Bohra which caste

The surname is most common in India, where it is borne by 13, people, or 1 in 56, In India Bohra is most frequent in: Maharashtra, where 48 percent reside, Uttarkhand, where 12 percent reside and Rajasthan, where 8 percent reside.

Barring India it is found in 42 countries. It is also found in The United Arab Emirates, where 5 percent reside and Kuwait, where 3 percent reside. In The United States those bearing the Bohra surname are 4. Bohra earn somewhat more than the average income. In United States they earn 5. By signing up to the mailing list you will only receive emails specifically about name reference on Forebears and your information will not be distributed to 3rd parties.

Names Forenames. History and Cultural Relations Others maintain they are entirely of Hindu blood; according to the Sunni Bohras they were converted from many castes. The Alia Bohras take their name from Ali, who founded the sect in a. While Memons are generally Sunni Muslims, many continue to follow Modern Hindu law in matters regarding property inheritance, community leadership structure and mutual support for members. Memon see themselves to be from the Buddhist Kshatriya lineage.

Bohara belonged to Thar Ghar aristocracy group which assisted the rulers of Gorkha Kingdom. About the Bothra surname. Maharaja Samantsingh was the ruler of Jalore Garh. He had two queens, who had three son named Sagar, Viramdeo, and Kanahad and a daughter named Uma. King Bhimsingh of Delvada had no son so Sagar became the king of Delvada. There were villages under Delvada. Bohar Magneton.

During the War years the Memons amassed considerable wealth and this was invested in a systematic importation of valuable goods, shares in new industries and landed property but financial disasters overtook the Memons as well as other major investors after the War had ended. Sindhi Hindus are Sindhi people who follow the Hindu religion and who originate from the Sindh region of modern Pakistan, which was previously a part of pre-partition India. The Arora is a community originating from the Punjab region of India and Pakistan.

The name is derived from the place Aror now Rohri, Pakistan and the community comprises both Hindus and Sikhs Here are six of the most significant: Brahmins. The Ismailias again divided on a similar dispute as to the succession to the Khalifa Almustansir Billah by his eldest son Nazar or his younger son Almustaali.

The Bohras are descended from the Mustaalians or supporters of the younger son and the Khojas from the Nazarians who supported the elder son. Gujarat contains two classes of Bohras : the traders who are all Shias and are the only immigrants into the Central Provinces, and a large class of cultivating Bohras who are Sunnis.

The latter may be the descendants of the earliest converts and may have been forced to become Sunnis when this sect was dominant in Gujarat as noticed above, while the Shias are perhaps descended from the later immigrants from Arabia. The Shia Bohras themselves are further divided into several sects of which the Daudi are the principal.

Farldi writes of them : ' " They are attentive to their religious duties, both men and women knowing the Koran. They are careful to say their prayers, to observe Muharram as a season of mourning and to go on pilgrimage to Mecca and Kerbala. They strictly abstain from music and dancing and from using or dealing in intoxicating drinks or drugs.

Though fierce sectarians, keenly hating and hated by the regular Sunnis and other Muhammadans than those of their own sect, their reverence for Ali and for their high priest seems to be further removed from adoration than among the Khojahs.

They would appear to accept the ordinary distinctions of right and wrong, punishing drunkenness, adultery and other acts generally considered disgraceful. Of the state beyond death they hold that, after passing a time of freedom as evil spirits, unbelievers go to a place of torment. Believers, but apparently only believers of the Ismaili faith, after a term of training enter a state of perfection.

Sir H. Cole- brooke and Mr. Conolly thought that the Bohras were true Shias and not Ismailias. Among the faithful each disembodied spirit passes the term of training in communion with the soul of some good man. The spirit can suggest good or evil to the man and may learn from his good deeds to love the right ; when the good man dies the spirits in communion with his soul are, if they have gained by their training, attached to some more perfect man, or if they have lost by their opportunities are sent back to learn ; spirits raised to a higher degree of knowledge are placed in communion with the High Priest on earth ; and on his death are with him united to the Imams, and when through the Imams they have learnt what they still require to know they are absorbed in perfection.

Except for some peculiarities in their names ; that they attach special importance to circumcision ; that the sacrifice or alsikah ceremony is held in the Mullah's house ; that at marriage the bride and bridegroom when not of age are represented by sponsors or ivalis ; that at death a prayer for pity on his soul and body is laid in the dead man's hands ; and that on certain occasions the High Priest feeds the whole community—Bohra customs do not so far as has been ascertained differ from those of ordinary Muhammadans.

The head Mullah of Surat. The ruling Mullah names his successor, generally, but it is said not always, from among the members of his own family.

Short of worship the head Mullah is treated with the greatest respect. He lives in much state and entertains with the most profuse liberality. On both religious and civil questions his authority is final. Discipline is enforced in religious matters by fine, and in case of adultery, drunkenness and other offences, by fine, excommunication and rarely by flogging.

On ceremonial occasions the head Mullah sits on his throne, and in token of his power has the flyflapper, chauri, held before him. To such as are worthy. On this day when he goes to the mosque the Bohras are said to kiss the Mullah's footsteps and to apply the dust he treads to their heads and eyes.

Bohra Thc Sahadra or burial-place of the Bohras at Burhanpur graveyards, contains the tombs of three of the Surat Mullahs who happened to die when they were at Burhanpur. The tombs are in shell-lime and are fairly handsome erections. The Bohras support here by voluntary subscription a rest-house, where members of the sect coming to the city can obtain free board and lodging for as long as they like to stay.

The tombs themselves, which are, of course, north and south, the corpse resting on its right side, differ in no respect from those of Sunnis, with the exception of a small chirdgh takia or lamp-socket, cut out of the north face, just like the cavity for the inscription of our own tombs. Reii- Of their religion Mr. Kitts writes : - "In prayers they gious differ both from Shias and Sunnis in that they follow their customs. The times for commencing their devotions are about five minutes later than those observed by Sunnis.

After the midday and sunset supplications they allow a short interval to elapse, remaining themselves in the mosque meanwhile. They then commence the afternoon and even- ing prayers and thus run five services into three. Thurston notes that the Bohras consider themselves so superior to other sects that if another Muhammadan enters their mosque they afterwards clean the spot which he has occupied during his prayers.

It is said also that they will not have their clothes washed by a Dhobi, nor wear shoes made by a Chamar, nor take food touched by any Hindu. They are said to bathe only on Fridays, and some of them not on every Friday.

If a dog touches them they are unclean and must change their clothes. They celebrate the Id and Ramazan a day before other Muham- madans. At the Muharram their women break all their bangles and wear new bangles next day to show that they have been widowed, and during this period they observe mourning by going without shoes and not using umbrellas. Conolly says of them : " I must not omit to notice that a fine of 20 cowries equally for rich and poor punishes the non-attendance of a Bohra at the daily prayers.

A large sum is exacted for remissness during the Ramazan, and it is said that the dread of loss operates powerfully upon a class of men who are particularly penny -wise. The money collected thus is transmitted by the Ujjain Mullah to his chief at Surat, who devotes it to religious purposes such as repairing or building mosques, assisting the needy of his subjects and the like.

Several other offences have the same characteristic punishment, such as fornication, drunkenness, etc. But the cunning Bohras elude many of the fines and daily indulge in practices not sanctioned by their creed ; thus in their shops pictures and figures may be purchased though it is against the commandments to sell the likeness of any living thing.

Faridi gives the text. But other Muhammadans tell a story to the effect that the head Mullah writes a letter to the archangel Gabriel in which he is instructed to supply a stream of honey, a stream of milk, water and some fruit trees, a golden building and a number of houris, the extent of the order depending on the amount of money which has been paid to the Mullah by the departed in his lifetime ; and this letter is placed beneath the dead man's head in the grave, the Bohras having no coffins.

The Bohras indignantly repudiate any such version of the letter, and no doubt if the custom ever existed it has died out. The Bohras, Captain Forsyth remarks, though bigoted religionists, are certainly the most civilised and enterprising perhaps also the most industrious class in the Nimar District. They deal generally in hardware, piece-goods and drugs, and are very keen traders. There is a proverb, " He who is sharper than a Bohra must be mad, and he who is fairer than a Khatri must be a leper.

The inside of a Bohra's box is like that of an English country shop ; spelling-books, prayer-books, lavender- water, soap, tapes, scissors, knives, needles and thread make but a small part of the variety. We took the parties we visited by surprise and there could have been no preparation. The caste may easily be known from other Muhammadans by their small, tightly wound turbans and little skull-caps, and their long flowing robes, and loose trousers widening from the ankle upwards and gathered in at the waist with a string.

The women dress in a coloured cotton or silk petticoat, a short-sleeved bodice and a coloured cotton head-scarf When they go out of doors they throw a dark cloak over the head which covers the body to the ankles, with gauze openings for the eyes.

Islam Helpline. 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, and that is how a community amongst them came to be known as Dawoodi Bohras.

There are many Hindus who are Bohras, and most of the Dawoodi Bohras are converts from Hinduism in the early times. There is no more propagation of Islam in Bohraism, thus there are no more converts. 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. Also read article about Bohra from Wikipedia. User Contributions:. Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic: Name:.

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