Gujarat contains two classes of Bohras: the traders who are all
Shias and are the only immigrants into the Central Provinces, and a
large class of cultivating Bohras who are Sunnis. The latter may be
the descendants of the earliest converts and may have been forced to
become Sunnis when this sect was dominant in Gujarat as noticed above,
while the Shias are perhaps descended from the later immigrants from
Arabia. The Shia Bohras themselves are further divided into several
sects of which the Daudi are the principal.
Mr. Faridi writes of them: [390] "They are attentive to their religious
duties, both men and women knowing the Koran. They are careful to
say their prayers, to observe Muharram as a season of mourning and
to go on pilgrimage to Mecca and Kerbala. They strictly abstain
from music and dancing and from using or dealing in intoxicating
drinks or drugs. Though fierce sectarians, keenly hating and hated
by the regular Sunnis and other Muhammadans than those of their
own sect, their reverence for Ali and for their high priest seems
to be further removed from adoration than among the Khojahs. They
would appear to accept the ordinary distinctions of right and wrong,
punishing drunkenness, adultery and other acts generally considered
disgraceful. Of the state beyond death they hold that, after passing
a time of freedom as evil spirits, unbelievers go to a place of
torment. Believers, but apparently only believers of the Ismaili
faith, after a term of training enter a state of perfection. Among
the faithful each disembodied spirit passes the term of training in
communion with the soul of some good man. The spirit can suggest
good or evil to the man and may learn from his good deeds to love
the right; when the good man dies the spirits in communion with his
soul are, if they have gained by their training, attached to some
more perfect man, or if they have lost by their opportunities are
sent back to learn; spirits raised to a higher degree of knowledge
are placed in communion with the High Priest on earth; and on his
death are with him united to the Imams, and when through the Imams
they have learnt what they still require to know they are absorbed
in perfection. Except for some peculiarities in their names; that
they attach special importance to circumcision; that the sacrifice
or _alsikah_ ceremony is held in the Mullah's house; that at marriage
the bride and bridegroom when not of age are represented by sponsors
or _walis_; that at death a prayer for pity on his soul and body is
laid in the dead man's hands; and that on certain occasions the High
Priest feeds the whole community--Bohra customs do not so far as has
been ascertained differ from those of ordinary Muhammadans.