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| Modern Somnath temple |
Nuruddin Firoz, a Nakhuda from Hormuz
established a mosque at Somnath in Gujarat in 1264 CE. Two inscriptions–one in
Arabic and the other in Sanskrit–set up to mark this event give us a unique
perspective into the trading world of a rich Persian merchant of the thirteenth
century and his interaction with the host society. In this case, it was
merchants as well as prominent citizens and religious leaders at the famous
Saivite centre of Somnath.
Nakhuda means a ship-owning merchant
(khuda or lord of the ship, nau; nauvittaka in Sanskrit–both the terms started
appearing for the first time around 1000 CE in the context of trade between Red
Sea/Persian Gulf to Western coast of India). Somnath, today, is known mostly
for its sacred character but in the thirteenth century, along with Diu, it was
one of the secondary ports of Gujarat (Cambay/Khambat being the main port).
Nuruddin, who was at Somnath due to some work (not specified in the
inscriptions), purchased the land just outside the city limit, what appears to
be the settlement of the merchants (mahajanapally). The land was purchased from
the temple of Somnath as the mahajanapally itself was the property of the
temple. To provide a regular income to the mosque, he also purchased another
piece of land (this time inside the city and purchased from the Bakulesvara
Temple and negotiated by two priests from two other temples), a few shops in
the market, and an oil mill. The entire transaction was facilitated by a group
of leading merchants of Somanth–all Hindus as their names are mentioned in both
the inscriptions. The most prominent among these merchants was Shri Chada, who
was described as Nuruddin’s dharmabandhav or righteous friend in the Sanskrit
version. The entire transaction was ratified by the town council, Panchakula,
headed by the great Pasupata priest Virabhadra, before being ratified by the
local representative of the Chaulukya King.
The language used in the Sanskrit
inscription, which is also the longer one with full details, shows familiarity
with Islam as it describes the mijigiti (masjid) as a place of worship,
festivals of baratisab (Sab-e-barat) and khatamaratri (whole night recitation
of Koran–both festivals considered important for ship-owners and shipmen) and
the jamat or the congregation at Somnath (interestingly apart from the foreign
merchants and shipmen, it consisted of lime workers, oilmen, etc). The language
is also remarkably similar to donative inscriptions at Hindu/Jaina temples and
even some of the epithets used for Allah actually remind one of Shiva (Viswarupa
and Viswanatha; also Sunyarupa). So, here is the story of a Muslim ship owning
merchants from Hormuz constructing a mosque at a sacred Saiva site with active
help from his Hindu merchant friends on a piece of land purchased from the
temple of Somnath itself. This in a microcosm encapsulates the tolerant,
multicultural, and cosmopolitan trading world of India’s western seaboard in
the thirteenth century. The most remarkable aspect of the whole business was
complete absence of any malice or antagonism towards a Muslim merchant even at
Somnath, which was devastated and desecrated two centuries ago by Sultan Mahmud
of Ghazni. In another thirty years, Alauddin Khilji would conquer and annex
Gujarat, and there would be another round of devastation at Somnath itself.
Gujarat was a curious case where time
and again the rulers fought with the Arabs or the Turks on sea and land but
always welcomed Muslim merchants. In an instance quoted by a contemporary
Muslim writer, Chaulukya King Siddharaja (thirteenth century) himself went in
the disguise of a trader to Cambay to probe an incident of attack on a mosque.
Once satisfied with their claim, he granted the Muslims of Cambay compensation
to rebuild the mosque and also ordered guilty to be punished. Though we, at
times, hear of the presence of Indian merchants in ports of Siraf, Hormuz or
Aden, there were perhaps very few merchants like Jagadu, who maintained his own
agents in all major ports abroad. Overall dominance of Arab traders was so
overwhelming in the Western sector that perhaps in states like Gujarat or
Kerala, there was no option but to welcome them.
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| Bohra Men |
Apart from the mainstream Sunni
Muslims, Gujarat is also the original home for a number of smaller, often Shia
Muslim sects. The term Bohra itself originated from Gujarati Vehru meaning
trade. The language spoken by more than one million Dawoodi Bohras across the
world (mainly in Western India, Karachi, East Africa, and the USA and Canada)
is essentially a dialect of Gujarati with a large number of loan words from
Arabic, Persian, and other languages. Their religious headquarters, dawat, has
been located in India since the seventeenth century. Bohra men, always attired
in their distinctive white dress, are mostly traders and naturally their
headquarters has always been at a mercantile centre–Ahmedabad, Surat, and now
Mumbai. They have always placed high premium on education and equal
participation of women (in recent times, they have opened community kitchens in
Mumbai to supply meals twice a day to all Bohra families to free their women
from daily chores). However, unfortunately they remained the only community in
India to still practice female genital mutilation–a vestige of their North
African origin.
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| Present Aga Khan |
The Khojas (from Persian Khwaja or
honourable gentleman) were converts from the Hindu Lohana caste. Though they
have always been part of the Ismaili Shia traditions, they have also preserved
their Hindu pasts. Some of their earlier spiritual leaders took Hindu names to
attract more followers, their belief system closely resembles Vaishanvite
thoughts with their main religious text Dasavatar, celebrating Vishnu’s avatars
along with Ali. However, since the arrival of Aga Khan (originally Imam of
Nizari Ismailis) to India in the nineteenth century and Aga Khan’s emphasis on
Ismaili identity, these beliefs have been in retreat.
Bohra, Khoja, and other such
communities in their foundational myths, always refer to Pirs coming from the
West as the starting point of their faith. Trading links are clearly
discernible in the emergence of these communities. All of them were initially
connected with the Shia Fatimid Caliphate that ruled Egypt from 909 to 1171 CE
from Fustat or Old Cairo. Destination of exports from Gujarat was Egypt
(Cairo/Alexandria, from where Venetian or Genoese merchants took spices and
textiles to Europe), though often the gateway was Aden. Local converts in India
came from the Hindu trading castes such as Lohana, thus they still maintain
similar business ethos and inheritance laws, which prohibit too much division
of family wealth (many of these communities are still legally governed by the
Hindu laws of inheritance).
What exactly prompted them to change
their faith is perhaps difficult to answer and would vary from individual to
individual but the obvious connection was trading links. In a rare first-hand
account, Buzurg bin Shahriyar, maritime merchant and author of the tenth
century Ajabul Hind wrote about his meeting at a Gujarati port with a Hindu
Pilot, who had recently embraced Islam and amassed wealth by piloting ships.
For more such stories related to Indian
business history, see Laxminama: Monks, Merchants, Money and Mantra by Anshuman
Tiwari and Anindya Sengupta Bloomsbury 2018
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