Bohra Jamat of Dhaka / Bangladesh

The Bohra community of Dhaka has roots in the long commercial connections between the Gujarati merchant world and the Bengal delta. Bohras were among the Indian traders who established themselves in Dhaka — then Dacca — during the Mughal period, when the city was a major centre of muslin textile production and trade. The community in what is now Bangladesh maintained its Ismaili-Tayyibi identity through the British colonial period, the Partition of 1947 (which made them part of East Pakistan), and the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971. The experience of the Dhaka Bohra jamat through the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War was particularly difficult; the community's survival and continuity is itself a testimony to the resilience of the Dawat's bonds of walayah. The jamat observes the full Bohra religious calendar including Ashara Mubaraka and maintains a masjid in the city.