1. Origin of the sect.
Bohra, Bohora.[1]—A Muhammadan caste of traders who come from Gujarāt and speak Gujarāti. At the last census they numbered nearly 5000 persons, residing principally in the Nimār, Nāgpur and Amraoti Districts, Burhānpur being the headquarters of the sect in the Central Provinces. The name is probably derived from the Hindi byohāra, a trader. Members of the caste are honorifically addressed as Mullāji. According to the received account of the rise of the Bohras in Gujarāt a missionary, Abdulla, came from Yemen to Cambay in A.D. 1067. By his miracles he converted the great king Sidhrāj of Anhilvāda Pātan in Gujarāt, and he with numbers of his subjects embraced the new faith. For two centuries and a half the Bohras flourished, but with the establishment of Muzaffar Shāh’s power (A.D. 1390–1413) in that country the spread of Sunni doctrines was encouraged and the Bohra and other Shia sects suppressed. Since then, with gradually lessening numbers, they have passed through several bitter persecutions, meeting with little favour or protection, till at the close of the eighteenth century they found shelter under British rule. In 1539 the members of the sect living in Arabia were expelled from there and came to Gujarāt, where they were hospitably received by their brethren, the headquarters of the sect being thenceforward fixed at Surat. The Bohras are Shias of the great Ismailia sect of Egypt. The Ismailia sect split off from the orthodox Shias on the question of the succession to the sixth Imām, Jāfar Sādik, in A.D. 765. The dispute was between his eldest son’s son Ismail and his second son Musi, the Ismailias being those who supported the former and the orthodox Shias the latter. The orthodox Shias are distinguished as believers in twelve Imāms, the last of whom is still to come. The Ismailias again divided on a similar dispute as to the succession to the Khalīfa Almustansir Billah by his eldest son Nazār or his younger son Almustaāli. The Bohras are descended from the Mustaālians or supporters of the younger son and the Khojas from the Nazārians who supported the elder son.[2] All these distinctions appear somewhat trivial.
Group of Bohras at Burhānpur (Nimār).