Bohras

Excerpt from "The Tribes and Castes of Bombay".

Enthoven, Reginald Edward. The Tribes and Castes of Bombay. Bombay, India: Government Central Press, 1920.

BOHORAS, numbering 118,307 (males 60,363, females 57,944) at the census of 1901, are found in large numbers in the Surat and Broach districts and Bombay City and, scattered in small numbers, in all parts of the Presidency. They are also found as traders in all the principal trade centres in India. Their headquarters are in Surat, where the high priest of the Dáudi Bohorás, the principal section of the community, resides.

The origin of the name Bohora is doubtful. It is generally traced to the class of Hindu Bohorás who are still found in Márwár, Rájputána and the United Provinces. [^1] But as there is no certain record of Hindu Bohorás in Gujarát [^2], it seems better to derive the word from the Gujarati vohorvu to trade, the occupation followed by the first Hindu converts to Islám.[^3] However, it must be admitted that neither at present nor under the Musalmán rulers of Gujarát is its use limited to traders or to converts of the special Ismaili form of faith. Besides the traders there is a larger and not less prosperous class of village Bohorás, tillers of the soil and Sunnis by religion. The existence of these two distinct classes is an illustration of the fact that in Gujarat Shiáhism was spread by the persuasion of preachers and Sunniism by the power of rulers. The early Shiah preachers (A.D. 1067), being treated with much kindness by the Hindu kings of Anahilaváda, settled and made converts chiefly in the great trading centres, while to the Musalmán Governors it was of more political value to bring over to their religion the sturdy and outlying villager than the weak and peace-loving trader. The use of the same name for classes so unlike as the city and village Bohorás would seem to be due to the great division of the Gujarát population into armed dhárála and unarmed. To distinguish converts from the armed Rajput and Koli castes the Musalmán governors coined such names as Molesalám, Malik and Sipáhi. For converts of the trading class the word Bohora was in use, and this they extended to converts from all the unarmed castes, Bráhmans, husbandmen and craftsmen. [^4]

All Bohorás can be traced to converts made in the eleventh century by Shiáh missionaries of the Ismaili sect. Though settled in many parts of the Bombay Presidency, and in Hyderabad in the Deccan, in Berár, Málwa, Central India and Rájputána, and, as traders, found over almost the whole of India, the high priest and headquarters of the sect are in Surat. Some of them claim to come from Egyptian-Arab and Yaman-Arab ancestors. Others acknowledge themselves to be entirely of Hindu blood, the descendants of converts to the teaching of Ismailian missionaries. A certain special look and character support the statements of Musalmán historians that they are partly the descendants of refugees from Egypt and Arabia. [^5]

According to the received account of their rise in Gujarát, in the course of the eleventh century about A.D. 1067 (H. 460) [^6] Abdullah, a missionary dái, sent from Haras in Yaman by the high priest of the Mustaáli Ismaili sect, landed at Cambay. Abdullah, who was a man of great learning, is said to have stayed some years at Cambay studying the people. Two stories are told of his first missionary success. According to one story, he gained a cultivator’s heart by filling his dry well with water. According to the other, by dashing to the ground an iron elephant hung in mid-air in one of the Cambay temples, he won over some of the priests. After this the missionary is said to have travelled towards Anahilaváda, or Pátan, at that time the capital of Gujarát. The story goes that the ruler of the city, Sidhráj Jaising (A.D. 1094-1143), anxious to see the stranger, sent a force of armed men to bring him to his capital. Finding the saint surrounded by a wall of fire the troops retired. Then the king himself came, and in obedience to the stranger’s command the fire opened and let the king pass. Full of wonder, the king asked for one sign more that the new belief was better than the old. His wish was granted; one of his holiest idols declared that the Arab’s was the true religion. Hearing these words the Hindus, king and subjects alike, struck with astonishment, embraced the new faith. [^7] For two centuries and a half (A.D. 1130-1380) there was little in the history of Gujarát to check the progress of the Ismaili faith. But with the establishment of Muzaffar Shah’s power (A.D. 1390-1413) the spread of Sunni doctrines was encouraged, and the Bohora and other Shiáh sects repressed. Since then, probably with gradually lessening numbers, they have passed through several bitter persecutions, meeting with little favour or protection, till at the close of the eighteenth century they found shelter under British rule. [^8] The chief event in the modern history of the Bohorás is the transfer in A.D. 1539 (H. 946) of the seat of the head priest of their faith from Yaman to Gujarát. Till then the Gujarát Ismáiliás had been under the guidance of a high priest at Yaman, to whom pilgrimages were made, tithes paid and disputes referred for settlement. [^9] Bohorás have two main divisions, (1) Shiáhs or trading Bohorás and (2) Sunnis or cultivating Bohorás. The former are further split up into the following divisions:-

1. Alia.
2. Dáudi, who form the bulk of the community.
3. Jaafari.
4. Nágoshi.
5. Sulaimáni.

[1]: Malcom’s Central India, II, III: Tod’s Rajasthan, II, 491, Edition 1831: Elliot’s Races, I.44. The Mirat-i-Ahmedi (Pers. Text, II.87) confirms the Hindu derivation of the name Bobora. It says many Brahman and Bania, traders being called Bohoras retained the name after their conversion. Many Baniás and even Nagar Bráhmans to this day bear the surname Bohora.

[2]: There is now no trace of a Hindu Bohora caste in Gujarat, and the passage in the Kumarapalacharitra “There are plenty of Bohoris in Anahilaváda and Birgong” (Viramgam) (Tod’s Western India, 149-157) was probably written about A.D. 1150 or some time after the spread of the Ismaili faith among the traders of north Gujarat.

[4]: Compare Rán Mala (New Edition, 264): “The Rajputs forcibly converted by Sultan Ahmed 1. (about A.D. 1420) formed a separate caste called Molesalms; the Vániás and the Brahmans converted at the same time joined the sect of the Boborás,” The ordinary Gujaráti pee of the word Bohors very closely corresponds with Hindu converte from the unarmed classes. Thus several classes who have a special name from their craft or calling are spoken of as Bohords, and in some cases, as in Ghanchi- Bohors, the word Bohora is added to the craft name. So, too, the Dhandhári Momnás call themselves Bohoria, and the class of Konkan Musalmans who take service with Europeans are known in Gujarát as Konkani Boborás.

[6]: Khán Shaháb-ud-din and Briggs “Cities of Gujarashtra,” Appendix IX. The Daudi prayer book gives A.D. 1137 (H. 532) as the date of the first missionary’s death Conolly (Journal Asiatic Society, Bengal, V1.2.824) gives A.D. 1137 as the date of the conversion, and calls the missionary Muhammad, not Abdullah. Colebrook’s Miscellaneous Essays, 11.228. The Mirat-i-Ahmedi (Persian Text, II.87) agrees with Conolly in stating that the name of the first Bohorn missionary was Mulla Muhammad Ali, He says the shrine of this Pir at Cambay, known as the shrine of the Pir-i Rawan or the Ever-alive Saint, drew at the time when he wrote large crowds of Bohorás from all parta of Gujarat. When Mulla Muhammad Ali landed in Cambay the people of Guja rab were ignorant of Islam. A Hindu saint was the object of general faith. The Mulla, considering open opposition to this saint dangerous and impossible, joined the number of his disciples. His intelligence soon attracted the saint’s notice. After mastering the language of the country, he studied the saint’s holy books and so worked upon his mind as to convert him to his views. Many of the saint’s chief followers adopted the new faith. At last news that his minister was a convert reached the Raja’s ears. The Raja, finding his minister at his prayers, asked what he was doing. Searching for a snake, said the minister. A snake appeared in a corner and the Raja became a convert though he kept it secret till on his death-bed he ordered his body to be buried, With the establishment of Muhammadan power many Cambay Bohorás settled in the capital (Patan). When in A.D. 1391 Muzaffar I came from Delhi to Gujarat as governor he brought many priests of the Sunni sect, who were active in turning the people to this branch of the faith. Most of the Patan Shiah Bohorns were converted to the Suuni faith and their example was followed by their brethren in the other chief towns though the Bohoris of the country towns and the outlying parts remained Shinhs. The Sunnis and the Shihs both being of the same origin intermarried till in A.D. 1535 Sayyad Jaffar Shirazi persuaded the Sunnis to keep apart from the Shishs.

[7]: Though Sidhráj (A.D. 1094-1133) would seem to have died a Hindu, his fondness for religious discussions and his tolerance might, without giving up his own religion, have led him to patronise the Bohora missionary. Rás Mála, 172 and 344. Both of Sidhráj’s successors, Kumáralála (A.D. 1143-1174) and Ajayápála (A.D. 1174-1177) and Sidhraj’s great Jain teacher Hemáchárya, at a time when there are no recorded Musalmán invasions, are said to have been converted to Islám. Tod’s Western India, 184 and 191; Rás Mála, I. 344. If the Khojáh history is correct the conversion of the Hindu king was about A.D. 1240, that is, during the reign of Ajayápála’s successor Bhima II. (A.D. 1179-1242).

[8]: The Chief Bohora persecutions are said to have been under Sultan Ahmed I. (A.D. 1411-1443) and Mahmud II. (A.D. 1536-1554). Of their troubles in Sultán Ahmad’s reign the story is told that the chief Mulla, because he kept the beginning of the month of Ramazan at a different time from the orthodox reckoning and denied that he did so, was killed by order of the king. Even under the more liberal of the Delhi emperors, the Gujarát Boborás are by a friendly writer described as ever involved in the difficulties of concealment and suffering much persecution at the hands of the wicked murderers (Sunni Musalmans) invested with public authority. Sayad Nurullah quoted in Colebrook’s Miscellaneous Essays, II. 229.

[9]: According to the Bohora accounts there was at the time great want of zeal among the Yaman people and strong faith among the people of Gujarat. This tempt ed the high priest Yusuf-bin-Sulaiman to come and settle at Sidhpur. Khán Bahadur Kázi Shahab-ud-din. As already noticed, the success of the Turks (A.D. 1537) in Aden and other coast towns had probably something to do with this movement. Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, VI-2,842.