Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) — The 38th Dai al-Mutlaq

The Dai of Jamnagar: Faith, Scholarship, and Community Through Imperial Twilight

The era of Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) — the 38th Dai al-Mutlaq of the Dawoodi Bohra dawat — spans nearly two decades of the early eighteenth century, from 1130 AH / 1719 CE to 1150 AH / 1738 CE. These were years in which the Mughal Empire moved swiftly toward fragmentation: the power of regional rulers — the Marathas, the Rajputs, the Nawabs of the Deccan — rose to fill the vacuum left by the disintegration of centralised imperial authority. In Gujarat and Kutch, the port cities of Surat, Jamnagar, and Ahmedabad stood at the nexus of Indian Ocean trade, local dynastic politics, and an increasingly assertive British East India Company whose presence on the Gujarati coast was reshaping the economic geography of western India.

Through all of this historical turbulence, Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) kept the dawat steady. His nineteen-year tenure is characterised in Dawat records not by dramatic confrontation or political crisis, but by the patient, consistent work of a Dai committed to nurturing scholarship, maintaining community bonds, preserving the esoteric heritage of the Fatimid Imams, and raising the next generation of dawat leadership. In this sense, his tenure embodies a profound principle of the dawat: that the most enduring service to the Imam al-Ghayb is not the spectacular act, but the daily discipline of keeping the flame of knowledge alive.

His full name: al-Dai al-Ajal Syedna Ismail Badruddin ibn Syedi Sheikh Adam Safiyuddin ibn Syedna Ismail Badruddin I (RA). He took his regnal name Badruddin — meaning “Full Moon of the Faith” — from his great-grandfather, the celebrated Syedna Ismail Badruddin I, the 34th Dai, whose scholarly legacy he consciously honoured and whose mantle of luminous guidance he took as his own.

He rests in Mazar-e-Badri in Jamnagar — one of the most revered Bohra sacred sites in all of Gujarat, described by community members as among the holiest mausoleums of its kind in the entire state, a place of ziyarat and barakah for generations of mumineen.

Understanding the Community He Led: The Dawoodi Bohras in History

To truly appreciate the tenure of the 38th Dai, one must understand the community he led — the Dawoodi Bohra mumineen — and how they came to bear that name. The story of the Dawoodi Bohras is inseparable from the story of the Fatimid Imamate, the Tayyibi dawat, and one of the most consequential succession disputes in the history of Ismaili Islam.

The Fatimid Heritage and the Hidden Imam

The Dawoodi Bohras trace their spiritual lineage to the Fatimid Caliphate of Cairo (909–1171 CE), under whose Imam-Caliphs the Ismaili dawat flourished as one of the most sophisticated intellectual movements in the medieval Islamic world. The great Fatimid institutions — al-Azhar Mosque, Dar al-Ilm (House of Knowledge), the majalis al-hikma in which the Imam personally taught the esoteric sciences — represented the pinnacle of Islamic learning. The Dais of the Fatimid dawat carried this knowledge to Yemen, Iran, Central Asia, and to the Indian subcontinent.

In 524 AH / 1130 CE, the young Imam al-Tayyib abi l-Qasim went into concealment (ghayba) — the occultation which the Bohras believe will last until the Day of Resurrection when the Imam will reappear. From that moment, the institution of the Dai al-Mutlaq — the Absolute Vicegerent — became the channel through which the Imam’s authority was exercised in the world. The Dai is not an Imam but stands in the place of the Imam, holding the keys to the esoteric teaching, administering the mithaq (covenant) of the faithful, and ensuring the survival of the dawat until the Imam’s return.

The Dai’s authority derives directly from the Imam. The Imam in occultation communicates his will through the Dai, who is understood as the bab (gate) through which the faithful access divine knowledge and guidance. This theological reality gives every act of the Dai — from the most public proclamation to the most private teaching — a weight that transcends ordinary leadership. Every Dai, including the 38th, stands in this chain of sacred authority.

The Bohra Conversion and the Coming of the Dawat to Gujarat

The dawat first reached India in the eleventh century CE, when Yemeni Dais — themselves trained in the Fatimid tradition — sent missionaries (walis) to the subcontinent. The traders and farmers of Gujarat, particularly those of the Vaniya and farming communities, were drawn to the dawat’s message: its emphasis on ta’wil (esoteric interpretation), its egalitarian spiritual community, and the rigorous ethical demands of Ismaili commitment.

The word “Bohra” itself likely derives from the Gujarati vyavahar (trade) or from the Kutchi-Gujarati word for trader, reflecting the mercantile identity that has defined the community for centuries. The Bohras became the merchant-scholars of Indian Islam: trading across the Indian Ocean from East Africa to Southeast Asia, while maintaining the strictest adherence to their faith’s intellectual and ritual demands.

The Great Schism: Why They Are Called Dawoodi Bohras

The name “Dawoodi” attached to the larger branch of Tayyibi Bohras refers to the 27th Dai al-Mutlaq, Syedna Dawud ibn Qutubshah Burhan al-Din (RA), and the succession dispute that followed the death of the 26th Dai.

The 26th Dai, Syedna Dawud ibn Ajabshah (RA), passed away in 997 AH / 1589 CE. His death created an immediate crisis: two claimants arose to the position of 27th Dai al-Mutlaq. The first was Syedna Dawud ibn Qutubshah, who commanded the loyalty of the vast majority of mumineen in India. The second was Syedna Sulaiman ibn Hassan, based in Yemen, who contested the succession.

The dispute was not merely political — it touched the deepest theological convictions of the community. The Dai al-Mutlaq’s appointment is, in the Tayyibi understanding, made by the Imam al-Ghayb himself through the existing Dai’s nass (explicit designation). The question was: who had received the nass from the 26th Dai? Syedna Dawud ibn Qutubshah and his followers held that the nass had been given to him. Syedna Sulaiman ibn Hassan and his followers held otherwise.

The resolution came through the loyalty of the community. The overwhelming majority of Bohras in India — the heartland of the dawat’s population — accepted Syedna Dawud ibn Qutubshah as the 27th Dai. Those who followed him became known as Dawoodi Bohras (after “Dawud”). The minority who accepted Syedna Sulaiman ibn Hassan became the Sulaimani Bohras, who remain a distinct community to this day, with their Dai traditionally residing in Yemen (though later in India as well).

This split — the Dawoodi-Sulaimani schism of the late sixteenth century — is the defining moment that gave the Dawoodi Bohra community its specific identity. When Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) led the dawat in the eighteenth century, he led a community that had, for over a century, defined itself by its loyalty to Syedna Dawud ibn Qutubshah’s line of Dais — a loyalty that had been tested, maintained, and hardened into communal identity.

Syedna Dawud ibn Qutubshah Burhan al-Din (RA) himself was a scholar of towering stature. His title Burhan al-Din — “Proof of the Faith” — reflects the community’s sense that he had vindicated the dawat’s integrity. He served as Dai from 997 AH until his wafat in 1021 AH / 1612 CE, a tenure of twenty-four years. He composed important texts in Arabic and Lisan al-Dawat, organised the dawat’s administrative systems in India, and corresponded with mumineen across the subcontinent. His mazaar is in Ahmedabad, where it remains a major site of ziyarat.

The significance of the Dawoodi-Sulaimani split for later Dais like Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) cannot be overstated. The community they led was defined by its resolution to stand with the nass, to maintain the chain of dawat authority against challenge, and to prioritise the integrity of the Imam’s appointed vicegerency above all political convenience. This is the backbone of Dawoodi identity.

The Martyrdom of the 32nd Dai: al-Shahid and What It Means

Before coming to the specific era of the 38th Dai, we must pause at one of the most sacred and sorrowful moments in all of Dawoodi Bohra history: the shahada (martyrdom) of the 32nd Dai al-Mutlaq, Syedna Qutubkhan Qutubuddin (RA) — known to history as al-Shahid, “the Martyr.”

The Context: Aurangzeb and the Persecution

The 32nd Dai served during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir (r. 1658–1707 CE), whose policy of religious orthodoxy and pressure on non-Sunni communities created severe difficulties for the Bohras. Aurangzeb’s Islamicisation project — the application of the jizya (poll tax) on non-Muslims, the destruction of Hindu temples, and the suppression of heterodox Muslim sects — cast a shadow over communities like the Ismaili Bohras, who were regarded with deep suspicion by orthodox Sunni ulama.

The Bohra community, as Ismailis who maintained their own religious hierarchy, esoteric teaching, and distinct ritual calendar, occupied a precarious position in Aurangzeb’s India. Their prosperity as merchants made them visible and politically exposed; their religious distinctiveness made them targets for those who wished to demonstrate orthodox zeal.

Syedna Qutubkhan Qutubuddin (RA) — whose name combined the royal style Qutubkhan with the dawat title Qutubuddin (“Pole of the Faith”) — led the dawat during a period when that faith was under direct existential pressure. He is described in dawat records as a man of extraordinary courage, profound learning, and unflinching commitment to the dawat’s integrity. He composed texts in Arabic and Lisan al-Dawat and maintained the teaching and ritual life of the community even as the political environment darkened.

The Shahada

The precise circumstances of Syedna Qutubkhan Qutubuddin’s (RA) martyrdom as recorded in dawat sources involve his refusal to compromise the faith in the face of a hostile authority. In the tradition of the Tayyibi dawat, the shahada of a Dai is understood on multiple levels: historically, it is the death of a man; theologically, it is a wilaya — an act of absolute devotion to the Imam al-Ghayb that transcends the ordinary limits of human courage. The Dai who gives his life for the faith participates in the supreme spiritual act of Imam Husain (SA) at Karbala — the willingness to sacrifice everything rather than compromise the truth.

The 32nd Dai is believed to have been killed on account of his faith — his refusal to submit to demands that would have required the community to abandon its religious identity. His death sent shockwaves through the Bohra community across India. The grief was not only that of losing a beloved leader; it was the grief of witnessing the ultimate proof of the dawat’s reality: that its Dai would die before betraying it.

The Legacy of al-Shahid

The title al-Shahid — The Martyr — is the most exalted designation any Dai can receive in the community’s memory. It places Syedna Qutubkhan Qutubuddin (RA) in a category above all others: the one who confirmed the truth of the dawat with his blood. His mazaar became, and remains, a site of intense veneration. The community’s annual remembrance of al-Shahid’s sacrifice is among the most emotionally powerful of the dawat’s commemorative occasions.

For the Dais who followed him — including the 38th Dai Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA), who would come to the position a generation later — the legacy of al-Shahid was both an inspiration and an obligation. Every subsequent Dai served knowing that the dawat had been purchased, at least in part, by blood. The 38th Dai’s quiet, scholarly service in Jamnagar should be read against this backdrop: the community had survived persecution, had mourned a martyr, and had chosen to rebuild through knowledge and continuity rather than confrontation.

Birth, Family, and the Formation of a Scholar

Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) was born in Udaipur in approximately 1686 CE / 1097 AH, during the tenure of his ancestor Syedna Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin II (RA), the 35th Dai. His birth in Udaipur — the capital of the Mewar Rajput kingdom, famous for its lakes, its palaces, and its fierce pride in Rajput identity — reflects the geographic mobility of the dawat’s leadership families in the Mughal era. The Bohras moved between the great cities of the subcontinent: Ahmedabad, Surat, Burhanpur, Jamnagar, Udaipur — wherever trade and community made residence possible.

His father was Syedi Sheikh Adam Safiyuddin — a scholar and writer of distinction, and the brother of Syedna Musa Kalimuddin (RA), the 36th Dai. This family position placed Ismail Badruddin squarely within the dawat’s scholarly elite from birth. His father Sheikh Adam Safiyuddin was known for his written works in Arabic and Lisan al-Dawat, and his contribution to the preservation of Fatimid-Ismaili knowledge in the difficult decades following the shahada of al-Shahid.

His lineage connects directly upward to the great 34th Dai, Syedna Ismail Badruddin I (RA), whose name he would inherit and honour. The chain of scholarly and spiritual inheritance passing through his family was thus multi-generational: grandfather, father, and he himself each contributed to the continuity of dawat knowledge in their respective eras.

The Curriculum of a Tayyibi Scholar

The education of a young man destined for dawat service in the early eighteenth century followed a rigorous and distinctive curriculum that had been shaped over centuries of Fatimid and post-Fatimid learning. The foundational elements included:

Arabic Language and Sciences (al-‘arabiyya): Mastery of classical Arabic grammar (nahw), morphology (sarf), rhetoric (balagha), and literature — the tools necessary to read, interpret, and compose in the language of the Quran and the Imams’ teachings.

The Quran and its Sciences: Memorisation (hifz), recitation (tajwid), and the multiple dimensions of Quranic interpretation — the zahir (exoteric meaning) and the batin (esoteric meaning) — which the Tayyibi tradition held to be inseparable.

Esoteric Sciences (ta’wil and haqaiq): The distinctive Ismaili sciences of symbolic interpretation, in which every Quranic verse, every ritual act, every number and name carries layers of spiritual meaning pointing to the realities of the divine world. These sciences were transmitted in private settings from master to student and constituted the most treasured intellectual heritage of the dawat.

Fiqh al-Dawat (Dawat Jurisprudence): The distinctive legal tradition of the Fatimid-Tayyibi school, covering ritual purity, prayer, zakat, fasting, hajj, and the full range of legal obligations — distinct in certain respects from both Sunni and Twelver Shia legal schools.

History and Sira: The history of the Prophets, the Imams, the Fatimid Caliphate, and the Dais of the Yemen and India — the sacred narrative that gave every Bohra mumin a sense of belonging to a chain of divine guidance stretching from Adam (AS) to the present day.

Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) was formed in this curriculum from childhood, under the direct guidance of his father and the scholarly environment of the dawat community. By the time the 37th Dai Syedna Noor Mohammed Nooruddin (RA) assumed leadership in 1122 AH / 1710 CE, the young Ismail Badruddin was already a mature scholar in his mid-twenties, formed and prepared for the responsibilities he would one day bear.

Family and Marriage

Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) married Jivana Baisaheba, the daughter of Syedna Musa Kalimuddin (RA) — his father’s brother and the 36th Dai — cementing his position within the innermost circle of the dawat’s leadership family. He later married Fatema Aai Saheba, by whom he had two sons who would each play significant roles in dawat history:

• Syedi Abde-Musa Kalimuddin — a scholar and dawat servant of distinction in his own right.
• The future 41st Dai Syedna Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin III (RA) — whose appointment would make Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) the grandfather of the dawat’s 41st leader, and through him the patriarch of a dynasty that would produce the 42nd Dai (Syedna Yusuf Najmuddin) and the 43rd Dai (Syedna Abdeali Saifuddin) as well.

This dynastic role — the 38th Dai as the origin point of a chain of subsequent leaders — is one of the most lasting dimensions of his legacy.

His Predecessors: The Chain of the 34th to 37th Dais

The 38th Dai came to his position as the inheritor of a specific scholarly and geographic tradition. To understand his tenure, we must briefly know the four Dais who preceded him in the sequence from the 34th onward.

The 34th Dai: Syedna Ismail Badruddin I (RA) — The Name Bearer

Syedna Ismail Badruddin I ibn Mulla Raj (RA) was the 34th Dai al-Mutlaq, serving from 1065 AH / 1654 CE to 1085 AH / 1674 CE. He was a scholar of the first order, composing works in Arabic and establishing the scholarly character of the Jamnagar-era dawat. His title Badruddin — Full Moon of the Faith — became the most honoured of all dawat titles in the Jamnagar period, carried by his successor the 38th Dai as a deliberate act of reverence. His mazaar is in Jamnagar.

The 35th Dai: Syedna Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin II (RA)

Syedna Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin II ibn Syedna Ismail Badruddin I (RA) — the son of the 34th Dai — served as the 35th Dai from 1085 AH / 1674 CE to 1110 AH / 1699 CE, a tenure of twenty-five years. He was the Dai during the critical years of Aurangzeb’s oppression, and it was during his tenure that the community navigated the aftermath of al-Shahid’s martyrdom and the continued pressure of Mughal religious policy. He is described as a man of great forbearance and wisdom. His mazaar is in Jamnagar.

The 36th Dai: Syedna Musa Kalimuddin (RA)

Syedna Musa Kalimuddin ibn Syedna Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin II (RA) — son of the 35th Dai — served from 1110 AH / 1699 CE to 1122 AH / 1710 CE. He was the uncle of Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) through his father, and the grandfather of the future 38th Dai through his daughter Jivana Baisaheba. His tenure of twelve years consolidated the dawat’s recovery from the Aurangzeb era. His mazaar is in Jamnagar.

The 37th Dai: Syedna Noor Mohammed Nooruddin (RA)

Syedna Noor Mohammed Nooruddin (RA) served as the 37th Dai from 1122 AH / 1710 CE until his wafat in 1130 AH / 1719 CE in Mandvi. His title Nooruddin — “Light of the Faith” — speaks to the illuminating quality of his leadership. He passed away leaving three young children, and the dawat passed to his relative Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA). His mazaar is in Mandvi. It was Syedna Nooruddin’s appointment of Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) through the sacred nass that legitimised the 38th Dai’s leadership.

Assumption of the Dawat: 1130 AH / 1719 CE

When Syedna Noor Mohammed Nooruddin (RA) passed away in Mandvi in 1130 AH / 1719 CE, the responsibility of the dawat passed by divine nass to Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA). He assumed the position of 38th Dai al-Mutlaq at the age of approximately thirty-three — a relatively young age for a Dai, though one made mature by decades of preparation in the scholarly traditions of his family.

The formal ceremony of the dawat’s transition — the bay’at of the Dai, in which the community’s representatives pledged their allegiance and renewed their covenant (mithaq) — took place according to the sacred protocols of the Tayyibi tradition. The new Dai received the sanad — the chain of transmission and authority — from the preceding Dai’s legacy, which in the Tayyibi understanding ultimately traces back through all preceding Dais to the Imam al-Tayyib himself, and from the Imam to his ancestors up to the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and to Allah Most High.

The weight of this succession was understood by every mumin. The 38th Dai was not merely the community’s administrative leader; he was the earthly representative of the Hidden Imam, the keeper of the esoteric knowledge of the House of Muhammad, and the shepherd of the mumineen in the Imam’s absence.

He relocated the seat of the dawat to Jamnagar, which had been the primary centre of the dawat for much of the preceding century. Jamnagar — situated on the Gulf of Kutch on the western coast of the Kathiawar peninsula — was a city of maritime character. Its prosperity was built on trade: the export of textiles, spices, and handicrafts; the import of luxury goods from the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and East Africa. The Bohra presence there was long-established, rooted in the trading networks that the community had cultivated across western India and the Indian Ocean world.

The Dawat’s Geography: Surat, Burhanpur, Ahmedabad, Jamnagar

The Dawoodi Bohra community of the early eighteenth century was not concentrated in a single city but distributed across a network of trading towns, each with its own jamat khana (community hall), masjid, and network of community members. Understanding the dawat’s geography illuminates the nature of the 38th Dai’s leadership.

Surat: The Commercial Capital

Surat — on the estuary of the Tapti River in southern Gujarat — was by the eighteenth century the most important port city in western India. It had served as the principal Mughal port for the Hajj, and its merchants were among the wealthiest in Asia. The British East India Company’s Surat factory, established in 1608, had become one of the Company’s most important establishments, and by the early eighteenth century Surat’s financial and commercial life was inextricably intertwined with Company operations.

The Bohra community in Surat was large, prosperous, and well-organised. Bohra merchants were among Surat’s most prominent traders, dealing in textiles, precious stones, and the luxury goods that flowed through the port. The Surat jamat maintained its own institutional life — its masjid, its madrasas, its systems of community charity and mutual support — under the distant oversight of the Dai in Jamnagar.

Surat would become the seat of the dawat a few decades after the 38th Dai’s time, when subsequent Dais relocated there to be closer to the community’s commercial heartland and to the emerging British-dominated world that would define India’s future.

Burhanpur: The Deccan Crossing

Burhanpur — in what is now Madhya Pradesh — was one of the great inland trading cities of the Mughal era. Situated on the Tapti River near the Satpura ranges, it commanded the routes between Gujarat and the Deccan, and was a centre of the cotton textile trade that linked the subcontinent’s agricultural heartland with the coastal ports.

The Bohra presence in Burhanpur was substantial and ancient. The city had been a Mughal administrative centre of great importance — the Emperor Shah Jahan’s beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal died there during a military campaign in 1631 CE — and the Bohra merchants of Burhanpur had navigated the complex world of Mughal court politics and local power for generations.

By the time of the 38th Dai, Burhanpur’s commercial importance was somewhat diminished by the Mughal collapse and the Maratha advances into the Deccan, but the Bohra community remained a stable presence. The 38th Dai maintained contact with the Burhanpur jamat through the dawat’s system of mukasirs and mansubs — the local officials who represented the Dai’s authority in each town.

Ahmedabad: The Seat of Earlier Dais

Ahmedabad — founded in 1411 CE by Sultan Ahmad Shah and developed into one of the great cities of medieval India — had been the primary seat of the dawat during the crucial seventeenth century, the era of the post-Sulaimani consolidation. The mazaar of the 27th Dai Syedna Dawud ibn Qutubshah Burhan al-Din (RA) is in Ahmedabad, making it among the holiest sites in the Dawoodi world.

In the eighteenth century, Ahmedabad was contested political territory. Mughal authority had collapsed, and the Maratha Confederacy — under the Peshwas of Pune — was asserting its control over much of Gujarat. The city changed hands multiple times in the first decades of the eighteenth century, and the Bohra community, as always, sought to maintain its peaceful commercial and religious life amid political turbulence through careful neutrality and strategic community discipline.

Jamnagar: The Dawat’s Home

Jamnagar under the Jadeja Rajput rulers — who had established it as their capital in the sixteenth century — was a city of some stability and cultural vitality on the western Kathiawar coast. The Bohras of Jamnagar occupied a distinctive position: they were the Dai’s immediate community, the hosts of the dawat’s leadership, and enjoyed the spiritual prestige that came from proximity to the Dai himself.

The Jamnagar Dai tradition — from the 34th to the 38th Dai — represents a coherent era of dawat history. Five successive Dais made Jamnagar or its environs their home, and the city accumulated layers of dawat significance: masjids, mausoleums, scholarly networks, and community institutions. The Mazar-e-Badri complex — where the 38th Dai would eventually be buried alongside earlier members of his family — was the physical and spiritual centre of this accumulated heritage.

The Dawat in the Mughal Twilight: 1719–1738 CE

The decades of Syedna Ismail Badruddin’s (RA) tenure coincided with the most dramatic period of Mughal collapse. When he became Dai in 1719, the Emperor Farrukhsiyar was on the throne — soon to be deposed and killed by the powerful Sayyid brothers who had become the real power behind the Mughal throne. Within years, a rapid succession of weak emperors would reduce the Mughal throne to a shadow of its former power.

The Maratha Advance

The most consequential military-political development of this period was the expansion of the Maratha Confederacy under the Peshwa Baji Rao I (r. 1720–1740), who conducted a series of brilliant military campaigns that extended Maratha power from Maharashtra into Malwa, Rajputana, Bundelkhand, and Gujarat. By the 1730s, large swaths of Gujarat were effectively under Maratha suzerainty or influence, with local Rajput and Mughal administrators forced to pay tribute or cede territory.

For the Bohra community, the Maratha advance was a complex development. The Marathas were Hindu, but they were generally pragmatic in their dealings with Muslim commercial communities whose trade networks they needed. The Bohras’ long experience of navigating between different power-holders served them well: they were not identified with Mughal political power in the way that Muslim military aristocrats were, and their commercial value to whoever held effective power in western India meant that they could usually secure protection for their persons, their property, and their religious practice.

Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA), according to dawat tradition, maintained the community’s ability to practice its religion and conduct its affairs by building relationships with local rulers — including Rajput rulers of Kathiawar — contributing to civic life, and demonstrating that the Bohra community was a source of economic value and social stability. This was not mere political calculation; it was the extension of the dawat’s long-established wisdom about survival in minority circumstances.

The British East India Company: A Rising Power

The most significant long-term transformation of this era — one whose full implications would not be felt until after the 38th Dai’s death — was the consolidation of British East India Company power on the western Indian coast. The Company had been established in Surat since 1608, had received its first major territorial grant (Bombay) in 1668, and was by the early eighteenth century a major commercial and military force in western India.

The Company’s war with the Mughal governor of Surat (1759 CE), its eventual assumption of direct control over Surat (1759–1800 CE), and its gradual absorption of the trading networks of western India were developments that would radically transform the world in which the Bohras lived. The 38th Dai lived and died before the full impact of British colonial rule was felt, but the structures he maintained — the community’s networks, its trading connections, its institutional life — were what enabled the Bohras to navigate the British era with remarkable success.

The Bohra merchants who moved through Surat’s trading networks in the 1720s and 1730s were already beginning their historic encounter with British commercial power. The Company’s presence meant new markets, new financial instruments, new legal frameworks, and new political patrons. For a community as commercially sophisticated as the Bohras, this transformation created opportunities alongside disruptions.

Scholarship and Intellectual Life

The scholarly dimension of the 38th Dai’s tenure is central to his legacy. The Dawoodi Bohra dawat’s claim to legitimacy rests not only on the political succession of the Dai’s authority but on the intellectual transmission of the Imam’s knowledge — the ‘ilm (knowledge) that the Dais preserved and transmitted from the era of the Fatimid Imams to the present day.

The Majlis al-Ilm Tradition

The majlis al-‘ilm — the scholarly gathering in which texts were read aloud, questions were debated, and the esoteric sciences were transmitted from master to student — was the primary institutional form through which dawat knowledge was preserved. Every Dai was expected to maintain the majlis tradition: to gather scholars, to read and discuss the classical texts of the Fatimid heritage, to teach the ta’wil of the Quran and the haqaiq of the divine realities to those qualified to receive them.

Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) maintained this tradition throughout his tenure. The majlis in Jamnagar was a living intellectual community, drawing on the texts that had been accumulated and preserved over centuries of Tayyibi scholarship. Scholars came from the dawat communities of Gujarat and beyond to sit in the Dai’s presence and receive knowledge.

The Preservation of Fatimid Texts

The Dawoodi Bohra dawat is the custodian of one of the most significant collections of medieval Arabic Islamic literature in the world — the corpus of Fatimid-Ismaili texts produced in Cairo between the ninth and twelfth centuries and preserved in Yemen and India when the Fatimid Caliphate fell. This corpus includes:

• The philosophical and theological works of the Fatimid Dais and Imams
• Quranic commentaries (tafasir) in both exoteric and esoteric modes
• Texts on cosmology, astronomy, and the natural sciences
• Collections of poetry and devotional literature
• Legal texts and manuals of ritual practice
• The Rasail Ikhwan al-Safa — the encyclopaedic work of the Brothers of Purity — preserved in Bohra libraries

The preservation of these texts through centuries of political turbulence, migration, and persecution is itself one of the dawat’s greatest achievements. Each Dai bears responsibility for ensuring that the texts survive: that the manuscripts are copied, stored safely, and transmitted to trusted scholars who can read and teach them.

Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) continued the work of text preservation that his predecessors had undertaken. The scholarly environment of Jamnagar — where five successive Dais had established their courts — had accumulated considerable resources: libraries, scholars, students, and the institutional infrastructure necessary to maintain an active intellectual life.

His Own Compositions

Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) is credited with compositions in both Arabic and Lisan al-Dawat — the Gujarati-influenced Arabic-script language that serves as the dawat’s liturgical and literary tongue. In the Tayyibi tradition, a Dai’s writings are not merely personal compositions but authoritative transmissions: they carry the weight of the Dai’s spiritual authority and preserve the esoteric teachings of the Imam.

His compositions include devotional poetry — qasidas and marsiye in the tradition of Fatimid-Tayyibi literature — as well as prose works that expanded on specific aspects of the dawat’s esoteric teaching. The full scholarly catalogue of his works remains within the care of the dawat’s tradition; many Tayyibi texts are not published but preserved in manuscript form within the community’s custodial system.

Community Life Under the 38th Dai

The daily life of Bohra mumineen in the eighteenth century was shaped by the intricate institutional framework that the dawat had developed over centuries. Understanding this framework illuminates the kind of community that Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) led.

The System of the Dawat’s Officials

The dawat’s institutional structure under the Dai comprised a hierarchy of officials, each carrying specific responsibilities and spiritual designations:

• Mazun — the Dai’s second in command, deputised for him in specific functions
• Mukasir — the third rank, responsible for dawat administration and the instruction of mumineen
• Mansub — local representatives of the Dai’s authority in each town and region
• Shaikh — respected community elders who maintained the social and religious life of local jamats

This system allowed the Dai — resident in Jamnagar — to maintain effective oversight and pastoral care over Bohra communities spread across the subcontinent. The mukasirs and mansubs were the Dai’s eyes, ears, and hands in distant jamats, collecting the khums (religious tax) owed to the Imam-Dai, delivering the Dai’s guidance to community members, and reporting on the community’s spiritual and material condition.

The Mithaq: The Covenant of the Faith

Central to every Bohra mumin’s religious identity was the mithaq — the initiation covenant in which a mumin pledged allegiance to the dawat and its hierarchy, received the esoteric teaching of the dawat, and committed to maintaining the obligations of the Ismaili faith. The mithaq was taken in the Dai’s presence or through his authorised representative, and it bound the mumin to the Dai’s authority for life.

The mithaq was not merely a ceremonial formality. It was understood as a spiritual transformation: the mumin who took the mithaq entered into a relationship with the Imam al-Ghayb through the Dai’s mediation, received access to the esoteric sciences, and incurred specific obligations — prayer, fasting, zakat, hajj, khums — as well as the obligation of walaya (devotion) to the Imam and Dai.

The 38th Dai administered the mithaq to mumineen throughout his tenure, renewing and deepening the community’s covenant with the dawat and its hidden Imam.

The Ashara Mubaraka: The Community’s Annual Sacred Heart

The most significant communal event of the dawat calendar was — and remains — the Ashara Mubaraka: the ten sacred days of Muharram in which the community gathers to mourn the martyrdom of Imam Husain (SA) and the martyrs of Karbala. The Dai’s waaz (sermon) during Ashara was the single most important teaching occasion of the year: it combined esoteric Quranic interpretation, historical narrative, theological instruction, and the emotional power of collective grief over Imam Husain’s sacrifice.

Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) delivered the Ashara waaz in Jamnagar throughout his tenure. The waaz drew mumineen from across Gujarat and beyond, who travelled to be in the Dai’s presence during the most sacred days of the Ismaili calendar. The combination of intellectual depth, emotional power, and communal solidarity that the Ashara waaz embodied is one of the dawat’s greatest communal achievements — a tradition that binds every generation of Bohras to all previous and future generations through shared devotion to Imam Husain (SA).

Bohra Trading Networks

The Bohra community’s trading networks in the early eighteenth century extended across the Indian Ocean world. Bohra merchants maintained:

• Trading posts in the Persian Gulf ports (Muscat, Hormuz, Basra)
• Communities in East Africa (Zanzibar, Mombasa, Kilwa)
• Connections to Southeast Asian ports (Aceh, Malacca, Surat-connected networks)
• Internal Indian networks linking Gujarat to the Deccan, Rajputana, and the Gangetic plains

The community’s commercial success funded the dawat’s institutional life: the maintenance of masjids, the copying of manuscripts, the support of scholars, the administration of charity (zakat and khums). The 38th Dai’s quiet stability in Jamnagar was in part a function of the prosperity that the community’s trading networks generated.

The merchant ethos of the Bohras was not separate from but integral to their religious identity. Commerce was understood not as a secular distraction from faith but as a form of divinely sanctioned activity through which the mumin provided for family and community, exercised the qualities of honesty and precision that the faith demanded, and generated the resources that sustained the dawat’s mission. The Prophet’s own merchant life was invoked as the model; the Quran’s injunctions about fair dealing and precise weights and measures were cited as divine endorsements of commerce rightly conducted.

Women in the Dawat Community

The Dawoodi Bohra community’s understanding of women’s religious status has always been more inclusive than some other Islamic traditions. Women took the mithaq — the foundational covenant — and were thus full members of the dawat community with access to its esoteric teaching. Women attended and participated in majalis. Women of the Dai’s family were scholars and teachers in their own right.

The wives and daughters of the 38th Dai — including Jivana Baisaheba and Fatema Aai Saheba — were women of the dawat whose learning and devotion contributed to the community’s spiritual life. The Bohra tradition of female scholarship, while not always visible in the external record, was a living reality within the community’s institutions.

Mojezat: The Spiritual Dimensions of the Dai’s Authority

In the Dawoodi Bohra tradition, the Dai al-Mutlaq — as the representative of the Hidden Imam — is understood to possess karamat: the spiritual gifts that flow from divine proximity and that manifest as apparent miracles, answered prayers, and extraordinary guidance. The tradition of recording and transmitting the Dai’s mojezat (miracles) is part of the dawat’s living literature.

Karamat as Testimony

The theological basis for the Dai’s karamat is rooted in the Tayyibi understanding of the walaya: the spiritual authority that flows from the Imam through the Dai to the mumineen. The Quran’s promise — “Inna awliya’ Allahi la khawfun ‘alayhim wa la hum yahzanun” (“Verily, the friends of Allah — no fear shall come upon them, nor shall they grieve”) — is understood as establishing that those who stand in proximity to Allah through the chain of Imams and Dais enjoy divine protection and divine gifts.

Reported in the dawat’s oral and written tradition concerning Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA):

The Prayer of Rain: During a period of severe drought in the Jamnagar region, Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) is reported to have performed a special du’a (supplication) for rain. The rains came shortly afterward, to the relief of the community and the wider population. In the dawat tradition, this is understood as the Dai’s du’a being accepted by Allah through the intercession of the Imam al-Ghayb.

The Guidance in Business: Multiple community members reported that seeking the Dai’s blessing before major commercial ventures resulted in unexpected success, or that heeding the Dai’s counsel preserved them from losses that they later discovered were imminent. These accounts, transmitted within family traditions across generations, testify to the community’s experience of the Dai’s guidance as spiritually efficacious.

The Protection of the Community: In a period of political instability — when various armed powers were moving through Gujarat — the Bohra community in Jamnagar and surrounding towns is reported to have remained untouched by the violence that affected other communities. The dawat’s tradition attributes this to the Dai’s prayers and his skillful navigation of political relationships, both of which were understood as expressions of his spiritual authority.

The Significance of Karamat in Dawat Memory

The recording of karamat is not mere legend-building; it serves a theological function. The dawat teaches that the Imam’s authority is real, that the Dai mediates that authority, and that divine response to the Dai’s prayers is evidence of the chain of authority’s validity. When a mumin hears of a Dai’s karamat, he is being reminded of the reality of the dawat’s claim: that this is not a human institution but a divinely sustained one, whose leadership carries divine favour.

Nurturing the Next Generation: The 38th Dai as Patriarch

Perhaps the most significant legacy of Syedna Ismail Badruddin’s (RA) tenure is the generation of dawat leadership he raised. This patriarchal role — the formation of future Dais — is a responsibility that falls on every Dai, but in the case of the 38th Dai it was particularly consequential.

His Sons and Their Significance

His son Syedna Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin III (RA) would become the 41st Dai al-Mutlaq, serving from approximately 1174 AH / 1760 CE to 1195 AH / 1781 CE. His appointment — some decades after his father’s death — represents the delayed flowering of the 38th Dai’s investment in the next generation. Syedna Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin III (RA) would lead the dawat through the early British colonial era in India, when the Company’s power was becoming increasingly dominant and the Bohra community was navigating a new political reality.

More significantly, Syedna Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin III (RA) was the father of two consecutive Dais: Syedna Yusuf Najmuddin (RA), the 42nd Dai, and Syedna Abdeali Saifuddin (RA), the 43rd Dai. The 43rd Dai Syedna Abdeali Saifuddin (RA) is one of the most celebrated scholars in all of dawat history — a prolific author, a poet of extraordinary gifts, and a leader who guided the community through the most challenging decades of the British Raj.

This means that Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA), the 38th Dai, is the direct ancestor of the 41st, 42nd, and 43rd Dais — a lineage achievement that places him at the root of nearly a century of subsequent dawat leadership. The scholarly and spiritual formation he gave his son Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin — and through him to his grandsons — echoes across the generations.

The Dawat as Intellectual Inheritance

This patriarchal role was not merely biological. The 38th Dai’s most important transmission was intellectual: the texts he read, the teachings he gave, the scholarly environment he maintained in Jamnagar. A son or nephew who grew up in the household of a serious Dai absorbed not only formal lessons but the ethos of dawat service — the conviction that knowledge is sacred, that the mumineen’s spiritual needs are paramount, that the Imam’s hidden presence makes every act of dawat service an act of worship.

The continuity of this transmission — from Dai to student, from father to son, from master to disciple — is the mechanism by which the Fatimid heritage survived the fall of the Caliphate, the years in Yemen, the centuries in India. It is not a bureaucratic continuity but a living one: the continuous creation of human beings who carry the dawat’s knowledge in their hearts and minds and pass it on.

The Wafat of the 38th Dai

Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) passed away on 7 Muharram 1150 AH / 1738 CE in Jamnagar. The date of his death — the 7th of Muharram, one week into the month of the community’s most sacred commemoration of Imam Husain’s martyrdom — carries its own resonance. The Dai died in the opening days of Ashara, during the most sacred time of the Ismaili calendar, a coincidence that the community received as a sign of his closeness to Imam Husain (SA).

His period as Dai had lasted nineteen and a half years — a tenure of quiet faithfulness to the dawat’s mission. During these years, the Mughal Empire had continued its collapse, the Marathas had extended their power, the British East India Company had strengthened its position, and the Bohra community had navigated all of this while maintaining its prayer, its learning, its trading networks, and its covenant with the Hidden Imam.

He left behind a community that was more strongly rooted than he had found it: its scholarly traditions intact, its next generation of leadership forming, its institutions functioning, its mumineen connected through the bonds of mithaq and communal life to the dawat’s living reality.

The Mazaar: Mazar-e-Badri, Jamnagar

Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) was buried in Jamnagar, where his mausoleum — Mazar-e-Badri — became a site of pilgrimage and reverence for the Bohra community. The “Badri” of the name honours his title Badruddin — Full Moon of the Faith — and the luminous symbolism of moonlight guiding the faithful in darkness feels precisely apt for a Dai who kept the dawat’s light steady through the turbulent twilight of Mughal India.

The Significance of Mazar-e-Badri

Mazar-e-Badri in Jamnagar is considered one of the most important pilgrimage sites for Dawoodi Bohras in all of Gujarat. It holds not only the remains of the 38th Dai but is part of the broader sacred landscape of Jamnagar that accumulated over the century during which five successive Dais — from the 34th to the 38th — made the city their home and their final resting place.

For mumineen who visit for ziyarat, the mazaar is a place of spiritual connection — not merely to the deceased Dai as a historical figure, but to the dawat’s living chain of authority. The Dai’s mazaar is understood as a place where du’a is particularly efficacious, where the mumin can feel the proximity of the Imam’s authority mediated through the Dai’s continuing spiritual presence, and where the recitation of salawat and ziyarat poetry creates a sense of communal continuity with all those who have visited before and all who will come after.

The ziyarat formula for the 38th Dai begins with:

اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا مَولَانَا إِسمَاعِيلُ بَدرُ الدِّينِ اِبنَ الشَّيخِ آدَمَ صَفِيِّ الدِّين

As-Salamu alayka ya Mawlana Isma’ilu Badru d-Din ibna sh-Shaykhi Adama Safiyy id-Din

Peace be upon you, O our Master Ismail Badruddin, son of Sheikh Adam Safiyuddin.

The Practice of Ziyarat

The practice of ziyarat — visiting the masjid or mazaar of a Wali of Allah — is among the most cherished devotional practices of the Dawoodi Bohra tradition. Mumineen travel from across the world to perform ziyarat at the marasim of the Dais, seeking barakah (blessing), offering salawat, and renewing their personal connection to the dawat’s chain of authority.

The Jamnagar complex — with its cluster of mazaars from the Jamnagar-era Dais — draws mumineen throughout the year and especially during the community’s sacred seasons. For a Bohra family to perform ziyarat at Mazar-e-Badri is to participate in a tradition of devotion that stretches back centuries: to visit the place where the 38th Dai prayed, taught, and guided the community is to stand in a space saturated with the history of the dawat.

The Transition: The 39th Dai

Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) gave his nass — the sacred designation of his successor — to Syedna Ibrahim Wajiuddin (RA), who became the 39th Dai al-Mutlaq. With this appointment, the era of the Jamnagar Dais came to a close: the 39th Dai would eventually settle in Ujjain, marking a new phase in the dawat’s geographic history.

Ujjain — the ancient sacred city on the Shipra River in Malwa, one of the seven sapta puri of Hindu tradition and a major centre of Mughal and later Maratha power — represented a significant shift in the dawat’s orientation. The move eastward from the Gujarati coast to the Malwan interior reflected the changing political geography of mid-eighteenth-century India and the dawat’s need to maintain relationships with new power centres as the Maratha Confederacy consolidated its hold over central India.

The transition from the 38th to the 39th Dai was smooth: the nass was given, received, and the new Dai took up the responsibilities of leadership. This smoothness was itself a testimony to the 38th Dai’s preparation: the community was stable, the hierarchy was functioning, and the next generation of leadership was ready.

The Historical Context in Full: British India and the Dawat’s Future

The wafat of Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) in 1738 CE came at an inflection point in Indian history. The Battle of Karnal (1739 CE) — in which the Persian ruler Nadir Shah defeated the Mughals and sacked Delhi, carrying away the Peacock Throne — occurred the year after his death. This catastrophe completed the psychological and political destruction of Mughal authority and opened the subcontinent to the full competition of regional powers and external forces.

The British East India Company would, within two decades of the 38th Dai’s death, begin its decisive military and political interventions: the Battle of Plassey (1757), the consolidation of Bengal, and the long process by which a trading company became the de facto ruler of the subcontinent. By the end of the eighteenth century — within the lifetimes of the 38th Dai’s grandsons, the 42nd and 43rd Dais — British power would be the dominant political fact of Indian life.

The Dawoodi Bohra community’s relationship with British colonial power was complex and, in many respects, productive. The British valued the Bohras as commercially sophisticated, literate, and law-abiding subjects whose mercantile networks contributed to the colonial economy. The Bohras, for their part, found in British legal frameworks a degree of protection and stability that the chaotic politics of the late Mughal era had not always provided.

But the colonial era also brought new pressures: English-medium education, the reshaping of commercial law, the gradual erosion of traditional merchant autonomy, and the cultural confrontations of the nineteenth century that would challenge every Indian community’s self-understanding. The foundations that the 38th Dai laid — of scholarly tradition, institutional resilience, and community cohesion — were what enabled the Bohra community to navigate these challenges.

His Legacy: A Meditation on Quiet Faithfulness

Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) does not occupy the legendary status of the great innovators or the great martyrs in the dawat’s history. He was not the first Dai in India, nor the Dai who survived the most dramatic crisis. He was not the scholar who produced the most widely cited texts, nor the Dai whose tenure saw the most remarkable events.

What he was is something perhaps more important: a keeper. In the tradition of the dawat, the keeper is as sacred a role as the innovator. The Imam al-Tayyib remains in occultation, and the Dai’s first duty is to ensure that nothing is lost — that the knowledge is transmitted, the covenant is renewed, the community remains intact — until the Imam’s return. The 38th Dai kept the dawat alive, nurtured its next generation, maintained its scholarly traditions, and passed it on stronger than he had received it.

His title Badruddin — Full Moon of the Faith — is a title not of brilliance but of constancy. The moon does not generate its own light; it reflects the sun’s light to those who walk in darkness. The Dai’s light is the Imam’s light, reflected to the community through the Dai’s presence. The full moon illuminates without burning, guides without blinding, and its constancy — night after night, month after month — is a mercy to those who travel by it.

Syedna Ismail Badruddin II (RA) was such a moon: steady, faithful, full in his illumination of the dawat’s path through dark times. The mumineen who made their way to his majlis in Jamnagar, who renewed their mithaq in his presence, who heard his waaz during the Ashara Mubaraka and wept for Imam Husain (SA) with him — they found in him what every generation of Bohras seeks in their Dai: the living assurance that the chain of guidance has not been broken, that the Imam al-Ghayb is present in his representative, and that the dawat will endure.

اَلرَّحمَةُ وَالرِّضوَانُ عَلَيهِ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَأَصحَابِه

Al-Rahmatu wa r-Ridwanu ‘alayhi wa ‘ala alihi wa ashabi

May Allah’s mercy and pleasure be upon him, upon his family, and upon his companions.

His Salawat

اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا مَولَانَا إِسمَاعِيلُ بَدرُ الدِّينِ الثَّانِي، الدَّاعِي إِلَى اللَّهِ وَالخَلِيفَةُ عَن مَولَانَا الإِمَامِ المُستَور

اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا بَدرَ الفَيضِ وَقَمَرَ الهِدَايَةِ، يَا مَن أَشرَقَ نُورُهُ عَلَى مُؤمِنِي جَمنَغَر

اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا مَن رَبَّى أَولِيَاءَ اللَّهِ، وَأَقَامَ الدَّعوَةَ فِي زَمَنِ الفِتنَةِ وَالاضطِرَاب

اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا مَن نَشَرَ عِلمَ آلِ مُحَمَّدٍ صَلَوَاتُ اللَّهِ عَلَيهِم فِي قُلُوبِ المُؤمِنِين

اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا جَدَّ الدُّعَاةِ الأَكرَمِين، يَا أَصلَ الشَّجَرَةِ الطَّيِّبَة

As-Salamu alayka ya Mawlana Isma’ilu Badru d-Dini th-Thani, ad-Da’i ila llahi wa l-Khalifatu ‘an Mawlana l-Imam al-Mastur

As-Salamu alayka ya Badra l-Faydi wa Qamara l-Hidayati, ya man ashraqа nuruhu ‘ala mu’mini Jamnaghara

As-Salamu alayka ya man rabba awliya’a llahi, wa aqama d-Da’wata fi zamani l-fitnati wa l-idtirab

As-Salamu alayka ya man nashara ‘ilma Ali Muhammadin salawatu llahi ‘alayhim fi qulubi l-mu’minin

As-Salamu alayka ya jadda d-Du’ati l-akramin, ya asla sh-Shajarati t-Tayyiba

Peace be upon you, O our Master Ismail Badruddin II, the Dai unto Allah and the Vicegerent of our Master the Hidden Imam.

Peace be upon you, O Full Moon of Bounty and Moon of Guidance, O one whose light shone upon the mumineen of Jamnagar.

Peace be upon you, O one who raised the awliya of Allah, and upheld the dawat in times of trial and upheaval.

Peace be upon you, O one who spread the knowledge of the House of Muhammad — Allah’s blessings upon them — in the hearts of the faithful.

Peace be upon you, O grandfather of the noble Dais, O root of the blessed Tree.

اَللَّهُمَّ ارحَم مَولَانَا إِسمَاعِيلَ بَدرَ الدِّينِ الثَّانِي وَارزُقنَا زِيَارَتَهُ وَشَفَاعَتَهُ وَبَرَكَتَهُ، وَاجمَعنَا بِهِ وَبِإِمَامِنَا المُستَورِ يَومَ يَقُومُ الأَمر

O Allah, have mercy on our Master Ismail Badruddin II, and grant us his ziyarat, his intercession, and his blessing, and gather us with him and with our Hidden Imam on the Day when the Imam appears.

Quick Reference

See also: Dai Al Mutlaq Institution, Dawoodi Bohra Dais In Gujarat, Mazar E Badri Jamnagar, Noor Mohammed Nooruddin 37th Dai, Ibrahim Wajiuddin 39th Dai, Dawud Burhanuddin 27th Dai Dawoodi Sulaimani Split, Qutubkhan Qutubuddin 32nd Dai Al Shahid, Ismail Badruddin I 34th Dai, Abduttayyeb Zakiuddin Iii 41st Dai, Fatimid Dawat Heritage, Bohra Trading Communities Gujarat, Mughal Bohra Relations