image source, The Dawoodi Bohras
On Sunday morning, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi opened the Sayyida Zeinab Mosque in the Old Cairo district of the Egyptian capital, after its restoration, in the presence of Sultan Mufaddal Saif al-Din, Sultan of the Bohra community in India.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said that the state is in the process of taking measures to evacuate some old housing adjacent to a number of historical mosques in Egypt in order to develop the area surrounding those mosques to return them to the appropriate form in which they were previously.
Al-Sisi added, “It is possible to compensate the owners of some of the homes that have been established next to many of these mosques with good compensation.”
Sisi thanked the Sultan of the Bohra sect and his accompanying delegation for supporting the development of this mosque and other historical mosques, saying that all support is available to make any other projects in this field a success.
The Bohra Sultan and the sect contributed to the restoration and renovation of a number of shrines of Ahl al-Bayt and a number of historical Egyptian mosques, such as: Al-Hussein Mosque and Al-Hakim Bi-Amr Allah in Cairo, in addition to providing support for many diverse charitable activities, including a donation to the Long Live Egypt Presidential Fund of 16 million Egyptian pounds ($337,604.80). In 2016.
The participation of Bohras in the restoration of mosques has sparked controversy in Egypt over the past months, as some considered it to bring about a change in the features of these mosques.
In August last year, Al-Sisi awarded the Sultan of Bohra the Sash of the Nile, in appreciation of his continued efforts in Egypt at the cultural, charitable and societal levels, according to a statement by the Egyptian presidency at the time and during Saif El-Din’s visit to Egypt to participate in the opening of the Sayyida Nafisa Mosque.
Who is Sultan Mufaddal Saif al-Din?
Mufaddal Saifuddin is the current Bohra Sultan, and the second son of the late Bohra Sultan Dr. Muhammad Burhanuddin. In the sect’s literature, he is not called a sultan, but rather “the preacher,” and he is the 53rd preacher of the sect, and his followers call him “the preacher or our master.”
Mufaddal Saif al-Din was born in the Indian city of Surat on August 20, 1946. He was raised and educated by his father, the late Sultan Dr. Muhammad Burhan al-Din. He has five sons, three males, the first of whom is Prince Jaafar al-Sadiq, then Prince Taha, then Prince Hussein, and two daughters.
According to what the members of the Bohra sect believe and what is stated in their books, a new sultan will not assume their leadership except by a text and appointment from the previous sultan. Therefore, the late Bohra Sultan, Dr. Muhammad Burhan al-Din, appointed his son Mufaddal Saif al-Din as his successor (Crown Prince) two years before his death in 2011 in the city of Mumbai in front of hundreds of thousands of members of the sect.
The University of Karachi, Pakistan, awarded Mufaddal Saif al-Din a doctorate in arts on September 8, 2015, in appreciation of his charitable efforts in working to strengthen decent ties between Muslims.
India also awarded him the World Peace Prize on September 23, 2015, in recognition of what it described as his valuable endeavors and his keenness to advance human freedoms and achieve social justice, his efforts in establishing a project to distribute and secure food throughout the world (the overflow of demonstrative tables), and his efforts to enhance women’s social role. And the economic.
Bohra sect
The word “Bohra” means merchant and symbolizes one of the most famous Islamic sects belonging to the Shiites, which triumphed for the imamate of Ahmad al-Mustali the Fatimid, against his brother Nizar al-Mustafa Lidin Allah, after the death of their father, the Fatimid Caliph al-Mustansir Billah in 1094, who chose his son al-Mustali to be governor, so a dispute broke out between them. The two brothers and ended in favor of the Musta’li sect, which was defeated with the defeat of the Fatimid state at the hands of Saladin, who founded the Ayyubid state and defeated the Fatimids and expelled them from Egypt in 1174, so the Bohras set off to many countries of the world. The sect also includes a Sunni minority.
The Bohras are divided into several groups, including the “Dawoodi Bohras” named after Daoud Burhan al-Din bin Qutb Shah. They spread across India and Pakistan after moving their center from Yemen in the tenth century AH. Their current Sultan is Mufaddal Saif al-Din, and their headquarters today is in Mumbai. They have groups in more than 40 countries in the world, including Yemen, Egypt, and the Emirates, and their numbers were estimated in Egyptian field research at about 15,000.
Over the centuries, the Dawoodi Bohras migrated to all parts of the world in pursuit of better opportunities in trade and commerce, and their small settlements grew into large, formal communities in many places around the world.
The Bohras began arriving to Egypt in the 1970s, where they resided primarily in the Fatimid Cairo area. They restored Al-Hakim Mosque, Bi-Amr Allah, at that time, with the approval of the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. It is one of the oldest remaining mosques in Egypt, and the second largest mosque in Cairo after Ahmed Ibn Tulun Mosque, which was approved by Sadat, who was invited to open it and perform prayers in it at the time, and it became This was the approach of the Egyptian presidency on various occasions since then.
The Bohras are working to revive everything related to the Fatimids, including their graves and mosques, and are paying huge sums of money to restore them, as their Sultan contributed appreciated efforts to the restoration and renewal of the shrines of the Al-Bayt family in Egypt, and a number of historical Egyptian mosques, including the shrines of Sayyida Nafisa, Sayyida Zainab, and Al-Hussein, and charitable activities in Egypt.
The Bohra sect was the reason for the revival of Al-Hakim Bi-Amr Allah Mosque after long periods of deterioration, and it also played an important role recently in renovating heritage and archaeological buildings, including the shrines of Ahl al-Bayt and mosques related to its beliefs, such as the Al-Aqmar, Sayyida Zainab, and Sayyida Ruqaya mosques.
The Bohras use an Islamic lunar calendar with a special formula, which was developed since the time of the Fatimids and relies on astronomical calculations to determine the beginnings of the months, so it is fixed and differs by a day or two from the usual Islamic date.
The Bohras celebrate Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, and they have other celebrations, including their celebration of the Prophet’s birthday, the Day of Ghadir Khumm (the 18th of the holy month of Dhul-Hijjah), and the commemoration of Ashura Day on the tenth of Muharram every year, and they have their own customs and traditions on these occasions.