The Trader
Inayet Akbarally
“Prior to that, there were no Bohras in Sri Lanka,” Inayet Akbarally begins, recounting a story told each year at community sermons. Around two hundred years ago, famine struck Kutch Mandvi in Gujarat. During a trading voyage carrying dried Maldivian fish, his great grandfather Careemjee Jafferjee was forced by storm to divert his vessel and land in Galle. That unintended arrival, around 1830, marked the first Dawoodi Bohra settlement in Ceylon. What began as shipwreck became migration.
Mr Akbarally received me in the lounge of his home in Bambalapitiya. Framed photographs lined the walls: generations of family, newspaper tributes, and images of the Syedna, the spiritual head of the Dawoodi Bohra community.
He spoke quietly, without flourish, describing how the history of his people is repeated annually at Ashura sermons. “Up to now I’m listening,” he said. The migration from Yemen to Gujarat, from Mandvi to Galle, is not written history for him but inherited narration.
His great grandfather, Careemjee Jafferjee, traded between Zanzibar, Maldives and India in sailing vessels known as buggullos. A storm diverted one such voyage to Galle. From there the family’s roots extended to Colombo and Pettah as the community grew.
He reflected on school days at St Peter’s College, recalling a time when “where you went to school trumped ethnicity and religion.” He described being the only Bohra in his class and cheering for his school above all else.
Today the community gathers globally when the Syedna visits, the women wearing their distinctive ridah, the Glen Arbour Place mosque filled with prayer. His daughter Alefiya photographed one such visit in 2007, capturing a community both local and transnational.
Trade continues. Together with his brothers, he built Akbar Brothers. The Gujarati word “Bohra” means trader. The sea routes have changed, but the instinct remains.
Colombo
June 21, 2013
Transcript and translations
Language
Subjects discussed
Prior to that, there were no Bohras in Sri Lanka
(Sermon)
The reason how we moved out from India, especially the people from Manvi. I would…they would say they were one of the first migrants…the people from Manvi to other parts of the world. Prior to that we were mainly confined to India and other cities in India.
About 200 years ago, right, there was a severe famine in that region. No water, no food, no nothing. And many of them migrated to other parts of India. I would say mainly to Bombay and other place like Ahmedebad and those places. But a few of them who…you know Manvi is like a port, famous for making its bugalows, you know the sailing ships. And even prior to moving out of India, our forefathers used to trade. They used to go to Manvi, Maldives and Zanzibar.
Now, during one of those trips, my great grandfather, my maternal grandfather, Careemjee Jafferjee, while he was in Maldives, he had a stock of this maldive fish which he was taking back to India, the dry fish… Due to a storm, he had to divert his vessel and he landed in Galle. Prior to that, there was no Bohras in Sri Lanka.
(Sermon)
This part of what I’m telling you now is being like a… like a story told to us by our forefathers. And this is repeated every year at our sermons. When the Syednas come here, they tell you the history of the Dais, the Imams. So when we follow those their sermons, we get to learn all this you know.
Up to now, I’m listening. So you pick up. I mean, I would say most of the Bohras will know this same history, which I know.
This is the general annual festival in all these cities where our Syednas are buried, is the death anniversary for a special…like a gathering. I suppose as modern times travelling became easy, they didn’t have to travel in boats and things like that. I think mainly the modern world has made the world smaller and even our community smaller. In maybe the good old days, maybe my forefathers would have never seen the Syedna in their lifetime because, I mean, unless they went there or one of them came here. But now we see him personally.
The gathering on the vast scale, when all other Bohras from other parts of the world come here, takes place only when the head priest decides to come here.
So we welcome his visit always. And he’s taken very good care of, treated with lot of respect. And now with this new modern trend and bringing harmony within the various communities in Sri Lanka with the local Muslims, plus interact with each other to see that there is peace and harmony amongst all of us.
The last was about, say, four years, four or five years ago, right? Prior to that would have been, say, another about three or four years before that. So that’s the time my daughter did the photography for the whole ashura ceremony.
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