fleece us of our hard earned money. They manipulate and blind our thinking with the arsenal of religious dogmas.
Re: Criticism of Burhanuddin: A Legacy of oppression
Yes this is the right time to expose both the dawedars in court.
Re: Criticism of Burhanuddin: A Legacy of oppression
They are none other than devils themselves, very powerful in every sense. They would crush any uprising very harshly unless masses stand up against them and then people will see how they run from their mahals, their pomp and glory and hide themselves. The all the revolt lies in the hands of community people but their mindset needs to be changed so they understand how their lives are chained by kothar and people need to free themselves from this tyranny.
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Bohra spring
- Posts: 1377
- Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2012 8:37 am
Re: The legacy of Sayedna Mohammed Burhanuddin
May be it is too soon to judge the legacy
Let time be the judge what legacy was good or bad
Let time be the judge what legacy was good or bad
Re: The legacy of Sayedna Mohammed Burhanuddin
I didn't see these pics before.ghulam muhammed wrote:BOHRAS ARE RESTRICTED FROM EATING AT NON-MUSLIM RESTAURENTS AND BARS BUT THE "ROYALS" ARE EXEMPTED
The pic in front of the restaurant is taken at 1:34.
The last pic 1:55.
20 minutes left.
What is strange, the inside of the restaurant in the last pic does not appear to meet Swiss (luxury) standards.
It seems that SMB(ra) did not eat in the restaurant seen in the background of the 3rd pic, but rather in a sort of dining hall. Nothing tells us that there is meat in the dish of SMB(ra).
Just my opinion.
Re: The legacy of Sayedna Mohammed Burhanuddin
thank you for validating what i was saying so many months ago
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humanbeing
- Posts: 2195
- Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2011 2:30 am
Re: The legacy of Sayedna Mohammed Burhanuddin
The second pic is shabbily photoshopped.
It does not look like a restaurant; rather it looks like a hall with a tv mounded on the wall.
Tables does not seem genuine
SMB hands are not clearly visible.
And why is SMB sitting alone and sidelined, he is the most primed beloved central character to the community and the family. He would be surrounded with family or attendants.
It does not look like a restaurant; rather it looks like a hall with a tv mounded on the wall.
Tables does not seem genuine
SMB hands are not clearly visible.
And why is SMB sitting alone and sidelined, he is the most primed beloved central character to the community and the family. He would be surrounded with family or attendants.
Re: The legacy of Sayedna Mohammed Burhanuddin
Look at the benchseats in both the pictures. They are the same.Sceptical wrote:I didn't see these pics before.ghulam muhammed wrote:BOHRAS ARE RESTRICTED FROM EATING AT NON-MUSLIM RESTAURENTS AND BARS BUT THE "ROYALS" ARE EXEMPTED
The pic in front of the restaurant is taken at 1:34.
The last pic 1:55.
20 minutes left.
What is strange, the inside of the restaurant in the last pic does not appear to meet Swiss (luxury) standards.
It seems that SMB(ra) did not eat in the restaurant seen in the background of the 3rd pic, but rather in a sort of dining hall. Nothing tells us that there is meat in the dish of SMB(ra).
Just my opinion.
Swiss Hospitality is just a term. Does not necessarily mean that their roads are also padded for people to be comfortable when walking.
This is just a regular Apres Ski bar, not one of the famous high end ones. Those are massive.
Re: The legacy of Sayedna Mohammed Burhanuddin
is this how mumineens money is spent on ski slopes in switzerland? What a shame how dawaat exploits the poor mumineen . They should see how the mumineen are suffering before taking these expensive switzerland trips.
Re: The legacy of Sayedna Mohammed Burhanuddin
Let me go on the limb here.
I do not think anything is wrong for Syedna to go out and enjoy his time on ski if that is what he likes, He is human being and he has as much right to enjoy the outdoor as anyone else. We can not hold him to the standard of every poor mumin.
I do not think it is fair to blame him to enjoy his life. Just like we have the luxury of computer where we can express our opinions, there are many poor Mumin and human being who are deprived of basic necessities like toilet and electricity, Thus are we not supposed to use electricity or use toilets in the house if that is What Allaha has provided us.
Some may argue that since he is collecting fat najwas and waajebaats then he is not entitled against us who work hard but to me why blame Syedna if his followers are stupid enough to dole out that kind of money.
Even the President and PM of poorest country go and enjoy the luxuries of life and nothing is wrong with that. I think this SKI vacation to me is not extravagant and if you look at the pictures, he is sitting and napping alone on a separate table which to me is pathetic, people should have been sitting with him and have a pleasant conversation to enjoy the surrounding and nature.
It seems that we are involved here in BAAL KI KHAAL NIKALNA.
I do not think anything is wrong for Syedna to go out and enjoy his time on ski if that is what he likes, He is human being and he has as much right to enjoy the outdoor as anyone else. We can not hold him to the standard of every poor mumin.
I do not think it is fair to blame him to enjoy his life. Just like we have the luxury of computer where we can express our opinions, there are many poor Mumin and human being who are deprived of basic necessities like toilet and electricity, Thus are we not supposed to use electricity or use toilets in the house if that is What Allaha has provided us.
Some may argue that since he is collecting fat najwas and waajebaats then he is not entitled against us who work hard but to me why blame Syedna if his followers are stupid enough to dole out that kind of money.
Even the President and PM of poorest country go and enjoy the luxuries of life and nothing is wrong with that. I think this SKI vacation to me is not extravagant and if you look at the pictures, he is sitting and napping alone on a separate table which to me is pathetic, people should have been sitting with him and have a pleasant conversation to enjoy the surrounding and nature.
It seems that we are involved here in BAAL KI KHAAL NIKALNA.
Re: The legacy of Sayedna Mohammed Burhanuddin
To be honest...the last picture where SMB is dozing off made me a wee bit sad because he was sitting alone! I don't think we should analyse these pics at such great lengths. If he takes a a breather with his family it should not be taken so negatively.
