Dawoodi Bohra Forum

Spot,

Thank you for articulating my point to Anajmi to where he could better understand it.

The quran says give it to the one who is responsible for distributing it. Of course it doesn't say that you should not give it to the Amil if he is corrupt and not distributing it the way he should. That is why Allah gave us brains.

That quote negates and contradicts anything and anyone that claims that one should do something simply because the Quran or another Holy Book says so. Anajmi now agrees that one should use God given brains instead, as the brain evolves ( for most) and a static document does not..

Average Bohra,

You need to have brains to be able to use them. The entire quran talks about fighting injustice and oppression and corruption.

What your brain is looking for is literal interpretations of the quran which you are so much against!!

Talk about evolving brains. Evolving into what? a piece of shit?

Actually scratch my previous post. This is what I really wanted to say...

"Finally Average Bohra agrees with me that we should not be paying zakaat to the corrupt Amils but to those that really deserve it!!"

br. anajmi,

"And please don't tell me that it is the sunnah of the prophet cause it is not. It is the sunnah of the corrupt Dai and the Amil."

again...please do as you feel, but don't say it is from the sunnah of the prophet. the prophet directed amils to collect zakat from the community. from the sunni aspects..the khaliphas did the same (some by force). from the shiah aspects...the imams sent dai to areas and used amils for the collection as well.

if you think the amil is corrupt..fine don't give it to him...give it to another amil...or to the dai himself (if you're a bohra and if you can). if you think the amil and the dai are corrupt...why are you even on this board? by saying the dai is corrupt, you have negated any claim to being a bohra!

... by saying the dai is corrupt, you have negated any claim to being a bohra!

Not that anybody in the right mind would claim to be a bhora (it being another name for slavery), I'm curious to know the reasoning - in any - behind your statement.

the misaq is the foundation for being a shiah ismaili dawoodi bohra. it claims allegaince to imam and his current dai specifically. you may have a bohra background...but you cannot claim to be a bohra is you at minimum do not adhere to the claim of the misaq.

to be a bohra is not a club or a ethic community...it is at first a religious idiology.

Much discussion has taken place on "misaq" on this board already - and misaq as the foundation of Bohra faith is at best a questionable claim. Please read previous discussions to understand what I mean, I'm in no mood to go into that discussion all over again - especailly with you where the possibility of me tearing at my hair is all to distinct.

But let's for argument's sake accept that misaq is the foundation of Bohra faith. So let's say I give the misaq and still call the dai corrupt. How does it negate me from being a bohra?

spot,

What makes you think I want to be called a bohra or want to be a bohra. The prophet wasn't a bohra, the khalifas weren't bohras, nor was Imam Ali nor was Imam Hassan or Imam Hussein or Hazrat Fatima. They were all muslims and I would want to be nothing but a muslim.

Originally posted by Humsafar:

... by saying the dai is corrupt, you have negated any claim to being a bohra!

Not that anybody in the right mind would claim to be a bhora (it being another name for slavery), I'm curious to know the reasoning - in any - behind your statement.

Corrupt dais during the time of the Fatimi imams:

1. Dai Abu Abdullah al-Shii, liberator of Imam Mehdi, executed in 298 AH for conspiring against the imam.

2. Dai al-Fariqi, dai-ul-duat (highest position of dai) and chief qadi during the time of Imam Hakim, removed from office and executed.

br anajmi,
if your discussion has nothing to do being a bohra...then why are you criticizing bohra practices and beliefs...as if you are one. at least stick to your own creed.

humsafar,
if you think the dai is corrupt..you are denying the tenet of the misaq where the dai is your unquestionable leader as representative of the imam (it's part of the misaq).

muslim,
please note who ordered the execution...it was the followers of the imam...but the imam! there's a big difference.

muslim
correction:

"please note who ordered the execution...it was NOT the followers of the imam...but the imam! there's a big difference."

br. spot,

if your discussion has nothing to do being a bohra...then why are you criticizing bohra practices and beliefs...as if you are one. at least stick to your own creed.

Now I am actually trying to wonder, how it must have been to be a bohra and what others must've thought about me. I am reformed, I used to be a bohra, an abde moron.

Stick to my own creed??? What does that mean??? You are my creed. I am trying to reform you and your corrupt and oppressive practices.

Dear Spot: The da'i is human and hence he and his organization have the same limitations which go with being human. No human can claim to be sacred and in fact even the Imams have strongly admonished those who tried to venerate them as sacred and hence deemed them worthy of worship. What you seem to claim in you previous post is that the da'i and his office are sacred which usually means (in religious contexts) as being worthy of worship. Thus, you equate questioning the da'i with questioning God. The da'i's job is to run the dawaat, i.e to run the Imam's mission. He should provide religious and spiritual guidance and not take over the role of the Imam or God and demand worship. It may be better if you told us what you mean by "believing" in the da'i. That may help clarify the point you are trying to make.

In the current dai's reign his administration has started to portray him as being equivalent to the prophet and even God. Last Moharaam, on Ashura day the miyasaheb who had come to do bayaan said that the position of Sayedna Taher Saifuddin and Sayedna Mohammad Burhanuddin is analogous to the Prophet and Maulana Ali. He then went on to relate anecdotes which he claimed proved his point. In an earlier waaz he also said that the da'i has knowledge of everything that happens in the world and nothing is hidden from him. Such bayaans only encourage foolish bohras to venerate the da'i as god, even though he himself may not be directly telling them to do so.

I agree with you that the position of a da'i in satr is not the same as that of one during the zuhur time. So the examples of da'i Abu Abdullah al-Shii and al-Fariqi are not appropriate. Still, one can not elevate the da'i of satr to the position of god.

Spot,

So? Does that make you blind to corruption? Are you waiting for an imam to come out of hiding and tell you what is upright and what is corrupt? The Quran calls for people to stand up for truth and justice even against their own parents and family.

You are missing the point. Nobody is calling for the dai to be executed. The point is that people under the dawat have been corrupt and have been judged to be such.

Unfortunately orthos are living in denial - they refuse to even accept the possibility that the dai could be corrupt.

in br. anajmi example he i'm guessing from the number he gave has net 3,000,000 rs. if you go by the actual amount

zakat (if all liquid assets) 75,000 rs
khums at 20% 600,000
kaffarah (this depends on fasts missed and sins to recount for)
zakat al'fitr (should have been paid by eid al'fitr)

so at minimum as a shiah br. anajmi should be giving 675,000 rs\

That is completely wrong!

Zakat is calculated in a different way to Khums. Zakat is on savings.. it accumulates, so you keep paying it every year on savings that you kept over the last year. Khums is on net profit or earnings over the course of the past year, its not accumulated. You cannot simply add 20% + 2.5%, because you are not working it out on the same figure. Since your khums will be only in your past years earnings, not your lifetime of savings, it is likely to be significantly less than your calculations suggest.

Brother Spot, please tell me how you give your "minimum as a shiah" every year when you don't even know the basics of how they are calculated???

kalim,
none has said the dai is even near the prophet...let alone god. i think you examples as referenced for the comparision are out of context. the prophet and maulana ali are noted in traditions to have the capability of knowledge of this world and the hereafter through the god's intercession (this is the caviot). other traditions relay this for the imam as well.

muslim,
zakat is calculated on the net saving, physical assests, etc. at the end of the year. it includes the cash value of all assests minus expenditures, not just savings. it in related to nisab, the current value of gold for the year.

khums is 20% of the net saving, physical assest value, etc. at the end of the year, minus expenditures. it is not related to the current value of gold (ie nisab) and it is not just limited to the current year but is cummulative to what you have in hand.

muslim,
the point is that if i consider the dai corrupt...what is the point in honoring his office but not the person.

again no one has address my comparision.

if you look at history, many sunnis have considered many of the fatimi imams corrupt (like imams hakim and muizz). should i agree with their opinion and just respect what the imam's office should be and not the imam as a person? does that make sense?

salam brother spot,
Dont forget this website is meant for reformist...those who have advanced knowledge not basic knowledge...n there is no point in explaning or arguing aginst such people who dont understand rather dont want to understand.

w.salam.
way2heaven

Dear Spot: The example I gave (about comparison with Prophet and Maulana Ali) are very much in context. Only a completely dishonest person or a fool can claim that most bohras do not venerate the current da'i as a deity. As I said in a post sometime ago that may not be the official dawaat position, but that is what is portrayed by his administration. Very often the current da'i is said to be even greater than Isa Nabi or, in the most egregious example, than Imam Hassan. A miyasaheb from San Fransisco claimed that Imam Hassan was only mustawda and the position of the duat of satr is greater than that of mustawda Imams as they are responsible for the same four offices as the mustakar Imams are. You can deny all you want, or talk about contexts (or lack thereof) but the reality is that such bayaans have a very negative impact on most bohras. For example, often parents ask there children to stand with folded hands in front of a picture of the sayedna and ask him (his picture, actually) to make them a good child ("daaya") or something like that.

Anyway, we can't rely on some metaphysical reality in which the da'i is supposed to be perfect and part of some cosmic hierarchy. We live in the real world with all the imperfections which that implies. Even if the da'i may not personally be encouraging corruption or asking people to worship him, his administration is certainly doing that. As he is the sole head of the administration he too is indirectly responsible.

I am personally all for an intellectual religion which prompts me to contemplate on nature and humanity's place in the universe. In certain senses our old literature can have that effect when read properly. However, we have now fossilized ourselves, converting what was once a vibrant philosophical tradition into frozen dogmas.

It seems you and way2heaven (now heavennoheaven) are in some sort of obfuscation contest. Or maybe when it comes to defending the indefensible ones writing automatically becomes garbled.

spot/Way2heaven:

We now take a leap of 35 years, and come to the decision of Justice Marten, later Chief Justice, in Advocate-General of Bombay v. Yusufalli 24 Bom. L. R., 1060, (popularly known as the Chandabhai Gulla's case). The admirable judgment of Mr. Justice Marten deals with many questions; but I'll deal only with a few of them. Put simply, the Advocate-General contended that the Mullaji Saheb, the religious head of Dawoodi Bohras, held certain properties in trust for the Dawoodi Bohra community, and prayed for a declaration to that effect and for consequential relief's. The answer of the Mullaji Saheb was that he was a god or practically a God; that he had the powers enjoyed by the Prophet Mahomed. Further, he was infallible and immaculate and even if he was a trustee, he was not accountable to any court. Mr. Justice Marten held that the Mullaji was neither a God nor practically a God; that he did not enjoy the powers of the Prophet; that even if infallible and immaculate he was a subject to the civil and criminal laws of India. Applying the Muslim Law of Trusts, it was held that the Mullaji Saheb was a trustee of the named properties and accountable as a trustee.

Originally posted by Kalim:
...A miyasaheb from San Fransisco claimed that Imam Hassan was only mustawda and the position of the duat of satr is greater than that of mustawda Imams as they are responsible for the same four offices as the mustakar Imams are.

Is this a recent revision of the Bohra dogma? I have continuously heard of nass having been performed by Ali on Hassan.

I am aware that Aga Khanis consider Hassan as mustawda and therefore they have deleted his name from those of their Imams.

If Bohras now consider Hassan mustawda, then we must wait for the revision of the entire Bohra version of history. Are they belatedly learning sopmething from Aga Khanis?

zakat is calculated on the net saving, physical assests, etc. at the end of the year. it includes the cash value of all assests minus expenditures, not just savings. it in related to nisab, the current value of gold for the year.

My point was to illustrate that difference in zakat and khums at a high level. If you want to get technical, you are still wrong because you haven't excluded personal assets such as the house you live in, household goods and furniture. For most people who don't own a second home, their main assets are effectively their savings.

khums is 20% of the net saving, physical assest value, etc. at the end of the year, minus expenditures. it is not related to the current value of gold (ie nisab) and it is not just limited to the current year but is cummulative to what you have in hand.

That is simply a blatant lie. For anyone who has even a basic knowledge of Khums knows that, based on a Quranic verse, it is calculated on your gains (profits, earnings, whatever you call it) during the year, not your accumulated assets.

If you were paying 20% of your assets every year, you would be left with next to nothing within a few years.

I still wonder how you have been doing your "minimum as a shiah" without knowing even what the rate of zakat is!

In my previous post:

Make that "a leap of 85 years" or so

mbohra,
that statement is a lie and has been proven false on this very board on other thread that i have read.

kalim,
for you to think any bohra consider the dai even god like...is to be a person not associating with any bohra...ortho or otherwise. do you know what TUS stand for? why do bohra pray to Allah for the a long life...because the dai is near his end. think about it.

muslim,
personal assest as a liquid assest do count in khums and zakat..its not just the monetary cash. both are used as the net worth in liquid assests.

regarding khums...i would refer you to the book "khums: the islamic tax" by sayid m. rizvi via alislam.org, which is where i referenced:

B. DEFINITIONS OF INCOME, PROFIT & SURPLUS

Khums is wajib on the profit or surplus of one's income after deducting the annual expenditure. To make the meaning of this sentence more clear, let me explain the definition of "income," "surplus" and "expenditure".

INCOME: Income means whatever you earn from business, wage or salary, dividend income, or by other means of possession recognized by the shari`ah.

Is khums also wajib on gift, prize, legacy, charity, zakat and khums? According to most present mujtahids, it is precautionarily wajib to pay khums from such items also.

and muslim,
that bohras don't pay what they actually would be accountable is the point!

Spot:

If the authentic Judgement from the Court transcript is lie, give us your concocted version and the source.

mbohra,
what you posted is not a quote but a paragraph of information that was compiled by someone. the alleged quote of dai saifudin is not in the transcript...and this is the point.

to prove me wrong..please quote the passage and the words use...if they are there.

Spot, its quite funny you are quoting me that because it is exactly what I have been trying to tell you: khums is on earnings, not on assets. There is no mention of khums being calculated on assets, which is what you stated. I suggest you learn something by reading that book.

.
Can somebody quote Ayas of Qur'an on Khums.
8:41? Any more?
Wasalaam
.