Bohra sect “sent members to death in Iraq”
The Evening Standard today (Tuesday) reported that the three British visitors killed in Iraq last week were in fact sent by officials of the Dawoodi Bohra sect to pray for its sick 93-year-old Indian leader Muhammad Burhanuddin, known as "Syedna". The report is written by Amar Singh and does not appear to be in the online edition, so insha Allah I'll post a synopsis here. The sect has about 1.2 million members worldwide and is based in a "palatial estate" in Bombay.
There are about 3,000 members of the sect in the UK, about half of whom live in London. An un-named member of the family of Sefuddin Makai told the paper that the "mosque", the Husaiyni Mosque in Northolt south of Harrow, had "hijacked everything" and had even decided, without consulting, what photographs should be given out to the media. He said that such control is typical of life in that community; they cannot say anything or they will face "sanctions". A relative of another of the men said that they would not risk their standing in the community by talking to journalists.
The cult demands that its followers pay "taxes", and that their source, Ali Asghar Engineer, claimed that some families pay these taxes up to seven times a year, and that they rise every year. People who pay dutifully get a green card, entitling them to "access to community events", and those who are in arrears or are "suspected of having reformist sympathies" get a red card. The leader has a subordinate called an "amil" in each town where Bohras live, and he issues commands in the name of "Syedna".
The cult's members are known for success in business, which the report says has become a threat to members' strict obedience to "Syedna". Engineer suspects that the practice of encouraging members to visit the shrines in Najaf and Karbala, despite the obvious danger, is motivated by the sect's business interests. He also claims that they have paid money to Indian politicians and senior police officials, effectively making them above the law.
This sect is one of the quieter of the extreme Shi'a sects – the Aga-Khan's Isma'ilis, for example, are well known for their leader's spending on Islamic architecture and his business dealings and racing interests. I remember seeing a lengthy feature on the Dawoodis in Q-News a few years ago, and was in an Islamic bookshop in London when one of their members came into the shop and suggested to the owner that he might sell an expensive book in appreciation of "Syedna" Muhammad Burhanuddin. The owner took one look at the book and refused. He also told the man who brought the book that he had visited the group's mosque, and found that copies of the Qur'an were difficult to find in that mosque.
I can't find much on their actual beliefs, but I have heard it on more than one occasion that they are outside the fold of Islam. The last time I took a look on one of their websites, the articles they carried contained curses against some of the Sahaba (radhi Allahu 'anhum), something even the Twelver Shi'a usually don't do openly (at least, not in English on their propagation sites). The fact is, of course, that abuses of this nature and control-freakery are to be expected in cults like this one based around so-called infallible imams, or variations on this theme. The Qadianis also today loudly complain of persecution, despite their reputation for criminal behaviour in the past and the fact that Musharraf appointed a Qadiani to the chair of the Central Board of Revenue in 2001.
