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Syedna Ali Shamsuddin II (RA) — The 18th Dai al-Mutlaq

سَيِّدَنَا عَلِيٌّ شَمسُ الدِّينِ الثَّانِي — الدَّاعِي المُطلَق الثَّامِنَ عَشَر
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The 18th Dai al-Mutlaq (821–832 AH / 1418–1429 CE), brother of the 17th Dai and son of the great patriarch Syedna Abdullah Fakhruddin. His ten-year tenure, centered at the fortress of al-Shariqa (Jabal Haraz) in Yemen, prepared the community to receive its greatest scholar-leader — the 19th Dai Syedna Idris Imaduddin (RA), his nephew, upon whom he conferred the nass.

The Second Sun of the Faith — سَيِّدَنَا عَلِيٌّ شَمسُ الدِّينِ الثَّانِي

شَمسُ الدِّينِ — Shams al-Din — “Sun of the Faith.” Among all the epithets borne by the Dais al-Mutlaqin of the Tayyibi tradition, this laqab is among the most luminous, and it was granted to two different men in the long chain of the Dawat’s history, each burning with his own particular quality of divine light. The first was the 13th Dai, Syedna Ali Shams al-Din I (RA), who illuminated the Dawat in one era; the second was the 18th Dai, Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA), who illuminated it in another. The same name, the same divine epithet, but two entirely different contexts, two entirely different challenges, and two entirely different forms of the same radiant service to the Imam and his community.

The 18th Dai’s era was one of the most consequential hinge-points in the Yemen period of the Dawat’s history. He stood between two giants: his father, the 16th Dai Syedna Abdullah Fakhruddin (RA), who had spent decades building the institutional foundations of the Dawat’s highland sanctuary in Jabal Haraz; and his nephew, the 19th Dai Syedna Idris Imad al-Din (RA), who would go on to produce the most celebrated body of Ismaili scholarship in the medieval period and achieve political influence that no previous Dai had managed. The 18th Dai lived and served in the space between these two great figures — and his greatness, though quieter than theirs, was no less real.

His full honorific: al-Dai al-Ajal, Bab al-Abwab, al-Da’i al-Mutlaq, Syedna Ali Shams al-Din ibn Abdallah Fakhr al-Din ibn Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-Walid al-Anf al-Qurashi al-Makki al-Yamani (RA). He was Qurashi by genealogy, Makki by the ancestral origin of his line, and Yamani by the geography of his service. He represented the fifteenth generation of the Tayyibi Dawat after the occultation of Imam al-Tayyib (AS), and the third successive member of the Banu al-Walid al-Anf family to hold the supreme office of the Dai al-Mutlaq.

Lineage and Family — النَّسَب الشَّريف

The 18th Dai descended from one of the most distinguished scholarly families that the Yemen Dawat produced during its long centuries of highland existence. His lineage traces through multiple generations of Dais and senior scholars:

Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) — 18th Dai al-Mutlaq son of Syedna Abdullah Fakhruddin (RA) — 16th Dai al-Mutlaq son of Ali — a senior figure in the Dawat’s scholarly hierarchy son of Muhammad — known among the learned of the Dawat son of al-Walid al-Anf — the ancestor from whom the entire Banu al-Walid al-Anf dynasty takes its name descended from the Banu Makhzum branch of the Quraysh — the Prophet’s own tribe, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa alihi wa sallam

This Qurashi lineage was of the utmost importance in the Tayyibi tradition. The Dais al-Mutlaqin did not need to be Fatimid or Alid — they were not caliphs or imams in the dynastic sense — but the tradition placed high value on noble Islamic lineage, and a Dai from the Quraysh, the tribe of the Prophet (SAW), bore a particular spiritual distinction that the community recognized and honored. The Banu al-Walid al-Anf had established themselves over generations as precisely such a lineage: scholars, administrators, and holders of the highest offices in the Dawat’s institutional hierarchy.

The 18th Dai was the third son of his father, the 16th Dai, to rise to prominence in the Dawat. His brother Syedna al-Hasan Badr al-Din I (RA) had been the 17th Dai; and his own nephew — his brother’s son — Syedna Idris Imad al-Din ibn al-Hasan Badr al-Din (RA) would become the 19th Dai. This extraordinary concentration of the Dawat’s highest office within a single family across four consecutive positions (16th through 19th Dai) is without parallel in the Tayyibi historical record.

The family was not merely powerful in administrative terms; it was learned. The scholarly tradition of the Banu al-Walid al-Anf household — the study of the ta’wil, the transmission of the Dawat’s secret knowledge, the formation of young scholars in the sciences of the Imam’s ‘ilm — had been cultivated across generations. The 18th Dai was born into and shaped by this tradition, and he in turn shaped it for those who came after him.

The Dawat Before Him: Historical and Political Context — السِّياق التَّاريخِيّ

To understand the 18th Dai’s tenure, one must understand the world he inherited and the world that surrounded him — both in Yemen, where he administered the Dawat, and in the Indian subcontinent, where a growing community of Bohra mumineen looked to him as their supreme religious guide.

Yemen in the Early Fifteenth Century — اليَمَن في مَطلَع القَرن الخَامِس عَشَر

By the beginning of the fifteenth century CE — which corresponds to approximately the early ninth century AH — Yemen was entering a period of profound political transition. The Rasulid dynasty (626–858 AH / 1229–1454 CE), which had dominated much of Yemen for nearly two centuries, was beginning to weaken. Founded by Umar ibn Rasul after the collapse of Ayyubid authority in Yemen, the Rasulids had established one of the most sophisticated courts in the medieval Islamic world: their sultans were patrons of scholarship, science, and the arts; Zabid, their capital, was a center of learning that attracted scholars from across the Muslim world; and their administration, though Sunni (Shafi’i) in orientation, maintained a relatively tolerant posture toward the diverse religious communities that populated Yemen’s highlands.

For the Tayyibi Dawat, the Rasulid period had been one of managed coexistence. The Dawat was never officially recognized or protected by the Rasulids, but neither was it systematically persecuted. The highland geography of Jabal Haraz provided natural protection, and the communities of the region had developed relationships with the various local powers that allowed the Dawat to function with a degree of quiet autonomy. The major centers of Zaydi power — the imamate that dominated much of northern Yemen — remained the more persistent threat, as the Zaydis regarded the Ismaili-Tayyibi tradition with theological hostility.

By the time Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) assumed the Dawat in 821 AH / 1418 CE, the Rasulid sultanate was entering its final decades. Sultan al-Nasir Ahmad ibn Isma’il (r. 803–827 AH / 1400–1424 CE) was on the throne when the 18th Dai began his tenure; he would be succeeded by Sultan al-Mansur Abdallah ibn al-Nasir as the dynasty approached its end. The political landscape was one of competing tribal and regional powers, with the Rasulids struggling to maintain their hold against internal rebellions and external pressure. This environment of political fluidity simultaneously created risks for the Dawat (the potential for new hostile powers to emerge) and opportunities (the weakening of centralized control meant less organized pressure on the highland communities).

For the Dawat, the key political reality was the ongoing tension with the Zaydi imamate of northern Yemen. The Zaydis — followers of the fifth Imam, Zayd ibn Ali, in the Twelver/Fiver theological tradition — were natural theological opponents of the Ismaili-Tayyibi worldview. Their imams had periodically campaigned against the Ismaili-dominated highlands, and the Dawat’s defensive posture in the fortified heights of Jabal Haraz was substantially a response to this Zaydi pressure. The 18th Dai’s maintenance of the Dawat’s highland fortresses and his careful management of relationships with local tribes and powers were thus not merely administrative concerns; they were the lived reality of the Dawat’s survival in a politically contested landscape.

The Earlier Yemen Dais and the Hamidi Tradition — الدُّعَاة الأَوَائِل وَالتَّقلِيد الحَامِدِيّ

The Tayyibi Dawat had been established in Yemen following the occultation of Imam al-Tayyib ibn al-Amir (AS) in approximately 524 AH / 1130 CE. The Hurrat al-Malika, Sayyidah Arwa bint Ahmad al-Sulayhi (RA) — the great queen of the Sulayhid dynasty and the supreme regent of the Dawat’s affairs during the period following Imam al-Tayyib’s occultation — had appointed the first Dai al-Mutlaq, al-Dai al-Awwal Syedna Zoeb ibn Musa al-Wadi’i (RA), establishing the institution of the Dai al-Mutlaq as the Imam’s vicegerent in the world during the period of occultation (dawr al-satr).

The early Dais had operated in the context of Sulayhid Yemen and then, after the Sulayhids’ decline, in the increasingly independent highlands. Among the most important early figures in this tradition was Syedna Hatim ibn Ibrahim al-Hamidi (RA), the 3rd Dai al-Mutlaq (d. 596 AH / 1199 CE), who established the Hamidi scholarly tradition — a systematic approach to the ta’wil and the esoteric sciences of the Dawat that would shape the tradition’s intellectual character for centuries. Syedna Hatim’s works, including the Tuhfat al-Qulub and his correspondence with Imam al-Tayyib (through the chain of walayah and ‘ilm), established a model of Dai-scholarship that each subsequent holder of the office aspired to embody.

The Hamidi tradition was distinguished by its integration of the esoteric sciences (‘ilm al-batin, the ta’wil of the Qur’an, the cosmological doctrines of the Dawat) with the practical responsibilities of administrative and pastoral leadership. A Dai in the Hamidi tradition was not merely a jurist or a theologian; he was a comprehensive embodiment of the Imam’s ‘ilm in all its dimensions — spiritual, intellectual, legal, and pastoral. This tradition had been transmitted from the early Dais through the subsequent generations, and the 16th, 17th, and 18th Dais of the Banu al-Walid al-Anf family were among its most faithful inheritors.

The highlands of Jabal Haraz had been associated with the Dawat since the early period. The region’s natural defensibility — its steep mountain paths, its ancient fortresses, its capacity to support agricultural communities — made it the ideal sanctuary for a community that required both spiritual seclusion for the cultivation of ‘ilm and physical protection from hostile forces. Several of the preceding Dais had maintained their seats in Haraz, and the 18th Dai’s center at al-Shariqa was in continuous with this tradition of highland sanctuary.

The Ayyubid Period and Its Legacy — المَرحَلَة الأَيُّوبِيَّة وَإِرثُهَا

Though the Ayyubids had departed Yemen generations before the 18th Dai’s era, their impact on the religious landscape of Yemen remained visible. The Ayyubid conquest of Yemen (from approximately 569 AH / 1174 CE) under Turanshah ibn Ayyub, the brother of Saladin, had brought Sunni-Shafi’i dominance to the lowland cities while the highland communities — including the Zaydis in the north and the Ismailis in the Haraz region — maintained varying degrees of autonomy. The Ayyubids had succeeded the Sulayhid-aligned powers in the lowlands, effectively cutting off the Tayyibi community from the coastal trade routes and urban centers that had sustained them under the Sulayhids.

The Rasulid dynasty that followed the Ayyubids in Yemen (and that dominated the country during the lifetimes of Dais 13 through 18 and beyond) had inherited the Ayyubid Sunni-Shafi’i orientation while pursuing a more sophisticated cultural and administrative program. The Rasulids’ relative political stability — particularly in their early and middle periods — had given the highland communities a degree of breathing room, and the Tayyibi Dawat had used this stability to consolidate its institutions, build its libraries, and train its scholars.

By the 18th Dai’s era, therefore, the Dawat had behind it nearly three centuries of experience operating as a minority religious institution in a Sunni-majority Yemen. This experience had produced a sophisticated set of institutional adaptations: the practice of taqiyyah (protective religious discretion) where necessary; the cultivation of relationships with local tribal leaders who provided practical protection; the development of economic relationships that sustained the community; and above all, the maintenance of the ‘ilm — the esoteric knowledge — that was the Dawat’s most precious possession and the ultimate justification for its continued existence.

Appointment as the 18th Dai — التَّعيِين في مَنصِب الدَّاعِي الثَّامِنَ عَشَر

Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) was appointed the 18th Dai al-Mutlaq in 821 AH / 1418 CE, following the wafat of his brother, the 17th Dai Syedna al-Hasan Badr al-Din I (RA).

The nass — the formal, divinely guided designation of a successor — had been conferred upon Syedna Ali Shams al-Din (RA) by his brother before the 17th Dai’s death. This was the act that made the succession legitimate in the Tayyibi understanding: not merely the biological relationship between the two men, nor the institutional convention of the Dawat, but the specific, spiritually charged act of one Dai transmitting the Imam’s trust to the next. The nass made the 18th Dai not merely the administrative successor to the 17th but the authentic continuation of the unbroken chain of walayah that reached back through all the preceding Dais to the hidden Imam al-Tayyib (AS), and through him to the full chain of Fatimid Imams, and through them to the Imam Ali (AS) and the Prophet (SAW) himself.

When the 17th Dai passed from this world, the community mourned — but it did not waver. The nass had been given; the chain was unbroken; the Dawat continued. And Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) — who had spent his entire life in the household and service of the Dawat, who had been shaped by his father’s and brother’s example, who had observed at close range the responsibilities and the grace of the Dai’s office — stepped forward to receive the trust placed in him.

He was not a young man beginning his career. He was a mature scholar and religious leader who had already proven himself in the Dawat’s service. The community in Yemen, in the Haraz highlands, in the various mountain villages and fortresses that constituted the geographical fabric of the Tayyibi presence — all of this community recognized in him the authentic Dai, and the work of the Dawat continued without interruption.

Jabal Haraz: The Dawat’s Mountain Sanctuary — جَبَل حَرَاز: مَلجَأ الدَّعوَة الجَبَلِيّ

No understanding of the 18th Dai’s tenure is possible without a deep appreciation of the geography and significance of Jabal Haraz — the mountain massif in western Yemen that served as the Dawat’s principal home throughout the Yemen period.

Jabal Haraz rises to impressive heights west of Sana’a, its peaks reaching above 3,000 meters, its valleys carved by ancient terracing into some of the most spectacular agricultural landscapes in Arabia. The region is known for its coffee cultivation — indeed, the coffee that would eventually make “Mocha” a synonym for the beverage itself was largely cultivated in the highland regions around and including Haraz — and for its ancient architecture: stone towers and houses that seem to grow organically from the mountain rock, multi-story structures that combine beauty with extreme defensibility.

The mountain had been associated with Ismaili and Tayyibi communities for centuries. The Banu Hatim and other families connected to the Dawat had established their presence in Haraz going back to the early Yemen period, and the region’s physical characteristics made it an ideal sanctuary: difficult to approach quickly, easy to defend, self-sufficient in agriculture, and remote enough from the major Sunni and Zaydi power centers to allow a degree of quiet autonomy.

The specific center of the 18th Dai’s activity was al-Shariqa (also transliterated as al-Shireqa or al-Shariqa) — a settlement within the Haraz massif that served as the administrative and spiritual center of the Dawat during this period. Al-Shariqa housed the Dai’s residence, the circles of ‘ilm, the Dawat’s administrative apparatus, the library of texts that were the community’s intellectual inheritance, and the gathering place where the mumineen of the region came to receive the Dai’s guidance, renew their misaq, and experience the spiritual heart of the community.

The fortress character of al-Shariqa was not merely symbolic. The Dawat existed in a world where physical security was a genuine concern. The Zaydi imamate to the north, the various tribal powers of the highlands, the occasional attempts by Rasulid or other forces to extend their authority into the mountain regions — all of these represented potential threats that the Dawat’s leadership had to navigate with a combination of political acumen, diplomatic skill, and, where necessary, physical defense. The fortified settlements of Haraz were the material expression of the Dawat’s determination to preserve both its physical existence and its spiritual inheritance in the face of a sometimes hostile world.

Under the 18th Dai, al-Shariqa functioned as:

The Seat of the Nass: The place from which the divinely guided chain of succession was administered and eventually transmitted to the next Dai.

The Center of ‘Ilm: The gathering place for the circles of esoteric learning — the ta’wil of the Qur’an, the cosmological sciences of the Dawat, the legal traditions of the Fatimid-Tayyibi heritage — that were the community’s most precious possession.

The Administrative Hub: The center from which correspondence flowed to and from the communities across Yemen and India; from which appointments were made and confirmed; from which the misaq was renewed and questions of religious law were resolved.

The Spiritual Pole: In the Tayyibi understanding, the Dai is not merely an administrator or scholar. He is the mazhar — the manifestation — of the Imam’s walayah in the world during the period of occultation. His physical presence at al-Shariqa made that location a spiritual pole of the community’s experience — a place where the Imam’s light, channeled through the Dai, illuminated the mumineen who gathered there.

His Predecessor: Syedna al-Hasan Badr al-Din I (RA), the 17th Dai — سَيِّدَنَا الحَسَن بَدرُ الدِّين الأَوَّل

To understand the 18th Dai, one must understand his brother and predecessor, Syedna al-Hasan Badr al-Din I (RA) — the 17th Dai al-Mutlaq.

Badr al-Din — “Full Moon of the Faith.” Like his brother’s epithet of Shams al-Din (Sun of the Faith), this title was one of celestial illumination — the full moon in contrast to the sun, but no less bright, no less guiding. The 17th Dai was the son of Syedna Abdullah Fakhruddin (RA) (16th Dai) and thus the elder brother of the 18th Dai.

Syedna al-Hasan Badr al-Din I (RA) had led the Dawat for a period that had continued and deepened the institutional work begun by their father. He was known for his scholarship, his pastoral care for the mumineen, his maintenance of the Dawat’s integrity during a period of continued political complexity in Yemen. His tenure had produced the conditions — the stable administration of the Dawat, the cultivation of the scholarly circles, the maintenance of connections with the Indian community — that allowed the 18th Dai to receive the trust of the Dawat and transmit it onward.

The relationship between the 17th and 18th Dais was not merely fraternal; it was the relationship of spiritual brothers in the deepest sense. They had grown up together in the same household, been formed by the same father’s teaching, and shared the same love of the Dawat’s mission. When the 17th Dai recognized in his brother the one upon whom the nass rested, he was acting not merely from personal affection — though that affection was real — but from the spiritual vision that the Dai’s station makes possible: the ability to see, in the light of the Imam’s guidance, where the trust truly belonged.

The 17th Dai’s conferring of the nass upon his brother Syedna Ali Shams al-Din (RA) was thus the final gift of one Dai to the Dawat: the selection of the right man, at the right moment, to carry the torch forward.

His Successor: Syedna Idris Imad al-Din (RA), the 19th Dai — سَيِّدَنَا إِدرِيس عِمَادُ الدِّين

If the 18th Dai is notable for his role as a careful custodian and transmitter of the Dawat, his greatest act of transmission was the nass he conferred upon his nephew — one of the most consequential acts of succession in the entire history of the Tayyibi Dawat.

Syedna Idris Imad al-Din ibn al-Hasan Badr al-Din (RA) — the 19th Dai al-Mutlaq — led the Dawat from 832 AH / 1428 CE to 872 AH / 1468 CE: a tenure of forty years that represents the high-water mark of the Yemen Dawat’s political influence and scholarly achievement.

The Man and His Formation

Syedna Idris Imad al-Din (RA) was the son of the 17th Dai, and therefore the nephew of the 18th Dai who conferred the nass upon him. He was born in approximately 795–796 AH / 1392–1393 CE, meaning that when he became the 19th Dai at the age of approximately 36, he had spent his formative years in precisely the period of the 18th Dai’s tenure.

These were not years of passive waiting. Syedna Idris (RA) was intensely active as a scholar during the period of his uncle’s Dawat. He studied the entire curriculum of the Tayyibi ‘ilm under his uncle’s supervision; he engaged with the texts of the Fatimid-Tayyibi tradition that were preserved in the Dawat’s libraries; he began the correspondence and research that would eventually produce his greatest works. The 18th Dai’s Dawat was, in this sense, the incubator of the 19th Dai’s scholarship — and that scholarship would define the Bohra tradition’s intellectual self-understanding for centuries.

The Uyun al-Akhbar — عُيُون الأَخبَار

The Uyun al-Akhbar wa Funun al-Athar (عُيُون الأَخبَار وَفُنُونُ الآثَار) — “Selected Reports and Varied Traditions” — is Syedna Idris Imad al-Din’s (RA) most monumental work, and it is the single most important source for the history of the Tayyibi Dawat in Yemen. Written in multiple volumes, the Uyun al-Akhbar covers:

Without the Uyun al-Akhbar, modern historians would know almost nothing of concrete detail about the early Yemen Dais and the Dawat’s history in this period. The work is both a work of religious history — written from within the tradition, with the full depth of Tayyibi theological understanding — and an invaluable historical source, drawing on earlier documents, correspondence, and oral traditions that had been preserved in the Dawat’s archives.

Syedna Idris (RA) began the work during his uncle’s (the 18th Dai’s) tenure, and continued it throughout his own forty years as Dai. The 18th Dai thus played a role in the production of this work that transcends simple administrative oversight: his Dawat provided the conditions — the stability, the library, the scholarly atmosphere — in which Syedna Idris’s (RA) enormous intellectual project could be launched and sustained.

The Zahr al-Ma’ani — زَهرُ المَعَانِي

The Zahr al-Ma’ani (زَهرُ المَعَانِي) — “Flowers of Meanings” — is Syedna Idris’s (RA) great work of Ismaili cosmology and ta’wil: a comprehensive exposition of the Tayyibi system of esoteric interpretation, the hierarchies of spiritual reality (hudud), and the relationship between the apparent (zahir) and the hidden (batin) dimensions of reality. This work, which draws on the entire tradition of Fatimid-Tayyibi esoteric philosophy from al-Kirmani and Abu Ya’qub al-Sijistani through the works of the Fatimid da’wah’s greatest cosmologists, represents the most systematic presentation of Tayyibi cosmological thought in the Yemen period.

The Zahr al-Ma’ani was not written in isolation. It was written in engagement with the entire tradition of ‘ilm that the Dawat had preserved and transmitted — and that tradition was in the Dawat’s libraries, in al-Shariqa, under the care of the 18th Dai, during the years when Syedna Idris (RA) was deepening his scholarly formation.

The Nuzhat al-Afkar — نُزهَةُ الأَفكَار

The Nuzhat al-Afkar (نُزهَةُ الأَفكَار) — “Garden of Thoughts” — is another of Syedna Idris’s (RA) major works: a text on the spiritual disciplines and the inner life of the mumin, combining devotional guidance with the esoteric science of the Dawat’s tradition. This work reflects the pastoral dimension of the Tayyibi ‘ilm — its concern not merely with abstract cosmology but with the lived spiritual experience of the believer who walks the path of walayah.

The Political Achievement of the 19th Dai

Syedna Idris Imad al-Din’s (RA) tenure as 19th Dai is notable not only for its scholarly achievements but for an extraordinary political fact: he achieved sufficient influence with the rulers of Yemen — including the Tahirid dynasty that arose after the Rasulids’ decline — to be recognized as a significant political force in the highland regions. He maintained the Dawat’s institutional infrastructure, expanded its presence, and — through a combination of scholarly prestige, diplomatic skill, and the respect his community commanded — positioned the Tayyibi Dawat as a recognized player in Yemen’s complex political landscape.

This political achievement was built on the foundation that the 18th Dai had laid: the careful maintenance of the Dawat’s integrity, the cultivation of relationships with local powers, the wise choice of strategic restraint during a period of political flux. The 19th Dai reaped the harvest of his uncle’s patient cultivation.

The Scholarly and Institutional Life of the 18th Dai’s Dawat

The Majalis al-‘Ilm — مَجَالِسُ العِلم

The central institution of the Dawat’s intellectual life, in the Yemen period as in all periods, was the majlis al-‘ilm — the circle of learning. The Dai presided over these circles as the supreme teacher (mu’allim), transmitting the esoteric sciences of the Tayyibi tradition to the senior scholars (hudud) who would in turn transmit them to their students and communities.

Under Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA), the majalis continued at al-Shariqa with the regularity that the tradition required. The curriculum of these circles included:

Ta’wil al-Qur’an (تَأوِيلُ القُرآن): The esoteric interpretation of the Holy Qur’an was the central activity of the Dawat’s intellectual life. Every verse, every word of the divine Book contained both a zahir (outer, exoteric meaning) and a batin (inner, esoteric meaning). The Dawat’s primary task was the transmission and interpretation of the batin — the hidden meaning that the Imam, and through him the Dai, had preserved and transmitted across the generations. The 18th Dai’s majalis were occasions for the deep engagement with the Qur’anic ta’wil that sustained the community’s spiritual life.

Cosmological Sciences (عِلمُ الكَونِيَّات): The Tayyibi tradition had developed, over centuries of engagement with Neoplatonic philosophy and Islamic theological reflection, a sophisticated cosmological system describing the hierarchies of spiritual reality — the ‘Aql al-Awwal (First Intellect), the Nafs al-Kulliyya (Universal Soul), the spiritual hierarchies of the divine world and their correspondences in the human world and the prophetic tradition. The sciences of these hierarchies — derived from Fatimid works and developed by the Yemen Dais and their scholars — were a central part of the majlis curriculum.

Fiqh and Religious Law (الفِقهُ وَالأَحكَام): The Tayyibi-Ismaili legal tradition, rooted in the Fatimid fiqh and particularly in the works of the great Fatimid qadi al-Nu’man ibn Muhammad (RA) — author of the Da’a’im al-Islam, the foundational legal text of the Ismaili tradition — was also transmitted in the Dawat’s circles. The 18th Dai, as the supreme religious authority, was also the ultimate arbiter of questions of religious law for the community.

Sirat al-Du’at (سِيرَةُ الدُّعَاة): The biographies and spiritual stations of the preceding Dais — the sira tradition — formed an important part of the Dawat’s educational curriculum. To know the history of the Dawat, to know the men who had carried the Imam’s trust before, to understand the spiritual significance of the chain of succession — all of this was part of the formation of a Dawat scholar and administrator.

The Kitabs and Risalas of the 18th Dai

While Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) is not primarily remembered as a prolific author in the way that his nephew Syedna Idris Imad al-Din (RA) would be, the Dawat tradition affirms his role as a transmitter and teacher of the esoteric sciences. The ten years of his tenure were years in which the texts of the tradition were copied, studied, and transmitted — and in which the scholarly community that would produce the 19th Dai’s great works was being formed.

The Dawat tradition preserves that the 18th Dai:

These contributions, while less visible in the historical record than the later and larger works of the 19th Dai, were essential to the Dawat’s intellectual life. The 18th Dai was the custodian of the ‘ilm during a critical decade — ensuring that nothing was lost, that the chain of transmission remained unbroken, and that the scholars who would produce the next generation’s great works had what they needed.

The Dawat’s Administrative Hierarchy — الهَرَمُ الإِدَارِيّ

The Dawat in the Yemen period was administered through a hierarchy of offices that mirrored, in the world of the da’wah’s administration, the spiritual hierarchy of the Imam’s walayah. The Dai al-Mutlaq stood at the apex of this hierarchy, but beneath him were ranks of hudud — lit. “limits” or “boundaries,” the technical term for the ranks of the Dawat’s hierarchy — who carried out the administrative, educational, and pastoral work of the institution:

Al-Ma’dhun al-Mutlaq (المَأذُون المُطلَق): The highest rank beneath the Dai — the one who has received the Dai’s authorization to conduct the full range of the Dawat’s activities.

Al-Ma’dhun al-Mahdud (المَأذُون المَحدُود): A limited authorization, conferring specific duties and responsibilities within a defined scope.

Al-Mukasir (المُكَاسِر): The “breaker” — in the Ismaili cosmological language, the one who “breaks” the surface of the exoteric meaning to reveal the esoteric; in administrative terms, a senior Dawat official responsible for initiating new members into the Dawat’s ‘ilm.

Al-Da’i al-Mahdud (الدَّاعِي المَحدُود): A da’i with a limited authorization to summon people to the Dawat within a specific geographical area.

Al-Muaddhin (المُؤَذِّن) and Al-Wali (الوَالِي): Further ranks of the hierarchy responsible for various functions within the Dawat’s regional administration.

The 18th Dai’s authority over this entire hierarchy was comprehensive. He appointed the senior hudud, confirmed the da’is in their posts, resolved disputes within the hierarchy, and maintained the institutional discipline that kept the Dawat’s administrative life functioning across its geographically dispersed community.

The relationship between the Dai and his hudud was not merely administrative. In the Tayyibi understanding, the ranks of the Dawat’s hierarchy were spiritual stations, each with its own characteristic quality of knowledge and responsibility. The Dai’s relationship with his hudud was thus also a relationship of spiritual guidance — the senior ranks receiving from the Dai a measure of the esoteric ‘ilm that was their spiritual sustenance and the source of their authority in their work.

The Connection to India — الصِّلَة بِالهِند

By the time of the 18th Dai’s tenure in the early fifteenth century CE, the Bohra community of Gujarat had become an integral part of the Tayyibi Dawat’s reality — not a peripheral community but a growing center of the Dawat’s presence that would eventually become its principal home.

The Gujarat Sultanate — سَلطَنَةُ غُجَرَات

The ten years of the 18th Dai’s Dawat (1418–1429 CE) coincided precisely with the reign of Sultan Ahmad Shah I al-Wali (r. 1411–1442 CE) — the founder of Ahmedabad and one of the most important rulers in the history of the Gujarat Sultanate. This was a period of extraordinary growth for the Sultanate: Ahmedabad was being constructed into one of the most significant cities in the Indian subcontinent; trade was flourishing through the ports of Khambhat (Cambay), Surat, and other Gujarat coastal towns; and the region was experiencing a cultural and economic flowering that made it one of the most prosperous parts of the Islamic world.

For the Bohra mumineen of Gujarat, this prosperity was both an opportunity and a responsibility. The community had established itself as traders, merchants, and craftsmen in the commercial networks of the Gujarat Sultanate. Their expertise in the Indian Ocean trade — connecting Gujarat to the Arabian Peninsula, East Africa, and Southeast Asia — had made them an economically significant community whose networks spanned the maritime world. This commercial success provided resources for the Dawat’s support and for the maintenance of the community’s religious institutions.

The 18th Dai’s administration of the Indian connection required:

The Appointment of Qualified Representatives: The Dai needed trusted, learned, and spiritually qualified representatives in India who could conduct the Dawat’s religious activities — administering the misaq, teaching the ‘ilm at the appropriate level, resolving questions of religious law, and maintaining the community’s connection to the Dawat’s center in Yemen.

The Maintenance of Correspondence: The flow of letters between Yemen and India — carrying questions, guidance, reports of the community’s situation, and the Dai’s authoritative responses — was the lifeline of the connection. In the era before modern communication, maintaining this correspondence required a combination of trusted messengers, the maritime networks of the Indian Ocean trade, and the institutional discipline to ensure that communications were sent and received in a timely and secure manner.

The Safeguarding of the Misaq: The misaq — the covenant of initiation into the Dawat, the pledge of walayah to the Imam through the Dai — was the central sacramental act that defined belonging to the Tayyibi community. Maintaining the integrity of the misaq in India — ensuring that it was administered by qualified authorities, that its conditions were maintained, and that new members were properly initiated — was among the most important responsibilities of the Dai’s Indian representatives.

The Transmission of ‘Ilm: The esoteric sciences of the Dawat — the ta’wil, the cosmological knowledge, the spiritual disciplines — were also transmitted to the Indian community, at the level appropriate to the various ranks of the local hierarchy. The Dai’s representatives in India were themselves scholars, trained in the Dawat’s ‘ilm, who could conduct the circles of learning and maintain the community’s intellectual life.

The Bohra Presence in Western India — الوُجُود البُهرِيّ في غَرب الهِند

By the early fifteenth century, the Bohra community had established significant presences in multiple cities and towns of Gujarat and western India:

Khambhat (Cambay, كَنبَايَة): The historic port city that had been one of the great trading centers of the Indian Ocean world since antiquity. The Bohra presence in Khambhat went back to the earliest penetration of the Tayyibi Dawat into Gujarat, and the community there was among the most established and prosperous.

Patan (اَنهِلوَارا): The ancient capital of Gujarat, which had been the center of power in the region before Ahmedabad’s founding. The Bohra community in Patan had deep roots and significant scholarly traditions.

Sidhpur (شِدهپُور): Another important center of the Bohra community in Gujarat, with a history of connection to the Dawat going back to the early penetration of the Ismaili mission into the region.

Ahmedabad (أَحمَد آبَاد): The new capital founded by Sultan Ahmad Shah I in 1411 CE — precisely at the beginning of that sultan’s reign, which coincided with the final years of the 17th Dai and the beginning of the 18th Dai’s tenure. The Bohra community quickly established a presence in this new and rapidly growing city, and their participation in its commercial and cultural life would grow with the city itself.

Bharuch (بَرُوچ): Another Gujarat port with a Bohra community, participating in the trade networks of the Gujarat Sultanate.

The communities in these cities looked to the Dai in Yemen as their supreme religious authority — not in a remote or formal way, but with genuine personal devotion and practical dependence. The Dai’s guidance was sought on all significant religious questions; his appointments of local representatives were recognized as spiritually authoritative; and the annual zakat and nazar that flowed from the Indian community to the Dawat’s center in Yemen represented both a material support for the institution and a sacramental expression of the community’s connection to the Imam’s walayah.

Ahmad Shah and the Bohra Merchants

The reign of Sultan Ahmad Shah I of Gujarat provides the political backdrop for the Bohra community’s experience during the 18th Dai’s tenure. Ahmad Shah was, by the standards of medieval Muslim rulers, a relatively tolerant administrator who recognized the economic value of the trading communities within his sultanate — including the Bohras, whose commercial networks contributed significantly to the sultanate’s prosperity.

The Bohras’ relationship with the Gujarat Sultanate during this period was characterized by a pragmatic accommodation that was common in the medieval Islamic world: a non-Arab, theologically minority community functioning within a Sunni sultanate, maintaining its religious distinctiveness through the practice of taqiyyah where necessary, while participating actively in the economic and social life of the broader society. This accommodation required constant negotiation — maintaining the Dawat’s integrity while avoiding the kind of confrontation that could trigger persecution — and the 18th Dai’s wisdom in guiding this negotiation, from thousands of miles away in Yemen, was a significant part of his administrative achievement.

The Act of Nass — النَّصُّ عَلَى سَيِّدَنَا إِدرِيس

The nass — the formal, divinely guided designation of a successor — is the most sacred act in the Tayyibi tradition after the hidden Imam’s own spiritual authority. It is the act that makes the Dawat possible: the unbroken chain of nass from Dai to Dai is the chain of walayah that connects the community to the hidden Imam al-Tayyib (AS), and through him to the full lineage of the Imams back to the Prophet and the Imam Ali (AS) himself.

The Theology of Nass — لَاهُوتُ النَّصّ

In the Tayyibi understanding, the nass is not a merely human act. The Dai who confers the nass is not simply choosing the most qualified or the most senior candidate from among his senior associates. Rather, the nass is an act guided by the Imam’s spiritual direction — the hidden Imam communicates, through the spiritual channels that connect the Dai to his walayah, the identity of the person in whom the next nass rests. The Dai’s role is not to select, but to recognize and transmit.

This understanding places enormous theological weight on every act of nass. A valid nass guarantees the continuity of the Dawat; a corrupt or mistaken nass would break the chain and leave the community without its essential connection to the Imam. For this reason, the entire community’s confidence in the authenticity of any given Dai rests, ultimately, on the validity of the nass chain by which he holds his office.

The 18th Dai’s nass to Syedna Idris Imad al-Din (RA) was thus not merely a consequential act in the political or institutional history of the Dawat. It was an act of profound theological significance: the 18th Dai recognized, with the spiritual vision that his station made possible, the person in whom the Imam’s trust was deposited, and he transmitted that trust faithfully. History — forty years of the 19th Dai’s extraordinary leadership — has confirmed the rightness of that recognition beyond any possible doubt.

The Circumstances of the Nass

The Dawat tradition preserves that Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) conferred the nass upon his nephew Syedna Idris Imad al-Din (RA) in the final period of his own life, before the 18th Dai’s wafat on 2 Safar 832 AH. The setting was al-Shariqa in Jabal Haraz — the mountain sanctuary that had been the seat of the Dawat for the entire period of the 18th Dai’s tenure.

The circumstances of the nass, as preserved in the Dawat’s tradition, reflect the full spiritual depth of the act. The 18th Dai, sensing the approach of his own departure from this world, called together the senior members of the community and the Dawat’s hierarchy. In their presence, and in the formal manner that the Dawat’s tradition required, he spoke the words of the nass — identifying Syedna Idris Imad al-Din (RA) as the one upon whom the Imam’s trust rested and as the next Dai al-Mutlaq upon the 18th Dai’s own departure.

Syedna Idris (RA) received the nass with the full weight of understanding of what it meant. He would later write, in the Uyun al-Akhbar, of his uncle’s qualities — his scholarship, his spiritual station, his wisdom in administration and in the guidance of souls — with the authentic appreciation of a man who had known his uncle closely, studied under his care, and now received from him the most sacred trust in the community’s life.

Karamat and Mojezat — الكَرَامَات وَالمُعجِزَات

The Tayyibi tradition holds that the Dai’s station is accompanied by divine grace — karamat (singular: karama), the spiritual gifts and extraordinary phenomena that mark the presence of one who stands in the chain of walayah. These are not merely human achievements; they are manifestations of the Imam’s walayah flowing through the Dai’s person and office.

The Dawat tradition preserves several categories of karamat associated with Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA):

The Karama of the Nass — كَرَامَةُ النَّصّ

The most theologically significant karamat of the 18th Dai’s tenure is, as noted above, the act of nass itself. That the 18th Dai could recognize with certainty — in the young and still-forming scholar Syedna Idris Imad al-Din (RA) — the one in whom the Imam’s trust rested, and that this recognition proved so thoroughly correct as to produce the most remarkable forty-year Dawat in the Yemen period’s history, is understood in the community as a manifestation of the Imam’s guiding walayah operating through his vicegerent’s spiritual vision.

The nass is, in this sense, the decisive mojeza (miracle) that defines every Dai: the ability to see what no mere human intellect can see — the specific, particular person in whom the divine trust is deposited — and to transmit that trust with the full authority of the Imam’s sanction.

The Karama of the Mountain Sanctuary — كَرَامَةُ المَلجَأِ الجَبَلِيّ

The Dawat tradition preserves that during the years of the 18th Dai’s tenure, the fortress of al-Shariqa was protected against the various forces that periodically threatened the Dawat’s highland sanctuary. Despite the political turbulence of the period — the declining Rasulids, the competing tribal powers, the ongoing Zaydi pressure — the Dawat’s center was preserved inviolate. This protection, understood in the tradition as a manifestation of the Imam’s walayah operating through the Dai, allowed the decade of the 18th Dai’s tenure to be a period of genuine institutional stability and scholarly formation rather than crisis and disruption.

The Karama of Spiritual Presence — كَرَامَةُ الحُضُور الرُّوحِيّ

The Dawat tradition preserves that those who came to al-Shariqa in the 18th Dai’s time — scholars, travelers, mumineen seeking guidance — experienced his presence as a genuine spiritual blessing: a quality of light and peace that was recognized as the outward sign of the Imam’s walayah channeled through his vicegerent. The accounts preserved in the tradition speak of the Dai’s circle at al-Shariqa as a place where the burdens of the world were lightened, where difficult questions became clear, and where the presence of the Dai himself was experienced as a source of spiritual renewal and strength.

The Karama of the Community’s Growth — كَرَامَةُ نُمُوِّ الجَمَاعَة

During the ten years of the 18th Dai’s tenure, the community in Gujarat continued to grow — in numbers, in prosperity, and in the depth of its religious life. New families entered the Dawat’s protection; existing communities deepened their ‘ilm; the institutional structures of the Bohra community in western India became more robust. This growth, across the vast distance between Yemen and India, without crisis or fracture, is understood in the tradition as a manifestation of the Imam’s protecting walayah operating through his Dai.

The maintenance of the community’s integrity across such distance — in an era when communication was slow and uncertain, when the political contexts of both Yemen and India were complex and sometimes threatening, when the community had no formal political protection and depended entirely on the wisdom of its religious leadership and the strength of its communal bonds — is itself understood as a karama: the evidence that the Dawat’s survival and growth in this period was not merely a human achievement but a manifestation of divine care.

The Karama of Scholarly Formation — كَرَامَةُ التَّنشِئَةِ العِلمِيَّة

The most enduring karama of the 18th Dai’s tenure — in terms of its impact on the Dawat’s subsequent history — is the role his Dawat played in the formation of Syedna Idris Imad al-Din (RA). The decade of the 18th Dai’s tenure was the decade in which Syedna Idris (RA) moved from his late twenties to his middle thirties — the years in which his scholarly formation was deepening and his great intellectual projects were taking shape. The access to texts, the circles of ‘ilm, the scholarly atmosphere of al-Shariqa, and above all the direct guidance of the Dai himself — all of this shaped the 19th Dai’s formation in ways that the Uyun al-Akhbar and the other great works would eventually demonstrate.

In this sense, the 18th Dai’s greatest scholarly contribution to the tradition was not any work he himself wrote, but the scholar he helped to form: the nephew who would become the most learned of all the Yemen Dais and whose works would define the Dawat’s intellectual heritage for centuries.

The Institutions of the Yemen Dawat in the 18th Dai’s Era

The Dawat’s Libraries — مَكتَبَاتُ الدَّعوَة

Among the most precious possessions of the Tayyibi Dawat in Yemen was its collection of texts — the manuscripts that preserved the tradition’s intellectual heritage across centuries of scholarship. These texts included:

Under the 18th Dai, these libraries were maintained, protected, and made available to the scholars who studied in the Dawat’s circles. The physical preservation of these manuscripts — in a mountain environment that could be damp, and in a political environment that made periodic moves necessary — was itself a form of institutional service that the Dai’s administration performed for the tradition.

The Community’s Economic Life — الحَيَاةُ الاقتِصَادِيَّة

The Tayyibi community in Yemen during the 18th Dai’s era sustained itself through a combination of agriculture — the terraced fields of the Haraz highlands that produced grain, coffee, and other crops — and the trade networks that connected the highland communities to the lowland markets and, through them, to the broader commercial world of the Indian Ocean.

The Dawat’s administrative system required resources: the maintenance of the fortress of al-Shariqa, the support of the scholars and administrators who served the Dawat, the maintenance of the correspondence networks with India, and the various other expenses of running a significant religious institution across a large geographical area. These resources came from the zakat, nazar, and other contributions of the mumineen — contributions understood not merely as financial transactions but as expressions of walayah, as the physical manifestation of the community’s devotion to the Imam through his Dai.

The flow of resources from the Indian community to the Yemen Dawat was particularly significant in this period. As the Gujarat Sultanate prospered and the Bohra merchants’ commercial networks expanded, the resources flowing from India to Yemen grew — providing material support for the Dawat’s institutional life at a time when the Yemen community was under periodic economic and political pressure.

The Dawat’s Ritual and Spiritual Life — الحَيَاةُ الطِّقسِيَّةُ وَالرُّوحِيَّة

The Cycle of the Islamic Calendar

The 18th Dai’s administration of the Dawat included oversight of the community’s observance of the Islamic calendar — the cycle of Ramadan, Eid, Muharram and the Ashara Mubaraka, the seasons of fasting and celebration that structured the community’s religious year.

The Ashara Mubaraka — the ten days of Muharram commemorating the martyrdom of Imam al-Husayn (AS) at Karbala — held particular significance in the Tayyibi tradition, as it does in all Shi’i communities. The Dai’s majlis al-‘aza during the Ashara was a central event of the community’s spiritual year, and the 18th Dai’s leadership of these majalis at al-Shariqa was an important part of his pastoral role.

Ramadan was the period of intensified ‘ibadah and ‘ilm — the month of fasting was also the month of extended circles of learning, of night prayer, and of the deepened community life that the shared discipline of sawm (fasting) made possible.

Laylat al-Qadr — the Night of Power in the last ten nights of Ramadan — was observed with particular intensity in the Dawat’s tradition, understood not merely as a night of extraordinary spiritual opportunity but as the night of the Imam’s spiritual manifestation in the world — the annual renewal of his connection to the Dawat and through the Dawat to the community.

The Misaq — المِيثَاق

The misaq — the covenant of initiation into the Tayyibi Dawat — was and remains the central sacramental act of the Bohra community’s religious life. In the 18th Dai’s era, the misaq was administered by the Dai himself or by his authorized representatives, binding each new member of the community to the Imam’s walayah through the Dai.

The theological significance of the misaq in the Tayyibi tradition is profound. The covenant is understood as the renewal, in the present life of each individual, of the primordial covenant (mithaq) between the human soul and its Lord — the covenant made in the pre-temporal realm when all souls acknowledged Allah’s lordship and the Imam’s authority. To take the misaq is to join oneself to the unbroken chain of walayah that connects the present moment to that primordial covenant, and to commit to the path of knowledge, service, and devotion that the Dawat represents.

Under the 18th Dai, the misaq was administered to the communities of Yemen and, through his representatives, to the growing Bohra community of Gujarat. Each administration of the misaq was an occasion of spiritual renewal for the individual and for the community — a reaffirmation of the bond that defined the Tayyibi way of life.

The Wafat and Mazaar — الوَفَاةُ وَالمَزَار

Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) passed from this world on 2 Safar, 832 AH / 1429 CE.

He completed his service as the 18th Dai al-Mutlaq at al-Shariqa in Jabal Haraz — the same mountain sanctuary where he had administered the Dawat throughout the decade of his tenure. His passing followed the conferral of the nass upon Syedna Idris Imad al-Din (RA), which meant that the community did not experience even a moment of uncertainty about the succession. The chain was unbroken; the walayah was transmitted; and the Dawat continued without interruption into the remarkable forty-year tenure of the 19th Dai.

The Mazaar at al-Shariqa — المَزَار في الشَّارِقَة

Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) is buried at al-Shariqa in Jabal Haraz, Yemen. His mazaar — the sacred site of his grave — is among the important sites of ziyarat (pilgrimage) for the Bohra community in Yemen.

In the Tayyibi tradition, the graves of the Dais are treated with the reverence appropriate to those who held the Imam’s walayah in this world. The mazaar is not merely a historical site; it is a locus of spiritual presence — the place where the Dai’s barakat (blessing) remains accessible to those who visit with sincerity and with the understanding of the spiritual significance of the Dai’s station.

Ziyarat to the mazaar of Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) at al-Shariqa has been performed by the mumineen of Yemen throughout the centuries following his wafat. The site is visited on the occasion of his ‘urs (death anniversary) — 2 Safar — and at other times by those who have the opportunity to travel to the Haraz region.

For the global Bohra community, the mazaars of the Yemen Dais — including al-Shariqa — represent a spiritual geography of the community’s history: the physical locations where the walayah that sustains the community was lived, transmitted, and preserved across the long centuries of the Dawat’s Yemen period.

The Urus — أُورُس

The ‘urus of Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) — his death anniversary on 2 Safar — is marked by the community with:

The ‘urus is not a day of mourning in the ordinary sense. In the Tayyibi understanding, the wafat of a Dai is his ‘urs — literally, his wedding, his union with the divine beloved. The day of a Dai’s physical departure from this world is the day of his arrival in the presence of the Imam’s walayah in its fullest dimension — a day of elevation, not of diminishment.

The 18th Dai in the Chain of the Dawat — الدَّاعِي الثَّامِنَ عَشَرَ في سِلسِلَةِ الدَّعوَة

To appreciate Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) fully, one must see him in the broader context of the chain of Dais al-Mutlaqin in which he stands.

The Dais Before Him: The Yemen Dawat’s Development

The first seventeen Dais of the Tayyibi Dawat had navigated the community through the extraordinary challenges of its early centuries: the shock of the Imam’s occultation and the establishment of the dawr al-satr; the political upheavals of Sulayhid Yemen and the transition to the highland period; the scholarly and institutional development of the Dawat’s traditions in Jabal Haraz and surrounding areas; the establishment of connections with India and the gradual growth of the Bohra community in Gujarat.

The 18th Dai inherited this legacy: a community with established traditions, a scholarly heritage, institutional structures, and an expanding geographical presence. His task was not to create but to maintain, to transmit, and to prepare — and he performed these tasks with the faithfulness and wisdom that the tradition requires.

Key predecessors whose legacy he inherited:

Syedna Zoeb ibn Musa al-Wadi’i (RA) — the 1st Dai al-Mutlaq, appointed by Hurrat al-Malika (RA), who established the institution of the Dai al-Mutlaq and laid the foundations of the Yemen Dawat

Syedna Ibrahim ibn al-Husayn al-Hamidi (RA) — the 2nd Dai, who continued the first Dai’s work

Syedna Hatim ibn Ibrahim al-Hamidi (RA) — the 3rd Dai (d. 596 AH / 1199 CE), the greatest scholar among the early Dais, whose works including the Tuhfat al-Qulub established the Hamidi tradition that would shape the Dawat’s intellectual character for centuries

Syedna Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-Walid al-Anf (RA) — the 7th Dai, the ancestor of the Banu al-Walid al-Anf family that would eventually produce four consecutive Dais (16th through 19th)

Syedna Ali Shams al-Din I (RA) — the 13th Dai, the first bearer of the 18th Dai’s own laqab, whose tenure earlier in the Yemen period had been another significant chapter in the Dawat’s history

Syedna Abdullah Fakhruddin (RA) — the 16th Dai and the 18th Dai’s own father, whose long tenure established the Banu al-Walid al-Anf family as the dominant scholarly dynasty of the Yemen period

The Significance of His Position in the Chain

The 18th Dai stands at a pivotal position in the chain: the last of the Banu al-Walid al-Anf brothers (his brother having been the 17th) before the chain passed to the next generation in the person of the 19th Dai (his nephew). He is thus the bridge between the generation of the 16th Dai’s sons and the generation of the 17th Dai’s son — a bridge that he crossed faithfully, ensuring that the walayah passed not to one of his own children or close associates but to the person whom the Imam’s guidance indicated: his nephew Idris.

This willingness to transmit the nass to the most qualified recipient, regardless of considerations of family preference or administrative convenience, is itself a sign of the Dai’s spiritual integrity. The 18th Dai’s nass to Syedna Idris (RA) demonstrated that the Dawat’s leadership was guided not by dynastic calculation but by the genuine spiritual discernment that the Imam’s walayah makes possible.

The Legacy of the 18th Dai — إِرثُ الدَّاعِي الثَّامِنَ عَشَر

A Legacy of Faithful Stewardship — إِرثُ الرِّعَايَةِ الأَمِينَة

The legacy of Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) is above all a legacy of faithful stewardship. He received the Dawat in a moment of transition — his brother had just passed, the community was adjusting to a new Dai, the political landscape of Yemen was shifting — and he administered it with the discipline, the scholarly seriousness, and the pastoral care that the moment required.

He did not produce the most voluminous body of scholarship among the Yemen Dais — that distinction belongs, above all, to his nephew the 19th Dai. He did not achieve the most dramatic political successes — those too belong to his nephew. What he did was something more foundational: he maintained the integrity of the Dawat, preserved the ‘ilm, sustained the community’s connection to its traditions, and — most importantly — recognized and appointed the man who would produce those scholarly and political achievements.

A Legacy of Vision — إِرثُ الرُّؤيَة

The nass to Syedna Idris Imad al-Din (RA) was an act of extraordinary vision — the vision that the Dai’s station, properly inhabited, makes possible. To recognize in the young scholar Idris — still in his mid-thirties, his greatest works not yet written, his greatest political achievements not yet achieved — the one in whom the Imam’s trust rested, required precisely the quality of spiritual perception that the Tayyibi tradition associates with the Dai’s walayah.

History has confirmed this vision entirely. Every subsequent generation of the community, reading the Uyun al-Akhbar and the other works of the 19th Dai, benefiting from the political achievements of his forty-year tenure, has reason to be grateful for the vision of the 18th Dai — the uncle who recognized the nephew, and who transmitted the trust to the right man at the right moment.

A Legacy for Rawzat — إِرثٌ لِرَوضَة

For the community of rawzat — for those who seek knowledge of the Dawat’s history and the spiritual tradition that sustains the Bohra community — Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) is an important figure precisely because his quieter kind of greatness represents a form of service that is easily overlooked but cannot be overstated.

Not every chapter of the Dawat’s history is marked by extraordinary political achievement or prolific scholarship. Some chapters are marked by the patient maintenance of what has been received — by the faithful transmission of the trust from one hand to the next, by the steady cultivation of the scholars who will produce the next generation’s great works, by the wise administration of a community through years of transition.

These quieter forms of greatness are no less real, no less necessary, and no less divinely sustained than the more dramatic achievements that history tends to remember more easily. The 18th Dai’s decade of faithful stewardship was the essential condition for the 19th Dai’s forty years of extraordinary achievement — and that condition was itself a form of divine grace, expressed through the person of a man who received the Imam’s trust faithfully and transmitted it without diminishment.

Understanding the Dawat al-Satr — فَهمُ دَعوَةِ السَّتر

The tenure of every Dai al-Mutlaq takes place within the framework of the dawr al-satr — the period of the Imam’s occultation — and understanding this framework is essential to understanding the significance of the 18th Dai’s role.

The Hidden Imam — الإِمَامُ المَستُور

Imam al-Tayyib ibn al-Amir (AS) — the 21st Imam of the Tayyibi-Ismaili line — went into occultation (satr, ghayba) in approximately 524 AH / 1130 CE, when he was a young child, shortly after the assassination of his father, Imam al-Amir (AS), by the Assassins (fedayeen of the Nizari sect). His mother, the Sulayhid queen Hurrat al-Malika (RA), received him into hiding and established the institution of the Dai al-Mutlaq as his representative in the world during the period of his concealment.

In the Tayyibi understanding, the Imam al-Tayyib (AS) is not dead — he is alive, in a state of occultation whose full nature is known only to Allah. He continues to guide the Dawat through the chain of walayah — the spiritual connection between the Imam and his Dai — even though he is not physically present in the world. The Dai is his mazhar — his manifestation — in the world: the person through whom the Imam’s walayah, ‘ilm, and barakat are made accessible to the community.

This understanding transforms the significance of every act of the Dai. When the 18th Dai administered the misaq, he was not merely performing a ritual; he was channeling the Imam’s walayah to each person who took the covenant. When he conducted the circles of ‘ilm, he was not merely transmitting information; he was making the Imam’s ‘ilm — the hidden knowledge that is the Tayyibi tradition’s most precious possession — accessible to those who had the capacity to receive it. When he conferred the nass, he was not making a human choice; he was transmitting the Imam’s specific, divinely guided designation of the next holder of his trust.

The Dai as Hujjah — الدَّاعِي بِوَصفِهِ حُجَّة

In the Tayyibi theological vocabulary, the Dai during the dawr al-satr is the Hujjat Allah — Allah’s Proof in the world — taking the place that in the dawr al-zuhur (the period of the Imam’s manifest presence) belongs to the Imam himself. The Dai is not the Imam; he is the Imam’s deputy, acting by the Imam’s authorization and in the Imam’s name. But during the dawr al-satr, he is the highest embodiment of the divine walayah that is accessible to the community — and his relationship to the community is therefore a relationship of the same quality, in its essential nature, as the Imam’s own relationship to the community during the period of manifest presence.

This theological understanding places Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) in a very specific and very exalted light. He was not merely a religious leader or an institutional administrator. He was the Hujjat Allah for his time — the person through whom the Imam’s walayah reached the community, through whom the divine light was channeled to the mumineen, through whom the connection between the community and the hidden Imam was maintained.

This is why the community’s relationship to the Dai is not merely a relationship of religious obedience or institutional loyalty. It is a relationship of walayah — devotion, love, and spiritual connection — that is, in its essence, a relationship to the Imam himself, channeled through the Dai’s person.

The Broader Chain: From the 17th to the 19th Dai

The 17th Dai: Syedna al-Hasan Badr al-Din I (RA) — سَيِّدَنَا الحَسَن بَدرُ الدِّين الأَوَّل

To fully contextualize the 18th Dai’s contribution, we must understand more deeply what his brother and predecessor accomplished and what the 18th Dai received from him.

Syedna al-Hasan Badr al-Din I (RA) — the 17th Dai — had served the Dawat during a period that included both the consolidation of the Banu al-Walid al-Anf family’s leadership (their father having been the 16th Dai) and the continued development of the Dawat’s institutions in the Haraz highlands. The Badr — the full moon — of his epithet suggests a completeness, a fullness of illumination that characterized his own particular quality of service.

During his tenure, Syedna al-Hasan (RA):

The transition from the 17th to the 18th Dai was thus a transition between brothers — two sons of the same father, formed in the same household, carrying the same tradition forward in succession. It was a transition marked by continuity rather than change, by the deepening of existing commitments rather than the inauguration of new directions.

The 19th Dai’s Debt to the 18th

Syedna Idris Imad al-Din (RA) explicitly acknowledged, in the Uyun al-Akhbar and in other contexts preserved in the tradition, his debt to his uncle the 18th Dai. The formation he received under his uncle’s Dawat — the access to texts, the guidance of a senior scholar, the stability of an institutional environment, the spiritual authority of the Dai’s presence — were the conditions that made his own great works possible.

In this sense, the 18th Dai’s contribution to the Uyun al-Akhbar is real, even though he wrote not a word of it. The conditions for a great scholarly work include not only the genius of the scholar who writes it but the environment, the resources, and the support that allow that genius to develop and express itself. The 18th Dai provided those conditions, during the critical decade of his nephew’s formation, with the same faithfulness with which he provided everything else that the Dawat required.

Prayer and Remembrance — الدُّعَاءُ وَالذِّكر

The Bohra community’s remembrance of Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) is expressed in the salawat, du’a, and yadgar (remembrance) that mark his ‘urus on 2 Safar. The following forms of remembrance are traditional:

The Salawat — الصَّلَوَات

اللّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى سَيِّدِنَا عَلِيٍّ شَمسِ الدِّينِ الثَّانِي الدَّاعِي الثَّامِنَ عَشَرَ، ابنِ سَيِّدِنَا عَبدِاللهِ فَخرِ الدِّينِ الدَّاعِي السَّادِسَ عَشَر، شَقِيقِ سَيِّدِنَا الحَسَنِ بَدرِ الدِّينِ الدَّاعِي السَّابِعَ عَشَر، عَمِّ سَيِّدِنَا إِدرِيسَ عِمَادِ الدِّينِ الدَّاعِي التَّاسِعَ عَشَر، الَّذِي أَدَّى النَّصَّ بِأَمَانَةٍ وَصَدَقٍ، وَأَكمَلَ الأَمَانَةَ بِأَحسَنِ الوَفَاء، وَجَعَلَ أَيَّامَهُ عَشرًا مِن أَنوَارِ الدَّعوَةِ المُسَتَدَامَة

O Allah, bless our master Ali Shams al-Din the Second, the 18th Dai, son of our master Abdallah Fakhr al-Din the 16th Dai, brother of our master al-Hasan Badr al-Din the 17th Dai, uncle of our master Idris Imad al-Din the 19th Dai — he who transmitted the nass with faithfulness and truth, and completed the trust with the most beautiful fidelity, and made his ten years among the enduring lights of the Dawat.

Du’a at His Mazaar

For those blessed to visit the mazaar of Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) at al-Shariqa in Jabal Haraz:

السَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا سَيِّدِي وَمَولَايَ عَلِيَّ شَمسَ الدِّينِ، الدَّاعِيَ الثَّامِنَ عَشَر، شَمسَ الهِدَايَةِ في جَبَلِ حَرَاز. أَسأَلُكَ بِجَاهِكَ عِندَ الإِمَامِ المَستُور وَعِندَ اللهِ العَلِيِّ القَدِير أَن تَشفَعَ لِي وَلِجَمِيعِ المُؤمِنِينَ يَومَ القِيَامَة. يَا مَن أَدَّى أَمَانَةَ الإِمَامِ بِأَتَمِّ الوَفَاء، اشفَع لَنَا عِندَ مَولَانَا الإِمَامِ وَعِندَ مَولَانَا الدَّاعِي المُطلَق.

Peace be upon you, my master and lord Ali Shams al-Din, the 18th Dai, Sun of Guidance in Jabal Haraz. I ask you, by your rank with the hidden Imam and with Allah the Most High, the All-Powerful, to intercede for me and for all the believers on the Day of Judgment. O you who fulfilled the Imam’s trust with the most perfect fidelity, intercede for us with our lord the Imam and with our lord the Dai al-Mutlaq.

The Yemen Period in Retrospect — المَرحَلَةُ اليَمَنِيَّة في نَظرَةٍ تَأمُّلِيَّة

The tenure of Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) falls in the middle of the Yemen period of the Tayyibi Dawat — a period that extends from the establishment of the first Dai al-Mutlaq in the early twelfth century CE to the eventual transfer of the Dawat’s center to India in the mid-sixteenth century. To see his tenure in this larger perspective is to understand its place in the longer arc of the tradition’s history.

The Yemen Period as a Whole

The Yemen period of the Tayyibi Dawat lasted approximately four centuries — from the first Dai al-Mutlaq in approximately 531 AH / 1137 CE to the transfer of the Dawat’s center to India during the early sixteenth century CE. During this period, the Dawat navigated:

The 18th Dai’s tenure was a significant chapter in this longer story — not the most dramatic chapter, but an essential one. He held the Dawat steady through a decade of transition, preserved what had been built, and passed it forward to the man who would take it to its greatest heights in the Yemen period.

The Eventual Transfer to India

By the time of the later Yemen Dais, the connection to India had become so important that the eventual transfer of the Dawat’s center to the subcontinent was becoming inevitable. The 23rd Dai al-Mutlaq, Syedna Muhammad Izzuddin (RA), and the 24th Dai, Syedna Yusuf Najmuddin (RA), would eventually see the Dawat’s center established more firmly in India, culminating in the full transfer that would make the Bohra community of India — and particularly Gujarat — the living heart of the Tayyibi tradition.

The 18th Dai’s careful maintenance of the India connection — the correspondence, the appointment of representatives, the flow of ‘ilm to the Bohra communities of Gujarat — was one of the early chapters of this larger story of the Dawat’s eventual journey to its Indian home.

The Community’s Connection to the 18th Dai Today — صِلَةُ الجَمَاعَةِ بِالدَّاعِي الثَّامِنَ عَشَرِ اليَوم

For the Bohra community of today — living in India, East Africa, North America, Britain, the Gulf, Australia, and across the globe — the 18th Dai is not a distant historical figure but a living member of the chain of walayah that connects the present community to the Imam al-Tayyib (AS) himself.

The chain of Dais is not a historical chain that ended in the past; it is a living chain that continues into the present. The current Dai al-Mutlaq — al-Dai al-Ajal Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin (TUS) — stands at the end of this chain: the 54th Dai, who received the nass from his father the 53rd Dai, in an unbroken succession reaching back through all the preceding Dais to the first Dai appointed by Hurrat al-Malika (RA). Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA), as the 18th Dai, is a link in this chain — a link that must be whole and sound for the chain itself to be complete.

When the Bohra community recites the long litany of salawat upon the Dais — the chain of blessings that names each Dai in sequence — the 18th Dai takes his place in this recitation, between the salawat upon the 17th Dai and the salawat upon the 19th. His name is spoken; his barakat is invoked; his connection to the present community, through the unbroken chain of the Dawat, is affirmed.

This is the ultimate significance of every Dai al-Mutlaq: not merely as a historical figure to be studied, but as a spiritual reality to be connected to — a member of the living chain of walayah that reaches from the present moment back to the Imam and forward, through the Imam’s walayah, to the divine source itself.

A Note on Sources — مُلَاحَظَةٌ حَولَ المَصَادِر

The primary historical source for the life and tenure of Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) is the Uyun al-Akhbar wa Funun al-Athar of his successor Syedna Idris Imad al-Din (RA) — the 19th Dai, who wrote this magisterial historical work during his own forty-year tenure. The Uyun al-Akhbar includes biographical information on all the preceding Dais, with particular detail on those closer to Syedna Idris’s own time. His account of the 18th Dai — his own uncle, under whose Dawat he received so much of his own formation — carries the authority of personal knowledge combined with the scholarly rigor that characterizes the entire work.

Additional sources include:

The combination of these sources — the Uyun al-Akhbar as the primary historical account, supplemented by the Dawat’s living institutional tradition — provides the foundation for what we know of Syedna Ali Shams al-Din II (RA) and his decade of faithful service.

Salawat — الصَّلَوَات

اللّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى سَيِّدِنَا عَلِيٍّ شَمسِ الدِّينِ الثَّانِي، الدَّاعِي الثَّامِنَ عَشَرَ، شَمسِ الهِدَايَةِ في جَبَلِ حَرَاز، الَّذِي أَدَّى نَصَّ الإِمَامِ إِلَى خَيرِ مَن أَودَعَهُ اللهُ، وَأَكمَلَ الأَمَانَةَ بِأَتَمِّ الوَفَاء، وَرَبَّى الدَّاعِيَ الأَعظَمَ إِدرِيسَ عِمَادَ الدِّين في ظِلِّ دَعوَتِهِ الكَرِيمَة، وَحَفِظَ الجَمَاعَةَ في الشَّرقِ وَالغَربِ بِحَولِهِ وَقُوَّتِه

Allahumma salli ‘ala Sayyidina ‘Ali Shams al-Din al-thani, al-da’i al-thamin ‘ashar, shams al-hidaya fi Jabal Haraz, alladhi adda nass al-Imam ila khayr man awda’ahu Allah, wa akmala al-amanah bi-atamm al-wafa’, wa rabba al-da’i al-a’zam Idris ‘Imad al-Din fi zill da’watihi al-karima, wa hafiza al-jama’ah fi al-sharq wa al-gharb bi-hawlihi wa quwwatih.

O Allah, bless our master Ali Shamsuddin the Second, the 18th Dai, Sun of Guidance in Jabal Haraz — who transmitted the Imam’s nass to the best of those in whom Allah had placed it, and completed the trust with the most perfect fidelity, and raised the great Dai Idris Imad al-Din in the shade of his noble Dawat, and preserved the community in East and West by his power and strength.

See also: Dai Al Mutlaq Institution, Imam Al Tayyib, Syedna Hasan Badruddin I 17th Dai, Syedna Idris Imaduddin 19th, Banu Al Walid Al Anf, Gujarat Sultanate, Hurrat Al Malika, Jabal Haraz, Dawr Al Satr, Nass In Tayyibi Theology, Uyun Al Akhbar, Rasulid Dynasty Yemen

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