Shifting Sands of Culture

In the spring of circa 1850, two wanderers quietly slipped into a small mud house in a village of Kutch, India, to witness the birth of a baby boy. They had promised a newlywed couple that they would return in a year to conduct a bay’ah or a baptizing ceremony for the newborn named Rattan (meaning ruby). Most names carried meanings or historical connotations. They also defined a person’s identity and faith. Latently, the names evoked multi pronged attitudes, biases, and the extents of dealings. Those who embraced the new way of life, or a true path (satpanth), were given names to identify them loosely as Ismailis. It connoted adherence to fair and ethical business practices.

The commitment to be a good person entailed compassion, kindness, and being helpful to the needy. The “good” characterized the identity of an Ismaili or a satpanthi.

Some satpanthi families, the followers of the true and right path, synonym of Khoja Ismailis, participated in the traditional ceremony that elicited a sense of support and community belongingness. More significantly, the attendees came to reenact their own collective commitment and allegiance to the Imam of the time. The Imam was perceived as essentially a holy or sinless person and was also seen as a spiritual leader capable of helping the followers to overcome difficulties in worldly matters. In a Shia Ismaili context, the Imam inherits both spiritual (din) and worldly (dunya) wisdom (ma’arifat) and truth (haqiqat). At the time, the news of the coming of the Imam physically to India from Persia was spreading everywhere amongst Khoja Ismailis.

The wanderers or dervishes were a part of a larger volunteer network under the pirs or religious masters whose main goal or mission was to invite people to follow Sirat al-Mustaqim, the right or straight path. They attempted to demonstrate the continuity of Ismaili traditions from the time of Prophet Muhammad while introducing new traditions to make the practice of faith more relevant to contemporary times. This path would then lead them to experience shanakht or recognition of the reality which constituted of religious experience of the nur or the light of the Imam. This search for shanakht was to be sought from within oneself and not from outside. One’s own mind, thus, became the fulcrum of one’s universe. Self needed to be trained to be unadulterated by negative thoughts. Dua or prayers, bandagi or meditation, and kriya or rituals accompanied by the teachings of Imams and pirs staged the self to receive the spiritual vibes of the truth beyond physical appearance.

Sufism or Islamic mysticism is characterized by a piri-murid (sufi master-devotee) relationship. In Sufism, the first Imam Ali is regarded as the first Sufi master. More significantly, it inculcated piety-mindedness or perpetual God-consciousness, also sometimes referred to as dhikr Allah.

Meditation was prescribed as the most fundamental practice characterizing the Ismaili Sufi orientation. It helped not only declutter the mind from worldly petty encroachments, but more significantly to experience the ultimate reality.

This thinking fashion was not new. The advent of Islam in the sixth century incorporated many pre-existing Judeo-Christian and pagan ideas, including those related to mysticism and asceticism. After the demise of Prophet Muhammad, those Muslims who believed that God’s and the Prophet’s authority was located in Imam Ali and his descendants, were called Shia.

Over the centuries, the concept of Imam in Shia Islam evolved politically and religiously as it encountered diverse cultures in North Africa, Persia, India, etc..

In the Indian context, the first Mughal emperor, Babur, who hailed from the areas of Central Asia, particularly the region currently known as Uzbekistan, had consolidated his undisputed rule in India by the middle of the 15th century. It appears that Babur adopted the existing trends of socio-political thought as his ancestor Genghis Khan had done in his earlier conquests by converting to Islam. Thus, by utilizing the already existing Muslim governance systems, he avoided reinventing the wheel. From the beginning of Muslim conquests, and after the death of Prophet Muhammad in 632 A.D, the swift success of Arab conquests seems to have been possible in their adoption of many aspects of existing cultures and political governance systems as in the case of Ummayads adopting Byzantine Christian systems in Syria.

A major contribution of Akbar, the third Mughal emperor, lay in his attempts to synchronize or find a religious common ground between Muslims and Hindus. This forged attempt, found expression in his Din-i Ilahi or universal faith in God movement (oneness of God). It was aimed at blending religious ideas from different religions, such as Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrian, Jain, Hindu, Islam, etc. This common denominator or the universal diety, according to Akbar, was a unifying force that would downplay the diversity of religions. Was it an attempt to weaken the power of clerics over the religious masses while legitimizing his own political authority. This attempt may have been to birth a subculture in which Akbar would probably be perceived as more than a human political authority.

The Din-i Ilahi movement of Akbar most likely spurred many Muslim and Hindu communities to incorporate moral and spiritual traditions of different faiths in their religious ethos. Sikhism, most likely, germinated during this period under Guru Nanak. This ethos also finds expression in both Shia and Sunni communities’ traditional literature, such as ginanic traditions, commonly intoned by Bohras, Khoja Sunnis, ithna’ashsharis, Sunni Deobandies, etc..

The ginans connoted the corpus of knowledge in the form of singing poems. These poems were extracted from Hindu scriptures. It is believed that the pirs modified the poems with Arabic and Persian or Islamic and Ismaili terminology. This again seems to have reflected continuity and change amongst the newly converted Ismailis. They could most likely see themselves as not essentially deviating from their past when embracing the satpanth.

These syncretic groups seem to have successfully developed traits later to embrace modernism and liberalism with the British advent. It appears that the trait of adopting other religious traditions contributed significantly to their openness to innovative ideas. Therefore, one may deduce that these syncretic attitudes seem to provide fertile grounds for conducting trade and business with diverse groups uninhibited about the cultural barriers. Also, it may imply that the syncretic posture, allowed for future embracing of science and technology.

Akbar’s vision was vehemently dismantled by a succeeding emperor Aurangzeb, but not before various subcultures sprang up in the form of Sikhism, Sufism, Parsiism, Guptism, etc. Aurangzeb’s divisive policies based on reviving Muslim traditions not only seem to have weakened the Mughal hold over India, but it also apparently contributed towards germinating two major religious trends.

1. While he enforced the revival and conservation of Islamic religious traditions (sunnah) and law (shariah), he ironically set a precedent for Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and Shia Muslim groups to do the same with their own traditions.
2. His policies may have elicited syncretic groups’ defiance of formalism and consolidation of their own pluralist identities, especially with the shifting of political power from Mughals to the British.

Rattan’s birth coincided with the shift of power from Mughals to the British. When he was of helping age, he spent more time with his father who traded grains, vegetables and fruits, cotton, molasses, etc..  He enjoyed hearing stories from the other traders from the big trading towns about the new things happening.  He could not contain his passion to one day travel to a big town to see firsthand the newness. As soon as he turned fifteen, he got permission to visit the port town of Porbandar. His father provided a mule and a companion to go with him.  It took them a few days to reach the port town. Rattan headed straight to meet with a satpanthi who took him to his house to rest and freshen up before strolling in the town. Porbandar was bustling with traders from various parts of the world exhibiting their wares. For the first time he saw the white British subjects and black Arabic speaking traders. In a few days, he was anxious to go back and tell his father what he saw.

As soon as he turned sixteen, he was married to Nirmal through an arranged marriage. Nirmal gave birth to eight children. She lived for them, tending to their physical and emotional needs. It was part of her existential self to toil in the land, prepare meals for the big family, and occasionally help Rattan at the shop. Nirmal’s existence was crucial yet taken for granted. Questioning or differing in decision-making was unthinkable for her. She was almost nonexistent. The invitations to embrace satpanthism did not imply abandoning the Hindu customs and practices instantly. Change and continuity characterized the Ismaili identity in the making. Converting and embracing a new religious order necessitated continuity of certain historical trends and practices to avoid a seismic shift.  Any attempts by the pirs to abruptly replace the Hindu customs with Shia or Sunni customs would not necessarily mean a smooth transition.

Nirmal lived to serve her in-laws and hoped nothing happened to her husband. It would annihilate her existence. Yet her total dependence on her motherly instinct found expression in her love for her children. Karam, being the last one left, drew her total attention. Deep down, she dreaded the thought that Karam would soon leave home and leave her alone with the power-wielding in-laws.

Karam was born in the spring of 1870. The repeat of a bay’ah ceremony was like a link in the chain of traditions that kept the community a constant in the changing times.

As he turned eight and able to wander alone, he would walk everyday to a small piece of agricultural land that his father owned. Karam would sit under a lone tree, the last one left on the thirsty land. Yet it provided an oasis-like refuge from the scorching sun. Karam would sit there and pile up small stones and throw them one by one, watching the sand fly in patterns against a gentle, hot breeze that had neither fixed direction nor velocity.

One reason he did that every day was because he did not have a purpose or drive in life; all he did was obey and passively do what he was asked to do. There was nothing to think about for him at that time because he was hardly eight. He accepted life as it was. While passiveness was not a choice in an agrarian context, it was more likely an unseen mental disability. No one cared about the nonphysical mental aspects of a person as long as there were no visible physical disabilities. Agriculture depended on an able body, not a mental state. Years were passing by as Karam was becoming a young boy stoutly built of an average height. He would jump at any opportunity to help or learn.

Rattan would occasionally summon his son Karam to assist him at his little shop selling rice, vegetables, oil, soap, etc.. Karam would passively assimilate how products grown by farmers were bought in bulk and sold in retail or small quantities to the villagers. More importantly, the stall was also a source of information and ideas for Karam, as the villagers, when buying groceries, engaged in conversation about current events with Rattan.  At times, the stocks in the little shop were dwindling as drought continued to affect agriculture.

Rattan felt helpless when drought affected his little shop. He felt that it was time for Karam to go to Bombay and learn new ways of doing things. He had heard many things about the way the British were introducing newness in India. He could not control nature and the drought conditions. But he had faith and confidence that God helps those who struggle to help themselves. Calamities were just a kasoti or a test of one’s faith in God. Nature was the way it was. One cannot fight it, but one can adapt oneself to the changes. The changes in language, culture, science, politics, and law were being felt everywhere.

As the British rule was slowly but steadily taking roots in India, there were mixed feelings about the British occupation. The response trends were normally a measure of elites. The Muslim and Hindu elites perceived the occupation differently. The general population followed elites blindly. These elites later exploited the mass sensitive religious and ethnic nerves. To the masses, it was less important who ruled. The emergence of Hindu and Muslim elites, mostly educated in England, was replacing the traditional authorities of lords and nawabs.

Having studied law in England, most of the elites would impress the British viceroys, officers, and governors. Both the British and Indian elites did not bother to engage and acknowledge the role of religious leaders, lords, or nawabs. Sidestepping them had been a major political blunder for emerging nations globally. The elites just replaced their colonial masters in appearance, not in spirit.

Besides being sidestepped, the Muslim traditional leadership generally felt a sense of humiliation and hopelessness due to being conquered and subjugated to foreign occupation. A Muslim group, mainly the clerics and traditional leaders, felt that their current situation was directly related to them having forsaken the Islamic values that once gave them the power to rule. So, the influence of the Wahabi movement, led by Abdul Wahab, which sprang up in Saudi Arabia, spanned far and wide among the disheartened Muslims. They attempted to revive their traditions by interpreting the Quran and Sunnah (Prophet Muhammad’s sayings and actions) in the context of the current situation.

For instance, Jamaat-e-Islami, led by Mowlana Maududi, later organized and spearheaded the Islamic revivalist movement. This movement refuted Western concepts of democracy and nationalism as antithetical to Islam. These sentiments found parallels in the occupied Arab Muslim lands under movements like al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun (the Muslim Brotherhood).

While they opposed the Western ideas of nation-building and democratic representation in favour of God’s will as given expression in the Quran and Sunnah, they seemed to have incorporated many Western ideas, such as that of universal idealism of German fascism to define the superiority of the Muslim ummah, or community. German dialectic idealism aimed at creating an ideal community by destroying the weak links of the society. Some of these weak links that corrupted a Muslim society were the concepts of nation, democracy, liberation, and equality of women, etc..

The problem was that these conservative and revivalist Muslims rejected Western ideas as being foreign, yet they also assimilated them to defend and define their own position. The ideas are intangible and permeate society like water to the soil. The foreign ideas were new but were adopted to make sense of old traditions in the new age and times. The novel ideas may be rejected to affirm one’s authenticity or originality.  But these same ideas are assimilated to give meaning and relevance to the old traditions in the new era.

Rattan, like other satpanthis, felt the urge to learn new ways of doing things being introduced by the West. Many satpanthis belonged to the business class. Many more were converts from lower Hindu castes. At that time there was also a mass conversion of lower caste Hindus to Buddhism with the help of a politician and a visionary, Ambedkar. The conversions, most likely, allowed the converted groups to not only escape the clutches of the caste’s unjust dogmatic system, but also forge ahead uninhibitedly with social and economic reforms. They were eager to learn and adopt the new or modern ways of the West.

Conversion to the Ismaili Muslim faith entailed name mutations to sound Muslim, and so Karam’s name was morphed into Karam Ali or Karmali, Ali being the first Shia Imam. While the Hindu surnames like Dharamsi, Devji, and Patel remained unchanged, the first names, in many cases, were derivatives of Shia Islamic icons such as Nizar, Jaffer, Hasan, Hussein, etc.

Karmali was hardly fifteen by the time he was sent to Bombay to find work and gain experience with new ways of doing things. On reaching Bombay, he met with a satpanthi by the name of Dharamsi, who offered him temporary accommodation in his house. At that time, satpanthis or Ismailis were evolving their own piety-mindedness or moral consciousness by helping each other merge into the changing social and economic trends. Their Imam’s directives were sacred and to be obeyed unwaveringly. Helping someone find a job, a business, or even a wife was a big seva, or sacred act, paving the way to one’s peace and prosperity here and in the hereafter. Educating girls was considered a bigger sacrifice for them. Thus, the seeds of volunteering to cast the nets of social and economic support towards modernizing the community were laid.

However, Karmali found a job as a helper to a merchant in providing logistics in goods handling to and from the ship to the port en route to various parts of India. Karmali’s twinkling eyes could not hide his awe and wonder at the magical newness. No wonder, he thought, that his dad was so adamant that he learns the new ways. His gaze was often glued on to the strolling British men and women, as his work exposed him to interacting with them often. He found them very polite and civil, although he could speak only a few words of English, mainly the greetings.

During this time, the building of railway tracks and cargo ships by the British became their economic and political lifeline. The British pioneering in science and engineering found expression in their bridges and infrastructure building, as well as being well organized to quell any uprising with the latest weaponry. These were the same infrastructures that were to be later used for rallying masses to fuel freedom movements by the British-educated elites, like Gandhi.

The innovation that Britishers brought to India had a direct impact on the Ismailis. The Aga Khan III later recalled in his memoirs that one of his Muslim religious teachers was loud and vehemently condemned other faiths. His bigotry and zeal blinded him. He did not recognize Aga Khan’s impaired vision. As soon as his mother hired a British Jesuit teacher, he at once noticed that Aga Khan could not see well. As soon as he put on the glasses obtained by the teacher, he described how this beautiful world opened with infinite colors and hues. The Aga Khan came to be convinced through his studies that the future of Muslim progress lay in adopting science and technology. He later spearheaded the movement to establish the first Muslim university in Aligarh. He was also one of the founders of Muslim League, the party that would stand for Muslims in Hindu majority India.

For Karmali, things were changing for the better. After working for a few years and earning the reputation of being honest and dependable, two major decisions were made for Karmali by Dharamsi and by his father, Rattan. It was arranged that he marry a girl named Mira from the same village in Kutch.  Secondly, he was to leave for Zanzibar according to the directives of the Imam to the communities in the drought-stricken areas of Kutch and Kathiawar.