Who are Dawoodi bohras?
Mu' meneen Brothers
and Sisters,
As Salaam Aleikum wa
Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh. (May Allah's Peace, Mercy and Blessings be upon
all of you)
One of our
brothers/sisters has asked this question:
as-salam-allayakum,
I want to know what is dawoodibohra, till date
i was thinking there is only bohra (people from gujarat region).
Khuda Hafiz
(There may be some grammatical and spelling errors in the above statement. The forum does not change anything from questions, comments and statements received from our readers for circulation in confidentiality.)
Answer:
Who
are Dawoodi bohras?
In the name of Allah, We praise Him,
seek His help and ask for His forgiveness. Whoever Allah guides none can
misguide, and who-ever He allows to fall astray, none can guide them aright. We
bear witness that there is no one (no idol, no person, no grave, no prophet, no
imam, no dai, nobody!) worthy of worship but Allah Alone, and we bear witness
that Muhammad (saws) is His slave-servant and the seal of His Messengers.
The Bohras are a business community with its predominant
base in the west-coast state of Gujarat in India. Dawoodi Bohras are a sect of the Fatimid Shia school of thought
and about one million people claim to follow this sect of Islam all over the
world.
Bohra is not a religion by itself. It is a
Gujrati-speaking caste originating from the Kuch area of India. These were
predominantly a business community, some of whom converted to Islam. There was a dispute in leadership in the 16th
century AD and the ones who chose to believe Dawood ibn Qutubshah Burhanudeen
as their leader came to be known as Dawoodi Bohras. There are many other
Bohras, like the Sulaimani Bohras, the Najmi Bohras, and even Hindu Bohras.
There is no more propagation of Islam in Dawoodi Bohraism, thus there are no
more converts.
The honest truth of the matter is that the ‘aqeedah’ of
the Dawoodi Bohras is nowhere near the ‘aqeedah’ of the mainstream
muslims. The Dawoodi Bohras are indeed
an off-shoot of the Shia sect, and their ‘aqeedah’ and belief is very much in
line with the Shias, and at times, even further away from the Truth and
Guidance of the Holy Quran and Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (saws).
The Dawoodi Bohras believe in the imamate of the progeny
of Imam Ali ibn Abi Taalib, and believe all the way upto the 21st
imam. Then they have a system of
‘Dais’, and Syedna Burhanudeen is the 52nd Dai in succession.
The Syedna is their undisputed spiritual leader. But in reality, he is their god!!
(Aoo-dho-billah). The Syedna then
appoints people, mostly from his family, in a system, whereby all of them hold
very powerful positions in the community and are always above any member of the
community. The Syedna and his family
and mission are based in Bombay, and run the organization by having a permanent
ambassador of theirs in probably every county and city in the world, wherever
the Bohras reside! It is a very well
organized system, whereby all the zakaah, and all other funds in the names of
‘sabeel’, ‘wajebaat’, ‘khums’, etc. are collected and sent to the treasury of
the Syedna and his family. The Syedna
and his family are probably billionaires, and they use this wealth, power and
influence to subjugate the community.
He and his family are the sole authority in running the affairs, and
nobody dare ask any questions or raise any objection, for fear of being
ostracized by them! The relationship
between the common Bohras and the Syedna is that of slaves to a master, and the
Bohras pride themselves in being called Abd-Syedna (slaves of Syedna!). They even bow down in ‘sajdah’
(prostration) to the Syedna and to the graves of his ancestors in submission
and gratefulness.
The main reasons the common Bohras believe in the Syedna
and his family as their spiritual leaders and blindly follow and obey them is:
They believe the Syedna is appointed by the Imam with the
authority from Allah Subhanah.
They are not allowed to understand the Holy Quran, which
would have made it very clear that there is no god worthy of worship, except
Allah Subhanah Alone!
They are made to believe by the Syedna and his cronies,
that they have the sole rights to Paradise!
They are made to believe that the Syedna and his ancestors
can somehow help them in the Court of Allah on the Day of Judgement.
The single biggest reason for their deviation is that the
Syedna and his family do not allow the followers, to understand the Holy Quran.
They are allowed and advocated regularly to recite the Quran in Arabic,
but they do not understand a word of it.
In my opinion, the Bohras
probably recite more Quran, than any
other community in Islam, but
unfortunately, they do not follow the
commandments, simply because do not
understand it, nor are they allowed to
understand it.
The administrators of this forum were born into the
Dawoodi Bohra sect, but Allah guided us to read and understand the Holy
Quran. And now, we have made it our
mission, to invite our Bohra brethren to read and understand the Holy Quran
once. We are confident, once any person, who has any common-sense, understands the clear message of the
Glorious Quran, he will be guided to
the true deen of Islam.
Whatever written of Truth and benefit is only due to
Allah’s Assistance and Guidance, and whatever of error is of me. Allah Alone Knows Best and He is the Only
Source of Strength.
Your brother and well wisher in Islam,
Burhan
Wister