This lecture will take place at 17.00 GMT
The Daʾudi Bohras (henceforth, Bohras) are a community of Shiʿa Ismaili Mustaʿli Tayyibis, centred around a lineage of revered living preceptors known as duʿāt al-muṭlaqīn (s. dāʿī al-muṭlaqThe highest rank in the Mustaʿli Ismaili daʿwa., a summoner with total authority), who currently resides in Mumbai, India. This affluent Gujarati merchant community boasts a rich historical legacy in the Indian Ocean world. However, they have not received due attention either from the scholars of Islam in South Asia or of the Indian Ocean communities.
Vineet Gupta calls attention to certain historical junctures where modernity has transformed the virtues of authority among the Daʾudi Bohras. Utilizing a multi-modal range of archival, ethnographic, and textual sources, he underscores the plural foundations of the dāʿīLit. ‘summoner,’ a term for missionary amongst various Muslim communities, especially used among the Ismailis before and during the Fatimid period as well as in the Alamut period of Ismaili…’s authority, which draws from both local and cosmopolitan sources of charismatic authority in Islam. The articulation of authority in this Muslim community, Gupta proposes, is a dynamic process based on a complex synthesis of spiritual and material, ceremonial and legal, as well as ethical and genealogical sources, reflecting the Gujarati as well as the Fatimid and Tayyibi heritage of the daʿwaLit. ‘summons’, ‘mission’ or invitation to Islam. Amongst Shi’i Muslims, it was the invitation to adopt the cause of the Imamat. It also refers more specifically to the hierarchy of… (mission).
Speakers
Vineet Gupta
PhD Candidate
Vineet Gupta is a PhD candidate in the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee (USA). He previously holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in History from the University of Delhi, India, and another Master’s degree in South Asian Studies (majoring in History) from Heidelberg University, Germany. He is currently the 2024 recipient of the IIS Dissertation Writing Scholarship.
Dagikhudo Dagiev
Senior Research Associate
Dagikhudo Dagiev is a Senior Research Associate at the IIS, where he is also Coordinating the IIS Scholarships and Fellowships. He completed his MPhil Degree in Eurasian Studies from Oxford University and was awarded PhD in Department of Political Science at University College London (UCL).
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Views expressed in this lecture are those of the presenting scholars, not necessarily of IIS, the Ismaili community or its leadership. Promotion of this lecture is not an explicit endorsement of the ideas presented.
