بِسمِ اللهِ الرَّحمٰنِ الرَّحِيم

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA): The 28th Dai al-Mutlaq

The Scholar from Vadodara in the Age of Jahangir

The early seventeenth century of the Common Era was a time of imperial splendour and quiet religious endurance across the Indian subcontinent. Emperor Jahangir sat upon the Mughal throne in Agra and Delhi; his court glittered with poets, painters, and philosophers. The great cities of Gujarat — Ahmedabad, Surat, and Burhanpur — hummed with trade that reached from the Persian Gulf to the ports of Southeast Asia. Within this world, a community of Shia Ismaili Muslims known as the Bohras maintained their faith in careful and disciplined quiet, guided by a chain of scholars and spiritual authorities who traced their mandate all the way back through Yemen to the Fatimid Imams of Cairo.

It was in this setting that al-Dai al-Ajal Syedna Sheikh Adam Safiuddin ibn Taiyib Shah (RA) — the 28th Dai al-Mutlaq of the Dawoodi Bohra Fatimid dawat — took up his sacred office. Born in Vadodara (Baroda) in Gujarat around 955 AH / 1548 CE, he came from a family embedded in the scholarly and mercantile fabric of the Bohra community. He served as Dai al-Mutlaq for nine years and twenty-one days, from 1021 AH / 1612 CE until his wafat on 7 Rajab 1030 AH / 1621 CE.

To understand his place in the chain of Dais al-Mutlaqeen, and to understand why his tenure matters so deeply, we must first understand who his predecessor was — for the 27th Dai al-Mutlaq, Syedna Dawood Bin Qutubshah (RA), is the figure from whose name the entire Dawoodi Bohra community derives its identity.

Part One: The World That Shaped Him

Gujarat in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Gujarat was the economic heart of Mughal India. Its ports — above all Surat — were the principal conduit through which the wealth of the subcontinent flowed outward to the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and East Africa. Merchants from Gujarat traded in textiles, spices, precious stones, and manufactured goods. The Bohra community, a community of traders and scholars simultaneously, was deeply embedded in this commercial world.

The city of Ahmedabad, founded in 1411 CE by Sultan Ahmed Shah of the Gujarat Sultanate, had by the sixteenth century become one of the greatest cities of the Islamic world. Its bazaars, its mosques, its caravanserais, and its immense walls made it a rival to any city in the Islamic east. When the Mughals under Akbar absorbed Gujarat in 1572 CE, Ahmedabad retained its commercial and cultural importance. For the Bohra community, Ahmedabad was home, was the center of their dawat, and was the city in which their Dais al-Mutlaqeen resided and governed the spiritual affairs of the community.

Burhanpur, on the northern Deccan plateau, was another center of Bohra life. A major commercial town and administrative capital of Khandesh under the Mughals, Burhanpur was home to a thriving Bohra merchant community whose wealth underwrote the dawat’s activities and whose faith sustained its spiritual life. The name Burhanpur would echo through Dawoodi Bohra history repeatedly — as the location of a great mosque, as the seat of Mughal Deccan administration, and eventually as the site of one of the most painful episodes in all of dawat history.

Surat, on the coast, was the port through which the community’s traders conducted their international commerce. The annual Haj voyage from Surat to Jeddah was a matter of communal life — the great ships departing with pilgrims, the community gathered on the shores to bid them farewell and to await their return bearing dates from Madinah and the blessings of having stood at the Haram.

This was the world in which Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) was born, was educated, and lived. It was a world of great commercial activity, complex political relationships, and the quiet, determined practice of a faith that had survived centuries of displacement and persecution.

The Bohra Mercantile Identity

The word Bohra — derived from the Gujarati vohrā or the Arabic buhrah (meaning trade) — reflects the community’s essential identity as traders. From the earliest period of conversion, the Bohra community had been a mercantile community, and it was precisely this mercantile character that allowed the faith to survive in circumstances where open religious identity would have been dangerous.

The merchant travels necessary to the Bohra way of life created a natural infrastructure for the dawat. Trading networks became channels for religious learning. The letters of a merchant carried inside them, often in coded language, the instructions and teachings of the Dai. The commercial relationships between Bohra merchants in distant cities maintained the social cohesion of a community whose members were scattered from Surat to Aden, from Mozambique to Burma.

The Bohras developed a system of dual identity: externally, they were traders, respected for their commercial probity and their reliability in keeping contracts. Internally, they were the custodians of a profound and ancient faith, the inheritors of the Fatimid intellectual tradition, the waliyeen (friends and supporters) of the hidden Imam al-Tayyib (AS).

Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) was born into this world and embodied its essential duality — the outward-facing skill in navigating political and commercial relationships, the inward-facing devotion to the esoteric learning of the dawat.

Part Two: The Predecessor and the Name — Syedna Dawood Bin Qutubshah (RA), the 27th Dai

Why the Community is Called “Dawoodi”

To understand the 28th Dai, we must dwell at length on his predecessor — for Syedna Dawood Bin Qutubshah (RA), the 27th Dai al-Mutlaq, gave the Dawoodi Bohra community its very name. The story of how this happened is one of the most consequential episodes in the history of the Ismaili Fatimid dawat in India.

Syedna Dawood Bin Qutubshah (RA) was born in approximately 944 AH / 1537 CE and served as Dai al-Mutlaq for an extraordinarily long period — from 999 AH / 1591 CE until his wafat in 1021 AH / 1612 CE, a tenure of more than twenty years. He was a scholar of immense stature, a man whose learning encompassed the full breadth of the Fatimid sciences, and whose personal piety was renowned throughout the community. He resided in Ahmedabad for the bulk of his tenure, and it was under his leadership that the dawat in Gujarat achieved a new consolidation and strength.

But the reason his name became the name of the community lies not in his scholarly achievements or his personal piety, remarkable as these were. It lies in a succession dispute that erupted after the death of the 26th Dai — a dispute that divided the dawat into two branches and resulted in the formation of two distinct communities that persist to this day.

The 26th Dai and the Succession Dispute

Syedna Dawood ibn Ajabshah (RA) was the 26th Dai al-Mutlaq. He served from approximately 974 AH and passed away in 999 AH / 1591 CE. In the final period of his life, he gave the formal act of nass — the explicit designation of his successor — to Dawood ibn Qutubshah, and this nass was witnessed and known to the senior members of the dawat.

However, when Syedna Dawood ibn Ajabshah (RA) passed away, a dispute arose. Sulaiman ibn Hasan al-Hindi, a scholar of the dawat who had been resident in India for many years, put forward a rival claim. Sulaiman ibn Hasan argued that the nass had been given not to Dawood ibn Qutubshah but to himself. He gathered around him a faction of followers who accepted his claim.

The community was thus faced with competing claims to the same office — a situation that had occurred several times in the long history of the Ismaili dawat, and which the tradition had always resolved through the principle of examining the evidence of nass, the testimony of witnesses, and the overall guidance of the living tradition of scholarship within the dawat.

The vast majority of the Bohra community — particularly in Gujarat, where the bulk of the community resided, and in Surat, Ahmedabad, Burhanpur, and the major trading towns — accepted Dawood ibn Qutubshah as the legitimate 27th Dai al-Mutlaq. His claim to the nass was attested by reliable witnesses, and his personal qualifications — his scholarship, his lineage within the dawat, his character — were unimpeachable.

A smaller group accepted the rival claim of Sulaiman ibn Hasan. This group became known as the Sulaymani Bohras — named after their claimant. They constitute a distinct community to this day, smaller in number than the Dawoodi Bohras, and headquartered historically in Yemen with significant presence in India.

The “Dawoodi” Name Becomes Permanent

Because the majority of the Bohra community accepted Dawood ibn Qutubshah as their legitimate Dai, they came to be called Dawoodi Bohras — the Bohras who follow Dawood. The name was not chosen by design but arose organically from the need to distinguish the majority community from those who had followed Sulaiman.

This is a deeply significant moment in the history of the community. The Dawoodi Bohra community — with its 53+ Dais al-Mutlaqeen stretching from that moment to the present, and its current Dai al-Mutlaq al-Dai al-Ajal Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin (TUS) — traces its legitimacy through the nass given to Dawood ibn Qutubshah and through his subsequent valid designation of Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) as the 28th Dai.

The Sulaymani community similarly traces its chain through their claimant. Both communities maintain that their chain of nass is the valid one. The historical and traditional evidence assembled within the Dawoodi Bohra community firmly establishes Syedna Dawood Bin Qutubshah (RA) as the rightful 27th Dai, and the entire subsequent chain of 52 Dais as his legitimate successors.

The Scholarly Legacy of the 27th Dai

Beyond the succession dispute that gave the community its name, Syedna Dawood Bin Qutubshah (RA) was a scholar of remarkable productivity. His long tenure allowed him to deepen the community’s educational institutions, to produce works in the tradition of Fatimid esoteric scholarship, and to navigate the complex politics of Akbar’s and Jahangir’s Gujarat.

His relationship with the Mughal administration was managed with considerable skill. The Mughals, while officially Sunni, governed through a policy of religious accommodation — at least during the reigns of Akbar and Jahangir. Akbar’s famous Din-i-Ilahi experiment, his court debates involving scholars of all traditions, and his general policy of incorporating Hindu and other religious leaders into his administrative framework, created a relatively tolerant environment in which a community like the Bohras could practice their faith with reasonable freedom, so long as they paid their taxes, participated in the commercial life of the empire, and did not engage in open political challenge to Mughal authority.

Syedna Dawood Bin Qutubshah (RA) managed this relationship skillfully. The Bohra community under his guidance thrived commercially, maintained its religious institutions, and continued the tradition of sending scholars to Yemen for advanced education — including the scholar who would become his successor.

Part Three: Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) — Formation and Education

Lineage and Early Life

al-Dai al-Ajal Syedna Sheikh Adam Safiuddin ibn Taiyib Shah (RA) was born in Vadodara (Baroda), Gujarat, around 955 AH / 1548 CE. Vadodara was at this time a significant center of Bohra community life — smaller than Ahmedabad but with an established presence of Bohra merchants and scholars. His father, Taiyib Shah, was a member of the community’s scholarly class, and his early education was imparted within the family and within the community’s informal but rigorous educational structures.

The education of a Bohra child in this period began with the Quran — memorization, recitation in the proper manner of Fatimid qira’ah, and the initial layers of understanding. It proceeded through Arabic language, the study of hadith in the Fatimid tradition, the jurisprudence (fiqh) of the Ismaili school, and the beginning of the esoteric sciences (ilm al-batin) that represent the special inheritance of the dawat. For a child marked out as potentially significant to the dawat’s future, this education would have been particularly intensive.

The Bohra community maintained a network of teachers and scholars throughout Gujarat. A young man of promise would study with multiple teachers, would travel between the Bohra-populated towns to receive instruction from different masters, and would gradually build the breadth of learning that the dawat required. For Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA), this local education was the foundation upon which a far more ambitious formation would be built.

The Journey to Yemen

What most distinguishes the scholarly formation of Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) is the journey he undertook for advanced religious education — not merely through the local teachers of Gujarat, but all the way to Yemen, the original heartland of the Ismaili dawat after the seclusion of Imam al-Tayyib (AS) in 528 AH / 1133 CE.

Yemen had been the home of the Fatimid dawat since the great Hurra al-Malika Arwa bint Ahmad al-Sulayhi (RA) had nurtured the dawat’s institutions in the eleventh century. After the seclusion of the Imam, Yemen became the center from which the dawat continued under the successive Dais al-Mutlaqeen. Even after the transfer of the dawat’s operational center to Gujarat in the sixteenth century — when it became clear that the Indian subcontinent, with its large Bohra community, was the primary arena of dawat activity — Yemen remained the spiritual homeland, the source of the most authoritative scholarly tradition.

Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) traveled to Yemen to study under Syedna Yusuf Najmuddin ibn Sulaiman (RA) — one of the scholarly luminaries of the Yemeni dawat tradition. This journey, undertaken in what must have been difficult circumstances — the sea voyage from Surat to Aden, the land journey to the scholars of Yemen — represents the young scholar’s total commitment to the highest possible level of religious formation.

The sciences he mastered in Yemen included:

• Tafsir al-Quran (Quranic exegesis) — particularly the esoteric, ta’wili interpretation that is the distinctive contribution of the Ismaili Fatimid tradition
• al-Hikma al-Isma’iliyya (Ismaili wisdom) — the philosophical theology that synthesizes Neoplatonic thought with the Quran and the traditions of the Imams, as developed by the great Fatimid scholars al-Muayyad al-Shirazi (RA) and Hamiduddin al-Kirmani (RA)
• Ilm al-Ta’wil (esoteric hermeneutics) — the art of reading the zahir (outer, exoteric) and batin (inner, esoteric) dimensions of revelation simultaneously
• al-Fiqh al-Fatimi (Fatimid jurisprudence) — the legal tradition of the Ismaili Shia, derived from the Imams’ rulings
• Arabic language — grammar, rhetoric, and poetics in their highest forms
• Sirat al-Duat (the lives and traditions of the Dais) — the sacred history of the succession of Dais from the time of the Imam’s seclusion

This comprehensive formation in Yemen made Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) not merely a learned man but a scholar in the fullest sense of the Fatimid tradition — someone capable of reading the scriptures with both their outer and inner eyes, of guiding the community through the complexities of both law and mystical understanding, and of preserving the authentic transmission of knowledge from the Imam through the chain of Dais.

Return to Gujarat and Service Under the 27th Dai

Upon returning to Gujarat, Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) took his place within the dawat hierarchy under the 27th Dai, Syedna Dawood Bin Qutubshah (RA). This period of service — as a senior scholar and functionary of the dawat, operating under the guidance of the Dai al-Mutlaq — was itself a form of education. The Dai observes, tests, and shapes those whom he intends to designate as his successor, and the period of service within the dawat is where the qualities of leadership, administrative skill, political acuity, and spiritual depth are refined.

During this period, Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) likely served in multiple capacities — as a teacher within the dawat’s educational circles, as a representative of the Dai in specific communities, and as one of the trusted inner circle of scholars who managed the community’s affairs. The dawat’s administrative structure in Gujarat required individuals capable of managing relationships with Mughal officials, overseeing the community’s charitable and educational institutions, and adjudicating disputes within the community according to Fatimid law.

Part Four: The Dawat Centered in Ahmedabad — Nine Years of Stewardship

Assumption of the Position of Dai al-Mutlaq

When Syedna Dawood Bin Qutubshah (RA) passed away in 1021 AH / 1612 CE, he had formally designated Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) as his successor through the act of nass — the explicit designation that is the mechanism by which the chain of Dais is maintained. The community of believers gathered in Ahmedabad received the new Dai with the customary expressions of love and submission, the salaam of the dawat, and the renewal of the covenant (mithaq) that binds the believer to the Dai al-Mutlaq.

Emperor Jahangir was on the Mughal throne at this time, having succeeded his father Akbar in 1605 CE. Jahangir’s Gujarat was administered through governors appointed from Agra, and the Bohra community’s relationship with these governors required constant attention. The Mughal administrative apparatus collected taxes, regulated trade, and periodically intervened in the affairs of religious communities — particularly when such communities were wealthy and commercially significant, as the Bohras were.

Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) managed the dawat from Ahmedabad, the city that had been the center of Bohra religious life for generations. His tenure of nine years and twenty-one days was not defined by any single dramatic event but by the steady and skilled management of a community embedded in, and in some ways dependent on, a Mughal political framework.

The Dawat’s Administrative Structure

Under Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA), the dawat’s administrative structure reflected the community’s distribution across the towns of Gujarat and beyond. The Dai al-Mutlaq himself resided in Ahmedabad and was the supreme authority in all religious, legal, and communal matters. Below him in the dawat hierarchy were:

al-Mazoon (Licentiate) — the second-highest office, the Dai’s deputy who could perform most of the Dai’s functions on his behalf, and who was the primary candidate for succession, though succession was always by nass and not automatic.

al-Mukasir (the one who “breaks” or disseminates knowledge) — the third-highest office, responsible for instruction and propagation within the community.

al-Wali al-Hindi (the Representative in India) — a senior official responsible for the dawat’s activities across the subcontinent.

al-Sheikhs — senior scholars who administered the dawat’s affairs in individual towns, conducted religious ceremonies, taught the community’s children, and maintained the link between local Bohra communities and the central dawat in Ahmedabad.

al-Mullas — junior scholars who assisted the Sheikhs.

This hierarchy was the backbone of the community’s life. The Sheikhs and Mullas were the religious leaders who conducted the weekly Jumu’ah prayers (in the specific manner of the Fatimid tradition), who performed the nikah (marriage) ceremonies, who administered the burial rites, who taught the children, and who served as the immediate point of contact between ordinary believers and the chain of dawat authority.

The Trading Towns: Surat, Burhanpur, Ahmedabad

The Dawoodi Bohra community of Syedna Adam Safiuddin’s (RA) time was concentrated in several key towns, each with its own character and its own contribution to the life of the dawat.

Ahmedabad was the dawat’s center — the city of the Dai al-Mutlaq himself, the location of the community’s most important mosques and imambaras, and the hub from which religious authority radiated to all other Bohra communities. The city’s Bohra quarter was a world unto itself — dense with the houses of merchants, the workshops of craftsmen, the schools where children learned Arabic and Quran, and the meeting rooms where the community’s elders gathered to discuss the matters of the day.

Surat was the port, the gateway to the world. The Bohra merchants of Surat conducted trade that made them some of the wealthiest and most cosmopolitan individuals in the subcontinent. They traded with the Ottoman merchants of Aden and Istanbul, with the Persian merchants of Hormuz and Isfahan, with the Portuguese in Goa (a relationship always fraught with religious tension, given the Portuguese Inquisition’s hostility to Muslims), and with the emerging English and Dutch trading companies that were beginning to establish themselves on the Indian coast.

The wealth generated by Surat’s trade underwrote the dawat’s institutional activities — the building of mosques, the copying and preservation of manuscripts, the education of scholars, and the maintenance of the dawat’s elaborate administrative structure. Wealthy Bohra merchants in Surat were among the most important patrons of the dawat’s cultural and religious life.

Burhanpur sat on the major trade route between the Mughal heartland and the Deccan. It was the military and administrative capital of Khandesh under the Mughals, and it was home to a significant Bohra community. The Bohra presence in Burhanpur was both commercial — the city’s trade routes made it a natural hub — and religious, with mosques, scholars, and a thriving community life.

Burhanpur would become an even more significant location in the decades that followed Syedna Adam Safiuddin’s (RA) tenure — as the seat of several later Dais and as the location of great religious monuments. But during his time, it was already an important outpost of the dawat.

Managing the Mughal Relationship

One of the most important functions of the Dai al-Mutlaq was managing the community’s relationship with the Mughal state. This was not a simple matter. The Mughals were powerful, their taxation was heavy, their officials were sometimes corrupt, and their attitude toward religious minorities — while generally tolerant by the standards of the age — was never unconditionally benign.

The Bohra community needed the Mughal administration for several practical purposes. They needed the security that Mughal law and order provided for their trade routes. They needed the Mughal legal system for the resolution of commercial disputes that went beyond the community’s own internal adjudication. They needed Mughal permission for the construction and maintenance of religious buildings. And they needed, more fundamentally, the protection that a powerful state can provide against local-level harassment and persecution.

Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) was, according to the traditions of the dawat, particularly skilled in managing these external relationships. He cultivated relationships with Mughal officials in Gujarat — not through compromise of the community’s religious identity, but through the careful demonstration of the community’s reliability, its commercial value to the state, and its general willingness to be good citizens of the empire.

This skill in what we might call “minority diplomacy” — the art of preserving communal identity and religious freedom within a politically dominant framework — was one of the essential skills of every Dai al-Mutlaq. It required intelligence, patience, the ability to read political situations accurately, and the willingness to make calculated gestures of goodwill toward the dominant power without compromising the community’s inner life.

The dawat tradition characterizes this skill not merely as political acuity but as a form of divine assistance — the Imam’s tawfiq (enabling grace) reaching through the Dai to protect the community in circumstances that required external navigation.

Propagation in the Deccan

Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) was, according to dawat tradition, authorized to propagate the mission in the Deccan — the great plateau region to the south of the Mughal heartland, where the Deccan Sultanates (Bijapur, Golconda, Bidar, and others) maintained independent rule and where significant Muslim communities existed.

The extension of the dawat into the Deccan was a natural development of the community’s commercial expansion. Bohra merchants following trade routes into the Deccan brought their faith with them. The Dai’s authorization to propagate in this region meant the formal expansion of the dawat’s administrative reach — the appointment of Sheikhs and other functionaries in Deccan towns, the establishment of religious facilities, and the bringing of communities in the Deccan under the spiritual protection and guidance of the Dai al-Mutlaq.

This expansion southward was part of the gradual process by which the Dawoodi Bohra community established its presence across the length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent — a process that, by the time of the later Dais, would include significant communities in the Deccan, in Maharashtra, in Karnataka, and eventually on the east coast of Africa and across Southeast Asia.

Part Five: Scholarship and the Preservation of Fatimid Learning

The Dai as Custodian of Ilm

The office of the Dai al-Mutlaq is not primarily an administrative role, important as administration is. It is, at its core, a scholarly and spiritual role. The Dai al-Mutlaq is the custodian of the ilm — the sacred knowledge that flows from the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) through the Imams, and from the Imams through the Dais al-Mutlaqeen, to the believing community.

This ilm has two dimensions. The zahir (outer dimension) encompasses Islamic law, Quranic recitation, Arabic language, Islamic history, and the exoteric religious sciences familiar to all Muslims. The batin (inner dimension) encompasses the esoteric interpretation (ta’wil) of the Quran and all religious observance — the deeper meanings that underlie the outer forms, the spiritual realities to which the rituals and laws point.

The Dai al-Mutlaq must be a master of both dimensions. He must be able to guide the community in the practical matters of religious law — when to pray, how to fast, how to conduct a marriage, how to distribute an inheritance — and he must be able to illuminate the inner meanings of these practices for those advanced in the path of spiritual knowledge.

The Fatimid Intellectual Tradition

The intellectual tradition that Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) inherited, and which he was responsible for preserving and transmitting, was one of the great achievements of Islamic civilization. The Fatimid caliphate of Egypt (909–1171 CE) had been the center of an extraordinary flourishing of philosophy, theology, esoteric science, and literary culture.

The great scholars of the Fatimid tradition include:

al-Qadi al-Nu’man (d. 363 AH / 974 CE) — the supreme jurist of the Fatimid period, whose Da’a’im al-Islam is the foundational text of Ismaili Fatimid law.

Hamiduddin al-Kirmani (d. ca. 411 AH / 1020 CE) — the great philosopher whose works synthesize Neoplatonic metaphysics with Ismaili theology, establishing the intellectual framework within which subsequent Fatimid thought developed.

al-Muayyad al-Shirazi (d. 470 AH / 1078 CE) — the head of the Fatimid dawat under al-Imam al-Mustansir billah, whose majalis (teaching sessions) and diwans (poems) represent the peak of Fatimid esoteric literature.

Nasir Khusraw (d. ca. 481 AH / 1088 CE) — the Persian poet and philosopher who traveled to Cairo, received the teaching of al-Muayyad, and brought the Fatimid dawat to Persia and Central Asia.

al-Shahid al-Maqtul Syedna Hasan ibn Nuh al-Bharuchi (RA) — the future 32nd Dai al-Mutlaq, whose martyrdom we shall discuss at length — who was himself a scholar of this tradition.

The books of these scholars — their philosophical treatises, their esoteric commentaries on the Quran, their collections of teaching sessions, their polemical works — were preserved in manuscript form in the dawat’s libraries. Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA), as Dai al-Mutlaq, was responsible for this preservation, for the copying of these manuscripts, for their study by qualified scholars, and for the controlled dissemination of their teachings to those prepared to receive them.

His Written Works

The tradition of the dawat records that Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) produced written works — rasayel (epistles) and scholarly compositions — that circulated within the dawat’s inner circles. These texts, in the tradition of Fatimid esoteric scholarship, engaged with the zahir and batin dimensions of Islamic teaching.

The genre of the risala (epistle) was central to the Fatimid scholarly tradition. The great scholars of the Fatimid period had used this form to communicate complex philosophical and theological ideas in a relatively accessible format. A risala might take the form of a letter to a specific student, an essay on a specific question, or a meditation on a verse of the Quran or a passage of the Imam’s teaching.

The works of Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA), along with those of many other Dais al-Mutlaqeen, are preserved in the dawat’s manuscript libraries — collections of extraordinary importance for the history of Ismaili thought. The dawat’s khizana (treasury of manuscripts) is one of the great repositories of medieval Islamic learning, containing texts that exist nowhere else in the world, having been preserved through the centuries by the continuous effort and care of the dawat’s scholars.

The Majalis al-Ilm

The weekly majlis (gathering) was the primary institution of dawat education. In the Bohra community, the majlis took several forms:

Majlis al-Waaz — the gathering of religious instruction, in which the Sheikh or Mukasar would deliver a lecture (waaz) on a religious topic, typically drawing on the texts of the Fatimid tradition and applying their teachings to the circumstances of the community’s life.

Majlis al-Ilm — the more specialized gathering for advanced study, in which scholars read and discussed the texts of the Fatimid tradition in greater depth, with the Dai or a senior scholar guiding the discussion.

Majlis al-Quran — the gathering for Quranic recitation, study, and ta’wil — the esoteric interpretation that is the special gift of the Fatimid tradition.

These gatherings were the lifeblood of the community’s religious life. They were the mechanism by which the ilm was transmitted from the Dai through the hierarchy of scholars to the body of believers. They were also social occasions — times of community gathering, of the renewal of bonds between believers, of the affirmation of shared identity and faith.

Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) presided over these gatherings in Ahmedabad and would have delegated responsibility for them to senior scholars in other towns. The waaz delivered in his name, drawing on the tradition of Fatimid scholarship that he had absorbed during his years of study in Gujarat and Yemen, was the primary means by which the Dai’s guidance reached ordinary believers.

Part Six: The Spiritual Significance of the Office

The Hidden Imam and the Dai al-Mutlaq

To understand the spiritual gravity of the position held by Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA), it is necessary to understand the theology of the Imamate and the dawat as taught within the Dawoodi Bohra tradition.

The Dawoodi Bohra community traces its faith to Imam al-Tayyib ibn al-Amir (AS), the son of Imam al-Amir bi-Ahkam Allah, the Fatimid Imam-Caliph of Egypt who was murdered in 524 AH / 1130 CE. Imam al-Tayyib was in concealment (satr) from the time of his father’s death, protected by the great Hurra al-Malika Arwa al-Sulayhi (RA), who recognized his Imamate and served as his representative in the Yemeni dawat.

After the death of Hurra al-Malika in 532 AH / 1138 CE, the leadership of the dawat passed to the Dai al-Mutlaq — the Absolute Representative — who acts as the Imam’s deputy in all matters during the period of his concealment. The Imam is alive, hidden, and will return at the end of time to establish justice on earth. In his absence, the Dai al-Mutlaq holds the position of hujja (proof, representative) of the Imam — the visible, accessible link through which the Imam’s authority and guidance reach the believing community.

The theological weight of this position cannot be overstated. The Dai al-Mutlaq is not merely a religious leader in the way that a bishop or a caliph is a religious leader. He is the living connection between the community and the hidden Imam — the one through whom the Imam’s blessings flow, the one whose guidance is the Imam’s guidance, the one whose nass (designation of his successor) carries the weight of the Imam’s own appointment.

The great scholars of the dawat have articulated this theology in elaborate detail. The Dai al-Mutlaq occupies the position of Muhyi al-Dawat (reviver of the dawat) — the one who keeps the flame of Imamate authority burning in the period of the Imam’s concealment. Without the Dai, the believer would have no access to the living authority of the Imam. With the Dai, the believer stands in relation to the Imam through the chain of nass that connects them.

The Mithaq and the Believer’s Covenant

Every Dawoodi Bohra believer enters into a formal covenant (mithaq) with the Dai al-Mutlaq. This covenant, typically taken upon reaching adulthood (though it may be taken at various stages of life), is a formal act of submission to the Dai’s authority — an acknowledgment that the Dai is the Imam’s representative, that his guidance must be followed, and that the believer’s relationship to the Imam is mediated through this covenant with the Dai.

The mithaq is one of the most solemn acts in the Bohra believer’s religious life. It is administered by the Dai himself, or by one of the Dais’ authorized representatives, and it binds the believer in a relationship of loyalty and submission that is understood to be spiritually transformative.

When Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) administered the mithaq to believers, or when his representatives administered it on his behalf, they were acting as the conduit of the Imam’s covenant-making authority. The spiritual weight of this act — the binding of believer to Imam through the intermediary of the Dai — was felt in every such ceremony.

Karamat — Signs of Divine Favor

The Dawoodi Bohra tradition holds that the true Dai al-Mutlaq is marked by karamat — signs of divine favor, miraculous manifestations of the blessings that flow through him from the Imam and ultimately from Allah. These karamat are not magic tricks or violations of the natural order for their own sake; they are manifestations of the extraordinary spiritual reality of the Dai’s position.

The dawat tradition records several categories of karamat associated with Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA):

The Karamat of Presence — Those who came into his company reported an experience of unusual spiritual weight — a sense that they were in the presence of someone through whom a much greater power was operating. This quality of presence, described in dawat tradition as nur (light) or jalal (majesty), is itself understood as a karamat — the visible expression of the Imam’s light shining through his representative.

The Karamat of Resolution — Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) was known, according to the community’s oral and textual tradition, for his ability to resolve difficult situations — disputes within the community, seemingly impossible negotiations with external authorities, situations of danger that resolved themselves unexpectedly. This ability was understood not as the result of exceptional human intelligence alone, but as the working of divine tawfiq (enabling grace) through the Dai.

The Karamat of Foresight — Dawat tradition records instances in which the Dai displayed knowledge of situations or events that could not have been known through ordinary means — the kind of foresight that is described in all traditions of sainthood and that the Ismaili Fatimid tradition attributes to the ilm of the Imams and Dais.

These karamat are preserved in the dawat’s tradition not as curiosities but as evidence of the spiritual reality of the office — as proof, in the language of faith, that the chain of Dais is indeed what it claims to be: the living continuation of the Imam’s authority in the world.

Part Seven: The Community’s Daily Religious Life

The Fatimid Calendar and Its Observances

The Dawoodi Bohra community lives by a dual calendar — the lunar Islamic calendar that governs religious observances, and the solar Gregorian calendar that governs commercial and civic life. The religious calendar is rich with observances, many of them specific to the Fatimid-Ismaili tradition and marking occasions that distinguish the Bohra community’s practice from that of other Muslim communities.

During the tenure of Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA), these observances would have structured the community’s life:

Ramadan — the month of fasting, of the special Fatimid Ramadan traditions including the reading of the Dua al-Sahar before dawn, the collective breaking of the fast (iftar), and the recitation of specific prayers.

Laylat al-Qadr (the Night of Power) — observed with particular intensity in the Fatimid tradition, with all-night vigils of prayer, Quran recitation, and the special duas transmitted through the chain of Imams.

Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha — the two great festivals of the Islamic year, observed with communal prayer led by the Dai’s representative and followed by community gatherings.

Ashura — the tenth of Muharram, observed with intense mourning for the martyrdom of Imam al-Husayn (AS) at Karbala. The Bohra community’s observance of Ashura is deeply Shia in character — the remembrance of Imam al-Husayn’s sacrifice is one of the central pillars of the community’s emotional and spiritual life.

Milad al-Nabi — the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW), observed with the recitation of the Dawriyya (a special form of mawlid specific to the Fatimid tradition) and with the gathering of the community in celebration.

Milaad al-Imam — the birthdays of the Imams from the Prophet’s family, observed with waaz (religious discourses) and special duas.

Urus of the Dais — the death anniversaries of the Dais al-Mutlaqeen, observed at the mazaars (shrines) where they are buried, with communal prayers, tilawat of Quran, and duas.

These observances were not merely calendar occasions — they were the mechanism by which the community renewed and deepened its sense of identity, its connection to the chain of Imams and Dais, and its commitment to the faith. The Dai al-Mutlaq’s guidance determined how these observances were conducted, and his authority gave them their spiritual weight.

The Bohra Mosque and Its Distinctive Character

The Bohra mosque of this period had a distinctive character that reflected the community’s Fatimid heritage. The architecture drew on the tradition of Fatimid Egypt — the great Mosque of al-Hakim and the Mosque of al-Azhar in Cairo were the models from which the Bohra mosque tradition derived. Interior spaces were typically carpeted, with the community sitting on the floor in the manner of traditional Islamic assembly rather than in rows of chairs. The minaret, the mihrab, and the minbar were all present, but in forms adapted to the Gujarati building tradition.

The most distinctive element of the Bohra mosque was the presence of the takht — a raised seat from which the Dai al-Mutlaq, or his representative, would address the community. This raised platform, approached by steps and often elaborately carved, was the symbol of the Dai’s authority and the physical focal point of the community’s relationship to its spiritual leader.

The language of religious observance in the Bohra mosque was Arabic — Quran, duas, and the most sacred formulas of the faith were always in Arabic, maintaining the community’s connection to the original language of the Fatimid tradition and to the broader world of Islamic civilization. But the language of the waaz (religious discourse) was Gujarati (later also Lisan al-Dawat, the special dialect of the community) — making the teachings accessible to ordinary believers who might not have mastered Arabic.

Part Eight: Wafat, Mazaar, and the Question of Succession

The Formal Act of Nass

The most solemn act of any Dai al-Mutlaq’s tenure is the giving of nass — the formal designation of his successor. The nass is not a will, not an election, not a committee decision. It is an act of spiritual authority: the Dai al-Mutlaq, acting as the Imam’s representative, designates the one whom the Imam has indicated as his successor.

The nass must be given in the presence of witnesses, who are sworn to secrecy until the appropriate time. It is typically given well in advance of the Dai’s death, so that the successor is known to at least some members of the community before the transition is required to be managed. The witnesses to the nass are among the most trusted members of the dawat hierarchy.

Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) gave nass to Syedna Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin (RA) as the 29th Dai al-Mutlaq. This act, performed in Ahmedabad in the years before the Dai’s wafat, was witnessed by the senior members of the dawat and formed the basis for the legitimate continuation of the chain after his death.

Wafat and Mazaar

Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) passed from this world on 7 Rajab 1030 AH / June 1621 CE, in Ahmedabad. His wafat was the passing of a scholar, a guide, and a father-figure to the entire community — an occasion of deep communal grief but also of the particular form of consolation that the Fatimid tradition offers: the assurance that the Dai al-Mutlaq does not truly die but continues his intercession for the community from the divine realm.

His mazaar (tomb) is located in Ahmedabad, and it is one of the sacred ziyarat (pilgrimage) sites of the Dawoodi Bohra community. The mazaar of a Dai al-Mutlaq is not merely a gravesite but a locus of spiritual power — a place where the Dai’s baraka (divine blessing) continues to be present and accessible to those who visit with sincere devotion.

The practice of ziyarat — the respectful visitation of the tombs of saints, prophets, Imams, and Dais — is among the most cherished practices of the Bohra community. To stand at the mazaar of Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA), to recite the salaam (greeting of peace), to offer the appropriate duas, and to feel the spiritual presence of the one who is buried there — this is one of the ways in which the Bohra believer maintains and renews his or her connection to the chain of Dais.

The urus (annual commemoration of the wafat) of Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) on 7 Rajab is observed by the community with communal prayers, tilawat of Quran, and special duas for his mercy and intercession. Those able to visit his mazaar in Ahmedabad on this day do so with particular devotion.

The Alavi Separation

After the wafat of Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA), a significant episode unfolded in Dawoodi Bohra history — one that the community navigates with both sadness and theological clarity.

A small faction, led by Ali ibn Ibrahim — who was the grandson of Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) himself — refused to accept the nass given to Syedna Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin (RA). Ali ibn Ibrahim and his followers argued that the position should have passed through the family line of Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) — specifically through Ali ibn Ibrahim’s branch. They separated from the mainstream Dawoodi community in approximately 1034 AH and became known as the Alavi Bohras.

The Alavi Bohra community, based historically in Vadodara (the birthplace of their founding figure’s ancestor), persists to this day as a distinct community with its own Dai. They trace their chain of Dais through Ali ibn Ibrahim and his successors.

The Dawoodi Bohra community has always maintained, with complete theological consistency, that the nass given to Syedna Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin (RA) was the valid and legitimate designation — given by the Dai al-Mutlaq in the exercise of his divinely authorized role as the Imam’s representative. The principle of the dawat is unambiguous: the succession of Dais is determined by nass alone, not by family lineage, not by election, and not by popular sentiment. The Dai designates; the community accepts. The separation of the Alavi Bohras is understood within the Dawoodi tradition as one of the periodic tests of faith and community cohesion through which the dawat navigates, and the subsequent chain of Dais through Syedna Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin (RA) — 52 more Dais, culminating in the present Dai al-Mutlaq — validates the legitimacy of that nass.

Part Nine: The Broader Chain — His Predecessors and Successors

The Chain of Dais Before Him

To appreciate the position of Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) in the chain, it is helpful to recall the Dais who preceded him in the period of the dawat’s Indian operation:

The 24th Dai — Syedna Yusuf Najmuddin ibn Sulaiman (RA) — the scholar under whom, as we have noted, Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) studied in Yemen. This Dai served the dawat from Yemen and was responsible for nurturing the connection between the Yemeni dawat tradition and the Indian Bohra community.

The 25th Dai — Syedna Jalal ibn Hasan (RA).

The 26th Dai — Syedna Dawood ibn Ajabshah (RA) — the Dai whose succession dispute gave birth to both the Dawoodi and Sulaimani branches.

The 27th Dai — Syedna Dawood Bin Qutubshah (RA) — as we have discussed at length, the Dai whose name became the name of the community, who served the dawat for more than twenty years in Ahmedabad, and who designated Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) as his successor.

The Successors After Him

The chain of Dais that followed Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) continued through the turbulent and sometimes tragic seventeenth century:

The 29th Dai — Syedna Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin (RA) — the legitimate successor designated through nass, who served the dawat and preserved the chain.

The 30th Dai — Syedna Ali Shamsuddin (RA).

The 31st Dai — Syedna Agha Khan Khan (RA).

The 32nd Dai — Syedna Qutubkhan Qutubuddin (RA) — commonly known as Syedna al-Shahid (the Martyr) — whose extraordinary story we must tell in detail.

Part Ten: Syedna al-Shahid — The 32nd Dai and the Martyrdom at Burhanpur

A Community Under Threat

The decades following the tenure of Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) were among the most dangerous in the history of the Dawoodi Bohra dawat in India. The political context had shifted significantly from the relatively tolerant framework of Akbar’s and Jahangir’s reigns. Under Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707 CE), the Mughal Empire adopted a stance of orthodox Sunni Islam that was openly hostile to Shia communities, Sufi orders, and non-Muslim religious minorities.

Aurangzeb reimposed the jizya (poll tax on non-Muslims), destroyed many Hindu and Shia religious sites, and encouraged a climate of religious conformism that made the open practice of minority faiths increasingly dangerous. For the Dawoodi Bohra community — visibly Shia in their religious practices, wealthy and commercially significant, and led by a spiritual authority whose claims to Imamic representation were theologically alien to Sunni orthodoxy — this climate was deeply threatening.

The threat came not only from Aurangzeb’s central administration but from local officials and governors who saw in the Bohra community an opportunity for extortion. A community with wealth, with distinctive religious practices, and with no powerful patron to protect it was vulnerable to demands for money under the implicit or explicit threat of religious persecution.

The 32nd Dai: Syedna Qutubkhan Qutubuddin al-Shahid (RA)

al-Dai al-Ajal Syedna Qutubkhan Qutubuddin (RA) was the 32nd Dai al-Mutlaq. He served from approximately 1083 AH / 1673 CE and was a scholar of the Fatimid tradition — learned, pious, and deeply committed to the welfare of the community. His residence was in Burhanpur, the great trading city of Khandesh that had become a major center of Bohra life.

Syedna Qutubuddin (RA) — who would become known to the community as al-Shahid (the Martyr) — was a man of extraordinary courage. The Dai al-Mutlaq is the shepherd of the community, responsible not only for its spiritual welfare but for its physical protection. When that protection required confronting power, the Dai al-Mutlaq could not retreat.

The Persecution and the Martyrdom

The circumstances of the martyrdom of Syedna Qutubuddin al-Shahid (RA) unfold against the backdrop of Aurangzeb’s religious policy and the predatory behavior of local Mughal officials.

In Burhanpur, the local Mughal officials — acting within the spirit if not always the explicit letter of Aurangzeb’s anti-Shia policies — began to harass the Bohra community. Demands for money were made under the threat of religious persecution. The community’s mosques and religious practices were threatened. The Dai al-Mutlaq himself was targeted.

The officials responsible for this persecution made specific demands of Syedna Qutubuddin (RA) — demands that would have required him to compromise the integrity of the dawat, to submit to indignities that no Dai al-Mutlaq could accept, or to pay extortionate sums that would have impoverished the community. The Dai refused.

The refusal of the Dai to submit to these demands led to escalation. The precise sequence of events varies in different accounts within the dawat’s tradition, but the essential facts are these: Syedna Qutubkhan Qutubuddin (RA) was arrested, subjected to imprisonment and persecution by the local Mughal authorities in Burhanpur, and ultimately martyred — his life taken for his refusal to compromise the dawat’s integrity and his defense of the community’s faith.

He passed from this world in 1097 AH / 1686 CE in Burhanpur, having given his life rather than betray the trust placed in him by the Imam and by the believing community. He is buried in Burhanpur, and his mazaar is among the most solemn and beloved of all Dawoodi Bohra ziyarat sites.

The Theological Significance of Martyrdom

The martyrdom of a Dai al-Mutlaq is an event of immense theological significance in the Dawoodi Bohra tradition. The tradition of martyrdom — shahadat — runs deep in the Shia worldview. Imam al-Husayn (AS) gave his life at Karbala rather than submit to the illegitimate authority of Yazid. This act of supreme sacrifice is the paradigm of Islamic heroism in the Shia tradition — the willingness to give one’s life for truth rather than submit to falsehood.

The martyrdom of Syedna Qutubuddin al-Shahid (RA) is understood in the dawat’s tradition as a reflection of this paradigm. The Dai al-Mutlaq, as the representative of the Imam, stands in a chain of authority that extends back through the Imams to the Prophet and ultimately to Allah. When that authority is threatened by unjust power, the Dai does not compromise — even at the cost of his life.

The title al-Shahid (the Martyr) is one of the highest honors in the Shia tradition. To be called al-Shahid is to be identified with the great martyrs of Islamic history — with Imam al-Husayn (AS), with Ali ibn Abi Talib (AS), with the countless souls who gave their lives for the faith. Syedna Qutubuddin al-Shahid (RA) joined this company, and the community honors his memory with a particular intensity of love and grief.

The Community’s Grief and Resilience

The martyrdom of the 32nd Dai was a devastating event for the Dawoodi Bohra community. The killing of their spiritual leader — the one in whom the Imam’s authority resided, the one who was their father, their guide, their link to the hidden Imam — was experienced as a communal trauma of the deepest order.

But the dawat continued. The nass had been given before the Dai’s martyrdom, and the successor — the 33rd Dai al-Mutlaq — took up the responsibility of guiding the community through the aftermath. This continuity in the face of catastrophe is itself understood as a karamat of the dawat — the living evidence that the Imam’s protection extends over his community even in its darkest hours.

The memory of Syedna al-Shahid (RA) became one of the defining spiritual memories of the Dawoodi Bohra community. His urus is observed with particular solemnity. Burhanpur, already a sacred city for the community, became even more so — a city where the blood of a Dai had been spilled, where the highest price had been paid for the preservation of the faith.

The ziyarat to the mazaar of Syedna al-Shahid (RA) in Burhanpur is one of the most important pilgrimages in the Dawoodi Bohra calendar. To stand at his grave, to offer the salaam of peace, to weep for his sacrifice — this is a deeply emotional and spiritually transformative experience for the believing community.

Part Eleven: The Legacy of Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) in the Broader Chain

A Bridge Between Two Eras

Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) sits at a pivotal moment in the chain of Dais. He received the dawat from the 27th Dai — the Dai whose name became the name of the community, the Dai who definitively established the Dawoodi line after the succession dispute. He transmitted the dawat to the 29th Dai, through whom the chain continued to the present day.

His tenure was not marked by the dramatic external events that characterize some other Dais’ tenures — no martyrdom, no major schism (though the Alavi separation followed his wafat), no military conflict, no extraordinary political crisis. It was instead a tenure of scholarly consolidation, of careful political management, of the continued nurturing of the community’s educational and spiritual life.

This kind of tenure — the quiet work of preservation and transmission — is in many ways the most essential function of the Dai al-Mutlaq. The dawat exists not to make history in the dramatic sense but to preserve the ilm of the Imams and transmit it to the next generation. Every Dai who accomplishes this transmission, in whatever historical circumstances, has fulfilled the essential purpose of his office.

The Connection to Yemen

The journey of Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) to Yemen for his education represents a moment of living connection between the Indian Bohra community and the Yemeni Fatimid heritage. This connection was not merely historical — it was a living intellectual link, maintained through the physical journey of scholars from India to Yemen and back.

As the years passed, the direct connections to Yemen became increasingly difficult to maintain — the political situations in both Yemen and India, the dangers of sea travel, and the gradual self-sufficiency of the Indian dawat’s scholarly tradition all contributed to a situation in which the Indian community became increasingly self-sufficient. But the memory of Yemen, the authority of the Yemeni dawat tradition, and the genealogy of scholarship that connected the Indian Dais to the great scholars of Yemen continued to shape the community’s understanding of itself.

Syedna Adam Safiuddin’s (RA) Yemen education is among the last of the direct educational connections between the Indian Bohra community and the Yemeni dawat tradition — making it a historically significant moment in the community’s intellectual genealogy.

The Transmission of Fatimid Knowledge

The most important legacy of any Dai al-Mutlaq is the transmission of ilm — the preservation and passing on of the Fatimid intellectual heritage. Every Dai who preserves the manuscripts, maintains the educational institutions, produces written works, and forms the next generation of scholars has accomplished the essential mission of his office.

Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA), through his mastery of the Fatimid sciences acquired in Yemen, through the works he produced, through the scholars he educated, and through the designation of his qualified successor, accomplished this mission. The chain of ilm that flows from the Prophet (SAW) through the Imams and through the Dais reached the 28th link safely in his care and was passed safely to the 29th.

Part Twelve: Ahmedabad — The Sacred City of the Dawat

A City of Mosques and Scholars

Ahmedabad in the early seventeenth century was one of the great cities of the Islamic world. Its walled city contained hundreds of mosques, markets, palaces, and the homes of scholars, merchants, and officials. The city’s famous pols (neighborhood clusters, each with a distinctive character) were organized partly along communal lines — the Bohra quarter of Ahmedabad had its own internal organization, its own character, its own rhythm of life.

Within this city, the dawat maintained its essential institutions: the mosque from which the Dai al-Mutlaq led the community in prayer on Fridays; the educational circles in which the next generation of scholars was formed; the administrative offices from which the community’s affairs across Gujarat and beyond were managed; and the Dai’s residence, which was at once a home, a court, and a spiritual center.

The Bohra presence in Ahmedabad was both physically and culturally distinct — their mosques had a distinctive architecture, their religious calendar produced a distinctive rhythm of observation and celebration, their dress and customs (shaped by the Fatimid tradition of Egypt mediated through Yemen and Gujarat) marked them as a community apart from the broader Sunni Muslim population while simultaneously embedded within the city’s commercial and social fabric.

The Mazaar in Ahmedabad

Syedna Adam Safiuddin’s (RA) mazaar in Ahmedabad is a site of continuing spiritual significance. The mazaars of Dais al-Mutlaqeen in Ahmedabad — there are several, spanning different periods of dawat history — collectively constitute one of the most important pilgrimage complexes in the Dawoodi Bohra world.

To visit the mazaars in Ahmedabad is to walk through the physical history of the dawat — to encounter the tombs of the scholars, the administrators, the spiritual guides who made the community what it is. Each mazaar carries the imprint of its occupant’s life and work. The mazaar of Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) carries the imprint of a scholar-Dai who sought knowledge in Yemen, who guided his community with quiet wisdom through the years of Jahangir’s empire, and who passed from this world leaving the dawat stronger and the chain of nass unbroken.

Part Thirteen: The Prayers and Remembrance

Salawat and Ziyarat

In the Dawoodi Bohra tradition, the memory of a Dai al-Mutlaq is honored through formal expressions of reverence — the salawat (salutation of blessings), the ziyarat (visitation of the tomb), and the dua (supplication) offered for his mercy and intercession.

السَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا مَولَانَا آدَمَ صَفِيَّ الدِّينِ، وَرَحمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ

Peace be upon you, O our Master Adam, Pure of the Religion, and the mercy and blessings of Allah.

السَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا مَن رَحَلَ إِلَى اليَمَنِ طَالِبًا لِلعِلمِ وَرَاجِعًا بِالنُّورِ

Peace be upon you, O one who journeyed to Yemen seeking knowledge and returned with light.

السَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا حَافِظَ الدَّعوَةِ فِي زَمَانِ دَولَةِ المُغُولِ

Peace be upon you, O guardian of the dawat in the age of the Mughal state.

السَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا سَالِكَ طَرِيقِ الإِمَامِ الغَائِبِ وَالمُبَلِّغَ عَنهُ فِي الهِندِ

Peace be upon you, O one who walked the path of the hidden Imam and delivered his message in India.

السَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا صَاحِبَ النَّصِّ الصَّحِيحِ وَالعِلمِ الشَّرِيفِ

Peace be upon you, O one of the true nass and noble knowledge.

اللَّهُمَّ ارحَم مَولَانَا آدَمَ صَفِيَّ الدِّينِ، وَارزُقنَا شَفَاعَتَهُ يَومَ الحَاجَةِ، وَبَارِك لَنَا فِي زِيَارَتِهِ وَفِي ذِكرِهِ

O Allah, have mercy on our Master Adam Safiuddin; grant us his intercession on the Day of Need; and bless us in his ziyarat and in his remembrance.

The Urus and Its Observance

The urus of Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) — his wafat anniversary, observed on 7 Rajab — is among the occasions of the Bohra religious calendar that connect the living community to the chain of Dais. On this day:

• The community gathers in the mosque for special tilawat of Quran and the recitation of specific duas for the Dai’s mercy
• Those who can visit the mazaar in Ahmedabad make the ziyarat
• The Dai al-Mutlaq (or his representative) may make mention of the 28th Dai in the context of the dawat’s ongoing remembrance of its chain
• Individual believers may offer sadaqa (charitable giving) in the Dai’s name, seeking the barakah of the act to flow to his soul

The observance of the urus is one of the ways in which the Dawoodi Bohra community maintains its living connection to all 53+ Dais al-Mutlaqeen — understanding the chain not as a distant historical record but as a living spiritual reality in which all the Dais continue to intercede for the community from the divine realm.

Part Fourteen: His Place in the Dawat’s Memory

The Scholar Who Went to Yemen

If any single quality defines the memory of Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) in the dawat’s tradition, it is his commitment to knowledge — and specifically his willingness to undertake the arduous journey to Yemen in pursuit of the highest available education in the Fatimid sciences.

In a tradition that prizes learning above almost all other qualities — that holds the acquisition of knowledge (talab al-ilm) to be among the highest of religious obligations — the image of the young scholar from Vadodara sailing from Surat to Aden, traveling through the mountains of Yemen to sit at the feet of the great Yemeni scholars, and returning to Gujarat with the riches of the Fatimid intellectual tradition — this image carries enormous moral and spiritual force.

He embodies the principle articulated in the prophetic tradition: “Seek knowledge even unto China” — the willingness to travel any distance in the service of learning. For the Bohra community, Yemen was their China — the distant land of authoritative knowledge, the source from which the living tradition of Fatimid learning could be renewed.

The Quiet Steward

Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) was also a quiet steward — a Dai whose tenure was characterized not by dramatic events but by steady, patient governance. In the tradition of the dawat, this quality of quiet steadiness is valued alongside the more dramatic qualities of scholarship and miraculous sign. The dawat is sustained over centuries not primarily by great crises and their resolution but by the continuous, generation-by-generation work of preservation and transmission.

Nine years and twenty-one days of quiet stewardship — of the management of political relationships with the Mughals, of the nurturing of the community’s educational institutions, of the propagation of the dawat in the Deccan, of the careful preparation and designation of a qualified successor — this is the work that sustains the chain. Every believer who practices the faith today does so because the chain was maintained through the quiet work of Dais like Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA).

A Father in the Chain

The dawat’s understanding of the Dai al-Mutlaq is, at its most personal, that of a father — a spiritual parent whose love for the community is the model of how a loving father cares for his children. The Dai al-Mutlaq is called mawla — master, but also one who is beloved, whose authority is the authority of love rather than fear.

Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA), as the community’s father-figure for nine years, guided, protected, educated, and sustained the community he served. The community that mourned his passing in 1030 AH mourned not merely the loss of an administrator but the loss of a beloved father — the one through whom the Imam’s love had reached them.

Part Fifteen: The Living Heritage

Rawzat al-Tahiyyat and the Remembrance of the Dais

The great corpus of texts composed within the Dawoodi Bohra dawat tradition includes many works dedicated to the remembrance and praise of the Dais al-Mutlaqeen. Among the most significant is the Rawdat al-Tahiyyat (Garden of Salutations) — a compilation of salawat and duas for each of the Dais, expressing the community’s love, gratitude, and petition for the intercession of each member of the chain.

Within this corpus, Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) receives the formal salawat and duas that recognize his place in the chain — his scholarly formation, his governance of the community through the Mughal period, his designation of his successor, and his continuing presence as an intercessor for the community.

The tradition of composing praise (madh) for the Dais al-Mutlaqeen is one of the highest literary traditions within the Bohra community. Poets of the dawat — many of them Dais themselves or senior scholars — composed qasidas, marsiya, and other forms in the praise of the chain, weaving together the theological understanding of the Imamate and the dawat with the emotional language of devotion and love.

The Manuscript Legacy

Among the most important dimensions of Syedna Adam Safiuddin’s (RA) legacy is his contribution to the preservation of the dawat’s manuscript heritage. The manuscripts of the Fatimid tradition — copied and preserved through the centuries — represent one of the great treasures of Islamic civilization and, specifically, of the Ismaili Shia intellectual heritage.

The works of al-Qadi al-Nu’man, of al-Muayyad al-Shirazi, of Hamiduddin al-Kirmani, and of the subsequent Dais were copied, preserved, and guarded through the centuries by the dawat’s scholars. The 28th Dai al-Mutlaq, as the custodian of this heritage for nine years, bears responsibility for its preservation during his tenure — and any works he himself composed add to this heritage.

The dawat’s khizana (manuscript treasury), maintained by the Dai al-Mutlaq and accessible to qualified scholars, is the living embodiment of this legacy. It contains texts that exist nowhere else in the world — works of theology, philosophy, esoteric science, law, poetry, and history that would otherwise have been lost. Their survival is due entirely to the unbroken chain of custodians: the Dais al-Mutlaqeen who, generation by generation, supervised their copying, their storage, and their study.

Part Sixteen: Contextualizing the Mughal Period for the Dawat

Akbar, Jahangir, and the Politics of Tolerance

The Mughal period — specifically the reigns of Akbar (1556–1605 CE) and Jahangir (1605–1627 CE), which span the tenure of the 27th and 28th Dais — was, on balance, a period of relative religious tolerance in which the Bohra community could practice its faith with reasonable freedom.

Akbar’s famous religious policy, often described as sulh-i-kul (universal peace), was a pragmatic rather than principled tolerance — it served the administrative needs of an empire that ruled over Hindus, Muslims of various sects, Jains, Zoroastrians, and Christians. But its practical effect was to create a climate in which minority communities could operate without constant fear of persecution.

The Bohras benefited from this climate. Their commercial activities were valued; their reputation for commercial probity and their extensive trading networks made them useful to the empire. The Mughal administration was not inclined to persecute communities that contributed to the commercial prosperity of the empire — and the Bohras, as traders, were undeniably such a community.

Jahangir continued his father’s relatively tolerant policies, though with somewhat more orthodox religious sensibilities. The presence of religious scholars at his court — including Shia scholars, Sufi masters, and representatives of various traditions — reflected the continuing Mughal openness to religious diversity.

It was in this relatively favorable environment that Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) governed the dawat. The contrast with what came later — with the persecutions of Aurangzeb’s reign that culminated in the martyrdom of the 32nd Dai — makes the relatively peaceful years of Jahangir’s Gujarat look, in retrospect, like a golden period of Bohra communal life.

The Transformation of the Commercial World

The early seventeenth century was also a period of transformation in the commercial world that the Bohra community inhabited. The Portuguese, who had dominated the Indian Ocean trade for much of the sixteenth century, were declining as the English and Dutch East India Companies established themselves on the Indian coast.

The English East India Company had been founded in 1600 CE and had established its first factory in Surat in 1608 CE — just four years before Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) assumed the position of Dai al-Mutlaq. The Dutch had similarly established themselves. These European trading companies would gradually transform the commercial landscape of the Indian Ocean, with consequences that would unfold over the next two centuries.

The Bohra merchants of Surat navigated this transformation with characteristic acuity. Their trading networks were flexible enough to incorporate the new European players — to trade with the English, the Dutch, and the Portuguese even as these powers competed with each other and with the Mughal empire. The commercial intelligence and adaptability that characterized the Bohra mercantile tradition served the community well in this changing environment.

The Bohra and Mughal Administration: A Complex Dance

The relationship between the Dawoodi Bohra community and the Mughal administration was always a complex dance — the community needed the administration for protection and commercial facilitation; the administration valued the community’s commercial contributions while maintaining suspicion of its Shia religious identity.

The Mughals were officially Sunni, and their orthodox ulema viewed Shia Islam with considerable hostility. But the practical needs of governance — the need for skilled administrators, the value of the Bohra merchants’ commercial networks, and the general principle of not disturbing communities that paid their taxes and did not cause trouble — created a situation in which the Bohras could function.

The Dai al-Mutlaq’s skill in managing this relationship was essential. Too close an association with Mughal power risked compromising the dawat’s independence and spiritual integrity. Too much distance risked provoking the administration’s hostility and cutting off the practical benefits that the administration could provide. The skilled Dai walked this line — maintaining respectful relationships with Mughal officials without becoming dependent on or compromised by them.

Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) walked this line with apparent skill during his nine years in office — the absence of any recorded major conflict with Mughal authorities during his tenure suggests that his political management was effective.

Part Seventeen: A Complete Portrait

The Man and the Mission

Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) was born in Vadodara around 955 AH into the world of Bohra Gujarat. He received his foundational education in the traditional manner, then went to Yemen for advanced formation under the great scholars of the Yemeni dawat tradition. He returned to Gujarat as a fully formed scholar of the Fatimid sciences and spent the years of his middle life in service to the dawat under the 27th Dai, Syedna Dawood Bin Qutubshah (RA).

He was designated by nass as the 28th Dai al-Mutlaq and served the community for nine years and twenty-one days, from 1021 AH to 1030 AH / 1612 to 1621 CE. He governed the dawat from Ahmedabad in the reign of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir, navigating the political landscape with skill, propagating the dawat in the Deccan, maintaining the community’s educational institutions, and preserving the ilm of the Fatimid tradition.

He gave nass to Syedna Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin (RA) as his legitimate successor, ensuring the continuation of the chain. He passed from this world on 7 Rajab 1030 AH and is buried in Ahmedabad, where his mazaar is a site of ziyarat for the community.

After his wafat, a small faction led by his grandson Ali ibn Ibrahim separated from the mainstream Dawoodi Bohra community, becoming the Alavi Bohras — a separation that the Dawoodi tradition understands as a test of faith, resolved by the clear evidence of the valid nass given to Syedna Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin (RA).

The Theological Reality

In Dawoodi Bohra theology, Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA) was not merely a historical figure or a community administrator. He was the hujja — the living proof and representative of the hidden Imam al-Tayyib (AS). His authority was the Imam’s authority; his guidance was the Imam’s guidance; his nass was the Imam’s designation.

For nine years and twenty-one days, the believers of the dawat oriented their spiritual lives around him — bringing their questions and disputes to him, receiving his guidance, renewing their mithaq in his presence, and understanding their relationship to the hidden Imam as mediated through him. This is the fullest expression of what the Dai al-Mutlaq is: not a pope, not a caliph, not merely a learned scholar, but the living, present, accessible representative of the absent Imam.

The Chain as Living Miracle

The survival of the chain of Dais al-Mutlaqeen through fifty-three+ links — from the first Dai al-Mutlaq appointed after the seclusion of Imam al-Tayyib (AS) in 528 AH to the present Dai al-Mutlaq, al-Dai al-Ajal Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin (TUS) — is itself understood within the community as a living miracle (muchjiza) and the greatest sign of the Imam’s continuing care for his community.

The chain was maintained through the persecutions of the Mughal period, through the martyrdom of the 32nd Dai, through the disruptions of the British colonial period, through the partition of India, through the controversies and internal disputes that have periodically tested the community’s cohesion. It was maintained through the quiet work of generation after generation of Dais, including Syedna Adam Safiuddin (RA), who received it, guarded it, and passed it on.

Every believer who practices the faith today, who recites the Quran with the ta’wil of the Fatimid tradition, who honors the Imam and his chain of Dais, who takes the mithaq and renews the covenant — every such believer owes a debt of gratitude to the 28th link in that chain, to the scholar from Vadodara who went to Yemen and came back with knowledge, and who spent his life in quiet service to the dawat.

Quick Reference

Salawat

اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا مَولَانَا آدَمَ صَفِيَّ الدِّينِ وَرَحمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ Peace be upon you, O our Master Adam, Pure of the Religion, and the mercy and blessings of Allah.

اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا مَن طَلَبَ العِلمَ مِن مَعَادِنِهِ الكِرَامِ فِي اليَمَنِ الشَّرِيفِ Peace be upon you, O one who sought knowledge from its noble sources in blessed Yemen.

اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا مَن خَلَّفَ الدَّعوَةَ صَحِيحَةً لِلدَّاعِي مِن بَعدِهِ Peace be upon you, O one who left the dawat sound to the Dai who came after.

اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا حَافِظَ سِرِّ الإِمَامِ الغَائِبِ فِي دِيَارِ الهِندِ Peace be upon you, O guardian of the secret of the hidden Imam in the lands of India.

اَللَّهُمَّ ارحَم مَولَانَا آدَمَ صَفِيَّ الدِّينِ وَارزُقنَا شَفَاعَتَهُ يَومَ الحَاجَةِ وَبَرَكَتَهُ فِي الدُّنيَا وَالآخِرَة O Allah, have mercy on our Master Adam Safiuddin and grant us his intercession on the Day of Need and his blessing in this world and the next.

See also: Dai Al Mutlaq Institution, Duat Mutlaqeen, Syedna Dawood Bin Qutubshah 27th Dai, Alavi Bohras, Imam Al Tayyib, Fatimid Caliphate, Mughal India Bohra Community, Burhanpur Mazaarat, Ahmedabad Bohra Heritage, Syedna Qutubuddin Shahid 32nd Dai