The Dawoodi Bohras and Ashara Mubaraka

Why are there thousands of Muslims, in the same attire, filling up all of the floors, sitting around this one individual? Who are they?

Different Shia Islam branches.

To give you a quick overview, they are the Dawoodi Bohras; another branch of Shia Islam. The Dawoodi Bohras are not a large percentage of Shias; they are not descendants of Twelvers, Druze, or any of the other larger segments of Shia Islam. If you are going to look at the lineage of the Dawoodi Bohras and their Imams, refer to the image which displays the different branches of Shia Islam. If you would like to know more about the topic at hand or more about Dawoodi Bohras in general, click the link here.

On to the main topic of the reason behind thousands of Bohras from different countries gathering around this one individual, which is the martyrdom of Imam Hussein AS and the sufferings of his family, the Ahlul Bait. This is based around the first ten days of the Islamic new year, labeled as Ashara Mubaraka; when a large number of devotees of the Bohra community gather in a location determined by their Moula, his Holiness Syedna Aali Qadr Mufaddal Saifuddin (TUS). Every Islamic year, his Holiness chooses where the community can gather and mourn with him, and no one really knows why he chooses these areas. For example, his Holiness chose Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania, as the location where we would mourn the tragic events that the Ahlul Bait suffered through in these ten days in the cursed lands of Karbala, Iraq. In the preceding year, his Holiness chose Houston as the venue. Every Dawoodi Bohra community in the world follows a very similar schedule. By this, I mean that every community, even the venues hosting his Holiness, will share the common practices of going to every morning’s sermons and every evening’s majlis (or gathering to mourn, in the loosest of translations). 

An example of an evening majlis is seen in the video below, which takes place in Zainee Masjid, East Brunswick, NJ:

If this is the case, then you must be wondering why people travel thousands of miles to go to the destination his Holiness chose?

The scene after the morning sermon in Masjid Zainee, NJ.

To answer this question, we must take in to factor two things, the population attending Ashara across the Bohra communities and the perceived enthusiasm at each mosque. During this years Ashara, it was estimated that a total of thirty thousand Bohras travelled to Dar es Salaam from all over the world. Compared to Dar es Salaam, the numbers in the New Jersey community seems petty, totaling less than a thousand Bohras. However, the location his Holiness chooses usually is not the most populated with Bohras. If you compare Mumbai, for example, they had about eighty thousand Bohras attending Ashara, which is about fifty thousand more than Dar es Salaam. All these turnout numbers bring me to my next point, does the number of attendees affect the enthusiasm and passion from the crowds at the communities?

Sheer intensity of the evening majlis in Anjuman-e-Saifee, Dar es Salaam.

Regardless of the large numbers of Bohras at Mumbai or Dar es Salaam, each small Bohra community, like New Jersey, strives to bring the same amount of enthusiasm and energy levels in the crowds. However, this is not always the case, as seen in the pictures from the Instagram account @hasanarmy007. Hasan Nulwala, the owner of this account, travelled to Dar es Salaam, giving us a first hand account of the sights. There is a level of intensity which is missing in other communities, regardless of the great editing of these pictures by @hasanarmy007. The devotees in Dar es Salaam claim that there is a certain ‘charisma’ of his Holiness, which makes the ten - day experience marvelous.

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The scene before His Holiness delivers the morning sermon.
Anjuman-e-Saifee, Dar es Salaam

It all boils down to this; is it worth going to the location chosen by his Holiness? For some, it is a definite yes, because they feel spiritually at peace. For a lot of others, it is a big investment and time consuming to travel thousands of miles for such a short time span. My response? I believe that if you have the resources, then it may be either the best time of your life, or your worst. If you have not gone to experience this yet, then it may be a great idea to figure our which side of the spectrum you are on.

by Husein Jauhari

Bio: I am majoring in Business Analytics and Information Technology at the Rutgers Business School in New Brunswick, Class of 2019. 

Contact Information: husein.jauhari@rutgers.edu