Syedna Dawood Burhanuddin ibn Qutubshah (RA) — 27th Dai al-Mutlaq: The Naming of the Community

The Man Whose Name Became a Nation

There are figures in history who are remembered for what they did. And there are figures whose very name becomes the identity of a people — whose existence is so central, so defining, so permanent, that centuries after their passing, millions of human beings introduce themselves to strangers using that name as their own. Syedna Dawood Burhanuddin ibn Qutubshah (RA), the 27th Dai al-Mutlaq, is such a figure.

The Dawoodi Bohras — one of the great Ismaili Tayyibi Muslim communities of South Asia and the world, numbering in the millions today — carry his name. They have carried it for over four hundred years. They will carry it until the Imam al-Tayyib (AS) emerges from his occultation and the era of the Dais comes to its divinely appointed end. No other individual in the post-Fatimid era of the Dawat has had his personal name so permanently and universally adopted as the name of an entire religious community. This fact alone marks the 27th Dai as one of the most historically consequential figures the Dawat has produced.

But who was he? What were the circumstances of his life and tenure? What forces did he navigate, what battles did he fight, what communities did he build, what legacy did he leave behind that justified — indeed, necessitated — this extraordinary naming? And what is the theological meaning of a community naming itself for its Dai?

This article is the full account. It is written for the student of Dawat history, for the Bohra who wishes to understand why she carries the name she does, for the researcher who wants more than a summary, and for the mumin who sits in the raudat tahera of any of his mazars and wishes to know, fully and properly, in whose presence he sits.

His Full Name and Laqab

His name is Syedna Dawood Burhanuddin ibn Qutubshah al-Hindi (RA).

• Dawood (دَاوُود) — his personal name, the Arabic form of the Hebrew David, the name of the Prophet-King who received the Zabur, the man of whom Allah said in the Quran: “يَا دَاوُودُ إِنَّا جَعَلنَاكَ خَلِيفَةً فِي الأَرضِ” — “O Dawood, We have made you a vicegerent on the earth” (Surah Sad 38:26). For the Ismaili theological tradition, this verse has resonance far beyond its literal context: the khalifa on earth is a recurring concept, and the hidden Imam’s Dai, as the Imam’s deputy, carries something of that meaning forward.

• Burhanuddin (بُرهَانُ الدِّينِ) — his laqab, his honorific title, meaning “the proof of religion” or “the demonstration of the faith.” The Arabic burhan (برهان) means a clear proof, an argument that establishes a conclusion beyond reasonable doubt — a term beloved in Islamic philosophy and jurisprudence. As the 27th Dai, this title was his established designation: he was the burhan of the Dawat, the living demonstration that the faith of the Imam continued to be embodied in a legitimate representative.

• Ibn Qutubshah (بنُ قُطبشَاه) — son of Qutubshah, identifying his lineage through his father. The name Qutub (قُطب) means “axis” or “pole” — in Sufi and Ismaili cosmology, the qutb is the spiritual axis of the age, the figure around whom the cosmos of gnosis revolves. The name Qutubshah (“king of the axis”) was a title of spiritual honor. His father was a man of standing in the Dawat world.

• Al-Hindi — the Indian, distinguishing him from Dais of Arabian origin. He was a Bohra of India — born, raised, educated, and active in the Indian subcontinent. His very title signals the Dawat’s migration: from the Arabian heartland to the Indian subcontinent, where it would flourish in a new form.

Lineage and Family

The family of Syedna Dawood Burhanuddin (RA) was embedded in the scholarly and devotional world of the Indian Dawat. His father Qutubshah was not himself a Dai but was a man of learning and piety connected to the circles of Dawat knowledge in Gujarat.

The Bohra families of the sixteenth century who produced scholars and religious figures were typically merchant families who combined commercial activity with religious learning — a pattern that would remain characteristic of the Bohra community for centuries. Trade and tawil (esoteric interpretation of scripture) coexisted in the same household. A man might spend his mornings at the market and his evenings in the company of Dawat scholars, his children receiving instruction in Arabic, in the sciences of the Dawat, in the traditions of the Fatimid heritage.

His family roots were in the networks of the Indian Bohra merchant community — the families of Gujarat who had converted to the Tayyibi Ismaili faith in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries through the efforts of the great Yemeni missionaries and their Indian agents, and who had built over the following centuries a dense, interconnected community bound by faith, commerce, and the leadership of successive Dais.

The 27th Dai was, in every sense, a son of this community: his education, his sensibility, his understanding of what the community needed, his network of relationships — all of these were shaped by his upbringing within the Bohra world of Gujarat.

Historical Context: The World of Mughal India

To understand the 27th Dai, one must understand the world he inhabited. That world was Mughal India in the late sixteenth century — one of the most historically rich and complex environments in the early modern world.

The Mughal Empire at Its Zenith

The Mughals were a dynasty of Timurid-Mongol origin who had established their rule over northern and central India beginning with Babur’s victory at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526. By the time Syedna Dawood Burhanuddin (RA) assumed the position of 27th Dai in 999 AH / 1591 CE, the Mughal Empire was under the rule of Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) — the third and arguably the greatest of the Mughal emperors — and was at or near the peak of its power and territorial extent.

Akbar’s empire stretched from Kabul in the northwest to Bengal in the east, from Kashmir in the north to the Deccan in the south. Its administration was sophisticated, its military was the most formidable in Asia, and its court was one of the most culturally brilliant in the Islamic world. Akbar himself was a figure of extraordinary personal complexity: a military genius, an administrative reformer, a patron of the arts and of intellectual exchange across religious traditions, a man who had convened famous debates between scholars of Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, and Christianity.

Gujarat — the heartland of the Bohra community — had been incorporated into the Mughal Empire in 1572, when Akbar personally led a lightning campaign to suppress the revolt of the Gujarat nobility. This incorporation of Gujarat was enormously consequential for the Bohras. It meant that:

1. The Bohra community came under the jurisdiction and protection of the most powerful empire in Asia.
2. The commercial networks of the Bohra merchants, centered in Surat, Ahmedabad, Cambay, and Burhanpur, were now embedded within the vast Mughal economic space.
3. Any dispute within the Bohra community could, in principle, be brought before Mughal courts for adjudication — a reality that would become directly relevant to the succession dispute of 1589–1597.

The Economic World of the Bohra Merchants

The Bohra merchant community of the sixteenth century was one of the most economically active trading communities in western India. Their commercial networks extended across the Indian Ocean world:

Surat — by the late sixteenth century, the premier port of western India, the gateway through which the produce of the Mughal heartland flowed to the markets of Arabia, Persia, East Africa, and Southeast Asia. The Bohra merchants of Surat were deeply embedded in this trade. They exported textiles — the famous Indian cotton and silk goods that were the great luxury commodities of the age — and imported luxury goods, spices, horses, and the precious metals that fueled the Mughal economy.

Ahmedabad — the capital of the Gujarat province, one of the great cities of the Mughal world, a center of textile production and trade. The Bohra community had a substantial presence here; several of the Dais of this era, including the 27th Dai himself, lived and died in Ahmedabad.

Burhanpur — a city in the Khandesh region of central India (modern Madhya Pradesh) that was, in this period, an important node in the commercial networks linking Gujarat with the Deccan and with the eastern Mughal territories. The name Burhanpur — “city of the proof” — was itself resonant for the Bohra community, and the city would figure prominently in Dawat history for several centuries.

Cambay (Khambhat) — an ancient port city on the Gulf of Khambhat, historically one of the most important entrepôts of western India, though by the late sixteenth century beginning to be overshadowed by Surat due to silting of its harbor.

Sidhpur — a town in northern Gujarat associated particularly with the Bohra community, containing important religious institutions.

These trading communities maintained their religious identity through a combination of community endogamy, shared religious practice organized around the Dawat hierarchy, and the system of the misaq (the covenant of allegiance renewed with each new Dai) that bound every adult Bohra to the Dai’s authority.

The Religious World of the Era

The religious world of Mughal India in the late sixteenth century was extraordinarily complex. The Mughal Empire was predominantly Sunni Muslim in its official orientation, but it governed a majority-Hindu population and contained substantial minorities of Shia Muslims, Ismailis, Sufis of various orders, Jains, Zoroastrians, and — especially after the arrival of the Portuguese — Christians.

Akbar’s famous policy of sulh-i-kull (“peace with all”) created an environment of unusual religious tolerance and intellectual exchange. The Bohra community, as a Shia Ismaili group, benefited from this policy. They were able to practice their faith openly, maintain their religious institutions, and adjudicate their internal disputes through their own communal mechanisms — subject only to imperial oversight in cases where imperial intervention was sought.

The Sulaimani challenge — the dispute over the 27th Dai’s succession that will be described in detail below — was conducted within this environment of Mughal imperial oversight. The fact that it was brought to Akbar’s court for adjudication is itself a sign of how integrated the Bohra community was into the Mughal imperial system.

The Chain of Dais: His Immediate Predecessors

To understand the 27th Dai’s position in the chain, one must know the sequence of Dais who preceded him in India.

The 24th Dai: Syedna Yusuf Najmuddin (RA)

The 24th Dai al-Mutlaq, Syedna Yusuf Najmuddin (RA), who passed away in 974 AH / 1567 CE, was one of the pivotal figures in the Dawat’s Indian chapter. It was during his tenure that the permanent shift of the Dawat’s center from Yemen to India was consolidated. He established the institutional framework of the Indian Dawat in a way that his predecessors had not been able to — partly because the political and social conditions in India were now more stable, and partly because the Bohra merchant community had grown large enough and prosperous enough to support the full infrastructure of a major religious institution.

The 25th Dai: Syedna Jalal ibn Hasan (RA)

The 25th Dai al-Mutlaq, Syedna Jalal ibn Hasan (RA), served from 974 AH / 1567 CE to 975 AH / 1567 CE — a tenure of less than a year, one of the shortest in the history of the Dawat. He passed quickly, and his tenure left little historical record beyond the fact of its brevity.

The 26th Dai: Syedna Dawood ibn Ajabshah (RA)

The 26th Dai al-Mutlaq, Syedna Dawood ibn Ajabshah (RA), served from 975 AH / 1567 CE to 997 AH / 1589 CE — a tenure of some twenty-two years. His is a critically important figure in the chain because it is his deathbed nass — the question of to whom it was directed — that became the center of the Dawoodi-Sulaimani dispute.

In the Dawoodi tradition, the account is clear and unambiguous: before his death, Syedna Dawood ibn Ajabshah (RA) conferred the nass al-jaliy — the explicit, public, witnessed designation of succession — upon Syedna Dawood ibn Qutubshah (RA), who thus became the lawful 27th Dai. This nass was witnessed by the senior figures of the Dawat present at that time. There was no ambiguity; there was no secrecy; there was no dispute in the immediate aftermath of the 26th Dai’s death.

The 26th Dai passed away in Ahmedabad in 997 AH / 1589 CE, in an era when Akbar’s empire was at its most powerful and the Bohra community was at a period of substantial growth and prosperity.

The Nass and the Assumption of the 27th Position

The nass (نَصّ) — the explicit, binding declaration of succession — is the theological and legal foundation of the entire Dawat institution. Without a valid nass, there is no Dai; without a Dai, there is no connection between the community and the hidden Imam; without that connection, the community is spiritually adrift.

The Tayyibi theological tradition holds that the Imam al-Tayyib (AS), in his occultation (ghaybat), is in contact with his Dai through a channel of divine knowledge (‘ilm) that transcends ordinary communication. The Imam knows who his next Dai should be, and this knowledge is transmitted to each Dai, who then confers the nass accordingly. The nass is thus not a merely human decision; it is the Imam’s will, expressed through the medium of the outgoing Dai.

When Syedna Dawood ibn Ajabshah (RA) conferred the nass upon Syedna Dawood ibn Qutubshah (RA), he was transmitting the Imam’s own designation. The witnesses to this nass — the senior members of the Dawat who were present — became the guarantors of its authenticity. And when Syedna Dawood ibn Qutubshah (RA) assumed the position of 27th Dai, he did so not as a candidate who had campaigned for the position, not as a successor chosen by a council, but as the one whom the Imam had designated through the outgoing Dai’s nass.

In 999 AH / 1591 CE, Syedna Dawood Burhanuddin ibn Qutubshah (RA) formally assumed the position of 27th Dai al-Mutlaq of the Tayyibi Ismaili Dawat. The assumption of this position was, in the tradition’s understanding, the Imam’s own act expressed through the chain of legitimate succession.

The Great Schism: The Dawoodi-Sulaimani Dispute

The Theological Stakes of a Disputed Nass

To understand the Dawoodi-Sulaimani schism — the event that gave the community its name — one must first understand what is at stake theologically when the validity of a nass is disputed.

In the Tayyibi Ismaili tradition, the Dai al-Mutlaq is not elected, not appointed by a council, not chosen by the community. He is designated by nass — the explicit, binding declaration of succession by the outgoing Dai, made in the knowledge (transmitted through the chain from the Imam) of who the Imam wishes to see as his next representative. The nass is not merely a legal instrument; it is a theological event. It transmits the Imam’s ‘ilm, walayah, and authority to the next Dai. Without valid nass, there is no Dai.

This means that when two individuals claim the position simultaneously — each asserting that the outgoing Dai’s nass was directed to himself — the community is faced with an impossible-seeming choice. And the theological stakes could not be higher: to follow a false Dai is not merely a political mistake; it is to be disconnected from the Imam’s living guidance, to have one’s misaq misdirected, and to be outside the chain of truth that connects the community to its Imam.

This is why the schism of 1589–1592 was not a minor dispute that reasonable people could shrug off. It was an existential question: Who is the real 27th Dai? And the answer had to be determined with certainty.

Who Was Sulayman ibn Hasan?

Sulayman ibn Hasan was not an obscure outsider. He was a figure of learning and standing within the Tayyibi world — connected to the Dawat through his lineage and his knowledge of the tradition. According to Sulaimani tradition, he was a descendant of the 24th Dai Syedna Yusuf Najmuddin (RA) through a collateral line. He was based primarily in Yemen — where the Dawat had historically been centered before its shift to India — and commanded respect among the Yemeni segment of the Tayyibi community.

The Sulaimani account of the succession is as follows: the 26th Dai, Syedna Dawood ibn Ajabshah (RA), had — before his more public designations — conferred the nass privately upon Sulayman ibn Hasan. This private nass, known only to Sulayman himself, was the true and valid succession. Dawood ibn Qutubshah’s assumption of the position was therefore an invalid usurpation, however well-intentioned or widely accepted.

The Timeline of the Dispute

997 AH / 1589 CE: The 26th Dai, Syedna Dawood ibn Ajabshah (RA), passes away in Ahmedabad. Syedna Dawood ibn Qutubshah (RA) assumes the 27th Dai position on the basis of his witnessed nass. The succession is, in the immediate aftermath, not publicly contested.

~999-1000 AH / 1591-1592 CE: Two to three years after the 26th Dai’s death, Sulayman ibn Hasan — based in Yemen — formally asserts his claim to the 27th Dai position. He presents his account of the alleged private nass from the 26th Dai. The Tayyibi world is now divided.

The division follows, broadly, a geographical line: the Indian community — the vast majority of the Tayyibi faithful in numbers and in institutional strength — remains with Syedna Dawood ibn Qutubshah (RA). The Yemeni segment of the community, smaller in number, largely aligns with Sulayman ibn Hasan. This geographical split reflects both the strength of Syedna Dawood’s personal authority in India and the distance of the Yemeni community from the events of the Indian Dawat.

1005 AH / 1597 CE: The dispute is brought before the court of Emperor Akbar. A formal tribunal is convened to evaluate the competing claims. Both sides present their evidence. The tribunal deliberates. And the verdict, when it comes, is in favor of Syedna Dawood Burhanuddin ibn Qutubshah (RA).

1021 AH / 1612 CE: Syedna Dawood Burhanuddin (RA) passes away in Ahmedabad, having led the community for twenty-four years. He is succeeded by the 28th Dai, Syedna Shaykh Adam Safiuddin (RA). The Dawoodi chain continues unbroken. The Sulaimani community, under Sulayman ibn Hasan and his successors, continues separately.

The Dawoodi Theological Response to the Sulaimani Claim

The Dawoodi tradition’s response to the Sulaimani claim is not merely political or polemical. It is grounded in a coherent theological framework:

First — the requirement of witness: The nass is not a private transaction. It is a theological event that must be witnessed, testified to, and known. A nass known only to its alleged recipient — with no witnesses, no corroborating testimony, no contemporaneous acknowledgment — cannot be accepted. The entire mechanism of the nass depends on its being verifiable. A secret nass is a contradiction in terms: it cannot be authenticated, it cannot be transmitted to the community, and it cannot serve the purpose for which the nass exists, which is to provide the community with certain knowledge of its legitimate Dai.

Second — the initial acknowledgment: Dawoodi sources record that Sulayman ibn Hasan himself, in the immediate aftermath of the 26th Dai’s death, sent condolences and acknowledgments to Syedna Dawood ibn Qutubshah (RA) — acts that are understood in the tradition as implicit recognition of his legitimacy. The subsequent assertion of an independent claim, several years later, is understood as a reversal without theological foundation.

Third — the community’s recognition: The vast majority of the Tayyibi community — the faithful of India who had lived under the Dawat for generations, who knew the senior figures of the Dawat, who had witnessed the events surrounding the 26th Dai’s death — recognized Syedna Dawood ibn Qutubshah (RA) without division. The Dawoodi tradition holds that the Imam does not allow his community to be deceived about its own Dai. The community’s collective recognition, guided by the Imam’s unseen hand, is itself a testimony to the truth.

Fourth — the Mughal verdict: The imperial tribunal’s ruling in favor of Syedna Dawood (RA) is cited not merely as a political outcome but as a manifestation of the divine ordering of worldly events in support of truth. The Imam’s care for his community extends to arranging the historical circumstances — including the ruling of a powerful and legally sophisticated Mughal court — in ways that protect and vindicate his Dawat.

The Sulaimani Community: A Note of Respect

The Sulaimani Bohras — the community that followed Sulayman ibn Hasan — are not, in the Dawoodi understanding, wicked people or people of bad faith. They are Tayyibi Muslims who made a choice that the Dawoodi community believes was a mistaken one, based on a claim that the Dawoodi tradition holds to be without valid foundation. They share with the Dawoodi Bohras the same foundational heritage: the Fatimid Imamate, the Tayyibi tradition, the heritage of the great Dais and scholars from Mawlana al-Muayyad fi’l-Din al-Shirazi to Syedna Husayn ibn Ali. Their chain of Dais traces from Sulayman ibn Hasan to the present day.

The Sulaimani community is smaller in number than the Dawoodi community and has historically been centered in Yemen and parts of the Indian subcontinent. The two communities have coexisted, separately, for over four centuries.

Why the Name “Dawoodi”?

The name Dawoodi — “followers of Dawood” — emerged from this dispute in a specific and permanent way. When the Tayyibi community was divided between those who followed Syedna Dawood ibn Qutubshah (RA) and those who followed Sulayman ibn Hasan, the two groups needed ways to distinguish themselves. The larger group — the followers of the 27th Dai — became known as the Dawudiyya (دَاوُودِيَّة) in Arabic, or the Dawoodi Bohras in the vernacular Indian languages.

The name is, at its simplest, a statement of allegiance: we are those who follow Dawood, not Sulayman. But it is more than a historical label. It is a theological statement embedded in a name that has been carried by millions of people for over four hundred years. Every Dawoodi Bohra who introduces herself as a “Dawoodi Bohra” is, in that act, reaffirming the legitimacy of the 27th Dai and the Dawat he led. The name is a living testimony.

There is also a poignant resonance in the Quranic background of the name. Dawood (David) in the Quran is a prophet-king, a khalifa on earth, a man to whom Allah gave both wisdom (hikma) and the ability to judge between people (fasl al-khitab — “decisive speech,” 38:20). He is also a man who faced trials, who was called to justice, who was tested and vindicated. These Quranic echoes are not incidental to how the community has understood its own Dai and its own naming.

The Mughal Court: The Imperial Tribunal of 1597

The adjudication of the Dawoodi-Sulaimani dispute before Emperor Akbar’s court in 1005 AH / 1597 CE is one of the most historically remarkable episodes in the history of the Dawat.

Emperor Akbar and Religious Diversity

Jalal al-Din Muhammad Akbar (1542–1605) was the third Mughal emperor and, by any measure, one of the most extraordinary rulers of the early modern world. His policy of religious tolerance — articulated in principle and practiced in administration — made his court a place where questions of religious legitimacy could be raised and adjudicated without the automatic presumption that one tradition was superior to another.

Akbar had established, beginning in the 1570s, a series of famous ‘ibadatkhana (houses of worship) debates at his capital in Fatehpur Sikri, where scholars of different religious traditions — Sunni, Shia, Sufi, Hindu, Jain, Zoroastrian, and later Christian — were invited to present their beliefs and engage in dialogue. These debates, which continued for years, reflect Akbar’s genuine intellectual curiosity and his willingness to engage with religious claims on their merits rather than simply asserting the superiority of the established orthodoxy.

It was in this atmosphere that the Bohra succession dispute was brought to the imperial court. Akbar was not simply a political arbiter asked to suppress a troublesome minority dispute; he was a ruler who took religious questions seriously and who had the institutional capacity to evaluate complex claims about religious legitimacy.

The Presentation of Evidence

Both sides — the Dawoodi and the nascent Sulaimani community — presented their cases to the imperial tribunal. The evidence considered included:

Testimony of witnesses: The senior figures of the Dawat who had been present at the time of the 26th Dai’s death and had witnessed the nass of Syedna Dawood ibn Qutubshah (RA) gave their testimony. Their accounts, consistent and mutually corroborating, were a central element of the Dawoodi case.

Documentary evidence: The Dawat maintained records of religious and administrative decisions. Documents relating to the succession — correspondence, formal acknowledgments, records of religious transactions — were presented.

The evidence of community recognition: The fact that the overwhelming majority of the Indian Bohra community — thousands of families across dozens of towns — had recognized Syedna Dawood ibn Qutubshah (RA) without division or uncertainty was itself presented as evidence. The community’s lived experience of the succession was not mere sentiment; it was testimony to the unambiguous nature of the nass.

The account of Sulayman’s initial acknowledgment: The evidence that Sulayman ibn Hasan had initially sent condolences and recognition to Syedna Dawood (RA), before subsequently asserting his own claim, was presented as fundamentally undermining the credibility of the Sulaimani position.

The Verdict and the Farman

The tribunal ruled in favor of Syedna Dawood Burhanuddin ibn Qutubshah (RA).

Emperor Akbar issued a farman — an imperial decree — recognizing Syedna Dawood (RA) as the legitimate 27th Dai and guaranteeing the Dawoodi community’s religious freedoms. The farman granted:

• Recognition of Syedna Dawood ibn Qutubshah (RA) as the legitimate religious leader of the Bohra community.
• Protection for the community’s religious practices, institutions, and endowments.
• The right to collect religious dues and to exercise communal authority according to their religious law.
• Imperial protection against interference from those who would challenge the community’s religious order.

The significance of this farman cannot be overstated. It meant that the Dawoodi community could practice its faith under imperial protection — that the full weight of the most powerful empire in Asia stood behind the legitimacy of the 27th Dai. For a merchant community whose prosperity depended on operating within the Mughal imperial system, this was not merely a religious vindication but a practical guarantee of continued flourishing.

The Dawat tradition understands this outcome as the Imam’s care made manifest through worldly events. The Imam, in his occultation, does not abandon his community; he arranges the circumstances of history in their favor. The Mughal verdict was, in this understanding, the Imam’s protection expressed through the medium of a powerful and legally sophisticated imperial court.

The Dawat Under the 27th Dai: Building the Community

The twenty-four years of Syedna Dawood Burhanuddin’s tenure (999–1021 AH / 1591–1612 CE) were years of institution-building, consolidation, and deepening. He faced the extraordinary challenge of the schism and emerged from it vindicated; but the work of the Dai is not only to defend against external challenges. It is to build and sustain the inner life of the community.

Administrative Consolidation of the Indian Dawat

The Dawat’s institutional infrastructure in India had been developing since the tenure of the earlier Indian-based Dais. By the time of the 27th Dai, the broad outlines of the administrative system were in place, but they needed deepening, formalization, and extension.

The Dawat’s administrative structure, even in this period, reflected the hierarchical order (hudud) of the Tayyibi tradition. Below the Dai al-Mutlaq, the community was served by a hierarchy of religious functionaries: the ma’dhun (licensed scholar), the mukasir (breaker of the shells of exoteric knowledge for initiates), the liqab (title-holders of various ranks), and the shaykh and mulla (local religious leaders) who served in each major town and locality. This hierarchy ensured that every major Bohra community, however geographically distant from Ahmedabad or Surat, had access to religious leadership, religious education, and the sacraments of the Dawat.

The 27th Dai worked to formalize and deepen this hierarchy across the Indian Bohra world. Appointments were made with care; the training of religious functionaries was maintained; the lines of communication between the Dai and his representatives across the dispersed community were strengthened.

Scholarly Life and the Transmission of ‘Ilm

The inner life of the Dawat — its scholarly tradition, its transmission of the ‘ilm that the Imam had entrusted to the Dais — continued and deepened during the 27th Dai’s tenure.

The Tayyibi tradition possesses a rich corpus of knowledge: the philosophical and theological works of the Fatimid era, the tawil (esoteric interpretation) of the Quran and of religious observances, the legal tradition of Shia Ismaili fiqh, the biographical and historical literature of the Dawat, and the devotional literature — the qasidas and marthiyas — that formed the community’s emotional and spiritual life. This corpus was maintained, transmitted, copied, and studied during the Dawat’s Indian centuries.

The 27th Dai, as the holder of the Imam’s ‘ilm, was the ultimate guarantor and transmitter of this knowledge. His role was not merely administrative but deeply scholarly: he was the one in whom the chain of sacred knowledge reached its living embodiment, and from whom it was transmitted to the next generation of learned men in the Dawat.

The majlis (scholarly gathering) and the dars (lesson, teaching session) were the institutional forms through which this transmission occurred. The Dai and the senior figures of the Dawat would gather for study, for the recitation and explanation of texts, for the discussion of questions arising from the practice of the faith. These gatherings — intensified during the holy months of Muharram and Ramadan, and on the occasions of the religious calendar — maintained the community’s connection to its intellectual heritage.

The Religious Calendar and Community Life

The Bohra community’s religious calendar in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was organized around the same great occasions that continue to define Bohra life today:

Muharram and the commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Husayn ibn Ali (AS) at Karbala — the central event of the Shia religious calendar, observed with great intensity by the Bohra community. The marthiya (elegy) for the Imam Husayn, the majlis al-‘aza (assembly of mourning), the nawha (lamentation) — all of these were central to the emotional and spiritual life of the community in the 27th Dai’s era as they are today.

Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha — the two great festivals of the Islamic year, observed with the particular liturgical forms of the Dawat.

Milad al-Nabi — the commemoration of the Prophet Muhammad’s birth.

Laylat al-Qadr — the Night of Power in the month of Ramadan, observed with particular intensity.

Shab-e-Barat — the night of the middle of Sha’ban, a night of prayer and remembrance.

The wafat (death anniversary) and milad (birth anniversary) of significant Dais and Imams — these occasions, which fill the Bohra religious calendar throughout the year, were observed with majalis (gatherings), tilawat (recitation of sacred texts), and communal prayer.

The Dawat under the 27th Dai maintained the full richness of this calendar in the Indian context — adapting the forms where necessary to the Indian environment while preserving their essential spiritual content.

The Bohra Merchant Community: Faith and Commerce

The Bohra merchant community of the sixteenth century lived a richly textured life in which religious practice and commercial activity were interwoven in ways that are difficult for the modern secular imagination to fully appreciate.

The merchant’s day began with prayer. The Fajr prayer at dawn, the Zuhr prayer at midday, the Asr prayer in the afternoon, the Maghrib prayer at sunset, the Isha prayer at night — these five prayers structured the day’s rhythm, providing regular interruptions to commercial activity for the remembrance of Allah. The Dawat’s distinctive forms of prayer — which preserve ancient liturgical elements going back to the Fatimid era — gave these prayers a character that was specifically Tayyibi, specifically Ismaili, specifically theirs.

The market (bazaar) was not a secular space for the Bohra merchant but a space in which religious norms applied: norms of honest dealing, of fair measurement, of truthful representation, of contract-keeping. The Ismaili tradition’s emphasis on the zahir (the outer, exoteric) and the batin (the inner, esoteric) applied in commerce as in theology: the honest transaction was not merely legally required but was a spiritual act, an expression of the faith in the world.

The Bohra merchant carried his faith with him on his travels — across the ports of the Indian Ocean, into the markets of Arabia and East Africa, along the trade routes that connected Surat and Ahmedabad to the rest of the world. He prayed in whatever mosque or private space was available, observed his dietary laws (the Bohra tradition has its own rules of halal practice), and maintained his connection to the Dawat through correspondence and, when possible, through visits to the Dai or to local Dawat representatives.

The wealth of these merchants was also a resource for the Dawat. The nazrana (religious offering to the Dai), the zakat, the waqf (religious endowment) — these financial mechanisms channeled mercantile wealth into the maintenance of the religious institution, the support of scholars, the upkeep of mosques and mausoleums, and the relief of the community’s poor.

His Scholarly Works and Intellectual Legacy

The scholarly output of the Dais of this era — the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries — is less extensively documented than that of the great Fatimid-era Dais or of some of their Yemeni successors. This is partly a matter of historical record-keeping, partly a matter of the circumstances of the Indian Dawat, which was focused in this period on institutional consolidation and community-building rather than on the production of major new theological treatises.

However, the 27th Dai is understood within the tradition as the bearer and transmitter of the ‘ilm — the sacred knowledge of the Dawat — in its full form. His scholarly role was primarily that of the muallim (teacher) and the murabbi (nurturer) rather than the prolific author. The Dawat’s knowledge was transmitted through him to the next generation of learned figures, and through them to the generation after, in the unbroken chain of transmission that continues to the present day.

The tradition credits him with:

• The continued transmission and teaching of the rasail (treatises) of the great Fatimid-era scholars, particularly the works of Syedna al-Muayyad fi’l-Din al-Shirazi (RA) (the great da’i and scholar of the Fatimid era whose Majalis al-Muayyad and Diwan remain foundational texts of the tradition).

• The maintenance and instruction in the Tayyibi tradition of tawil al-Quran — the esoteric interpretation of the Quran as practiced in the Ismaili tradition, which understands each verse of the Quran to have both an outward meaning (zahir) accessible to all and an inner meaning (batin) known to those who have received proper initiation and instruction.

• Instruction in the fiqh (jurisprudence) of the Dawat — the legal tradition that governs the religious life of the community, including matters of prayer, purity, marriage, inheritance, and commercial dealings.

• The composition of qasidas (odes) and devotional poetry in the tradition of the Dawat — contributing to the rich literary heritage of Dawat Arabic and Lisani al-Dawat poetry that has been a vehicle for theological expression and community devotion across the centuries.

Mojezat: The Miracles of the 27th Dai

The Dawat tradition records mojezat (Arabic: mu’jizat, miracles; more precisely in the Dawat context karamat, the miraculous gifts of a wali) associated with the 27th Dai. These accounts, preserved in the oral and written tradition of the community, are understood not as violations of natural law but as manifestations of the Imam’s baraka (blessing and divine grace) flowing through his representative.

The Miracle of the Drought and the Rain

One account preserved in the tradition recounts that during a period of severe drought affecting the Gujarat region during the 27th Dai’s tenure, the Bohra community of a particular town appealed to him in their distress. He offered special prayers (du’a) for rain. The drought broke soon thereafter, and the community understood this as a manifestation of the Dai’s baraka and of the Imam’s care for his people expressed through the Dai’s intercession.

The theological significance of this account: in the Tayyibi tradition, the Dai is not merely an administrator but a spiritual reality — a hujja (proof and manifestation) of the Imam in the world of the zahir. The Imam’s baraka reaches the community through the Dai; prayer through the Dai reaches the Imam. This vertical chain of spiritual causation means that the Dai’s du’a has a quality that ordinary du’a does not possess — it is connected, through the chain of the hudud, to the spiritual reality of the Imam and, through him, to the divine source.

The Miracle of the Imperial Verdict

The Dawat tradition itself understands the outcome of the Mughal tribunal as a kind of miracle — not in the sense of a violation of natural law, but in the sense of divine providence arranging historical circumstances in support of the truth. The fact that the most powerful emperor in Asia, through a formal legal process, vindicated Syedna Dawood’s claim — when this vindication was far from inevitable and depended on the presentation of evidence that only the true Dai could provide — is understood as the Imam’s hand at work in history.

This understanding of historical events as manifestations of divine care is characteristic of the Tayyibi tradition. The Imam is hidden (mastour) but not absent; his care for his community continues in occultation, expressed through the medium of worldly events — including the rulings of courts, the decisions of rulers, and the course of history itself.

The Miracle of Community Preservation

Perhaps the greatest miracle associated with the 27th Dai is the one most difficult to see because it is so large: the preservation and consolidation of the Dawoodi community through the crisis of the schism. A succession dispute in a small religious community in sixteenth-century India, adjudicated by an emperor known for his tolerance of religious difference — this could easily have ended in the permanent fragmentation of the Tayyibi tradition in India. It did not. The community emerged from the crisis intact, consolidated, and named in a way that has defined it ever since.

The tradition attributes this preservation to the Imam’s guidance working through his Dai. The Imam does not allow his community to be lost; the 27th Dai was the instrument of that preservation.

Ahmedabad: The City of the Dawat

The city of Ahmedabad — founded in 1411 CE by Sultan Ahmed Shah of the Muzaffarid dynasty of Gujarat and named for him — was the capital of the Gujarat Sultanate and, after 1572, the provincial capital of Mughal Gujarat. It was one of the greatest cities of India in the sixteenth century: a center of textile production, of scholarly culture, of architectural magnificence, and of commercial life.

For the Bohra community, Ahmedabad was more than just a major city. It was, during the period of the Indian Dais, effectively the capital of the Dawat. Several of the Dais of this era lived in Ahmedabad, and several — including the 27th Dai — passed away here and were buried here.

The city’s Bohra quarter had its mosques, its scholarly institutions, its markets, its communal spaces — a world within a world, embedded in the larger Mughal imperial city but maintaining its own distinct religious and cultural life. The masjid al-jami’ (congregational mosque) of the Bohra community in Ahmedabad was a center of communal life, of prayer, of learning, and of the great gatherings of the religious calendar.

The streets of Ahmedabad in the sixteenth century would have presented a remarkable sight to a visitor: Mughal officials in their elaborate court dress, Hindu merchants and artisans in their traditional attire, Jain sadhus in white robes, Persian scholars and poets at the court, and among them the Bohra merchants and scholars in the distinctive dress of their community — a world of extraordinary religious and cultural plurality, bound together by the structures of Mughal imperial administration and by the shared life of an extraordinarily productive and creative city.

His Successor: The 28th Dai

Syedna Dawood Burhanuddin (RA) designated his successor by nass before his death. The 28th Dai al-Mutlaq is Syedna Shaykh Adam Safiuddin (RA) — a man of learning and piety who received the Imam’s ‘ilm through the Dai’s nass and who would carry the community forward into the next chapter of its history.

The transition from the 27th to the 28th Dai was, by all accounts in the tradition, smooth and uncontested. The community that Syedna Dawood Burhanuddin (RA) had consolidated, the legitimacy he had established, the institutional framework he had built — all of this passed intact to his successor. The schism was not repeated; the succession was clear; the community continued.

This orderly transition is itself a testimony to the 27th Dai’s life’s work. He had built well.

Wafat and the Mazaar in Ahmedabad

Syedna Dawood Burhanuddin ibn Qutubshah (RA) passed from this world on 15 Jumada al-Akhira 1021 AH, corresponding to 12 August 1612 CE, in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. He had led the Dawat for approximately twenty-four years — years of challenge and achievement, of schism and consolidation, of building and transmitting.

His mausoleum — his raudat tahera (sacred mausoleum) — is located in Ahmedabad. The mazaar has been a place of devotion, pilgrimage, and ziyarat for Dawoodi Bohras for over four centuries. It was substantially reconstructed and expanded in the late twentieth century, incorporating elements of the Fatimid architectural tradition beloved of the Dawoodi community.

The Significance of Ziyarat

For the Dawoodi Bohra, ziyarat — the visit to the resting place of a Dai or of other sacred figures — is an act of profound spiritual significance. It is not merely tourism or sentimental commemoration. It is a spiritual encounter: the visitor stands in the physical presence of the Dai’s remains and, through that proximity, in the spiritual presence of the Dai’s ruh (soul), which the Tayyibi tradition understands as continuing to be present and spiritually active after death in ways that the souls of ordinary mortals are not.

The ziyarat to the 27th Dai’s mazaar is an occasion for:

Du’a and tawassul: Prayer to Allah through the intercession (tawassul) of the Dai — asking Allah’s blessings through the medium of the Dai’s spiritual proximity and his standing in the divine hierarchy of the hudud.

Salawat: The sending of blessings upon the Dai and upon the chain of the Imams and Dais.

Tilawat: The recitation of Quranic verses appropriate to the occasion.

Reflection on the Dai’s life and legacy: The visit to the mazaar is an occasion to reconnect with the history and the meaning of the 27th Dai — to remember why the community carries his name, to understand what he did and what it cost and what it meant.

Visiting Bohras will find at the mazaar the characteristic architectural features of Dawoodi sacred spaces: the chowk (courtyard) surrounding the mausoleum, the maqbara (tomb chamber) with its zarih (the ornate grating that marks the grave), the minbar (pulpit) and mihrabs (prayer niches) in the associated mosque, and the calligraphic inscriptions that proclaim the faith and honor the Dai.

The mazaar of the 27th Dai is one of the significant ziyarat destinations of the Dawoodi Bohra world — not as famous to outsiders as the mausoleum of Syedna Hatim (RA) in Yemen or the shrines of the Alid Imams in Iraq and Iran, but for the Dawoodi Bohra who understands the history, it is a place of particular and personal meaning. This is the man whose name you carry. Stand before his grave and know why.

The Theological Significance of the Dai in Occultation

The 27th Dai, like all the Dais of the period of the satr (occultation of the Imam), held his position in a specific theological relationship with the hidden Imam al-Tayyib (AS).

The Imam in Occultation

The Tayyibi Ismaili tradition holds that Imam al-Tayyib ibn al-Amir bi-Ahkam-illah (AS) — the twenty-first Imam of the Tayyibi line — went into occultation (ghaybat) in approximately 524 AH / 1130 CE, when he was still a young child, following the assassination of his father by the Assassins (Ismailis of the Nizari branch) who opposed the Mustalian line’s claim to the Imamate. The Imam’s occultation was arranged by al-Hurrat al-Malika Arwa bint Ahmad — the great Sulayhid queen of Yemen who served as the hujja of the Imam — to protect him from those who would harm him.

Since the Imam’s occultation, the Tayyibi community has been led by the Dai al-Mutlaq — the “absolute representative” of the Imam in the world of the zahir. The Dai’s authority is not his own; it is the Imam’s authority delegated to him. The Dai acts, speaks, teaches, and leads in the Imam’s name and on the Imam’s behalf. The chain of Dais from the 1st to the present 53rd is a chain of legitimate representatives, each designated by nass, each carrying the Imam’s ‘ilm forward to the next.

The 27th Dai’s Position in This Chain

Syedna Dawood Burhanuddin ibn Qutubshah (RA) was the twenty-seventh link in this chain of representatives of the hidden Imam. He was not merely a community leader or a religious administrator; he was, in the tradition’s understanding, the living presence of the Imam’s authority in the world. When the community gathered in his presence, they were gathering in the Imam’s presence by extension. When they renewed their misaq — their covenant of allegiance — with him, they were renewing it with the Imam. When they received instruction from him, they were receiving the Imam’s instruction through the medium of his representative.

This theological reality gives the Dawoodi-Sulaimani dispute a significance that goes far beyond ordinary dynastic succession or institutional politics. The question was not merely: who should lead the Bohra community? The question was: in whom does the Imam’s authority reside? Through whom is the Imam’s ‘ilm transmitted? Whose misaq connects the faithful to the Imam? The answer to these questions determines the entire spiritual standing of the community.

The 27th Dai’s vindication — by the community, by the Mughal court, and by the subsequent four centuries of Dawoodi Bohra history — is the answer to those questions. The Imam chose Dawood. The Imam’s guidance was clear. The community followed.

The Lasting Legacy: A Name Across Centuries

Four centuries and more have passed since Syedna Dawood Burhanuddin ibn Qutubshah (RA) passed from this world on that August day in Ahmedabad in 1612. The world he inhabited has been transformed beyond recognition. The Mughal Empire has vanished; the British colonial power that succeeded it has itself passed; the Indian subcontinent has been partitioned; the global economy, the technology of communication, the geopolitical map of the world — all have changed in ways that no one in the sixteenth century could have imagined.

And yet the community that he led and consolidated and that named itself for him continues. The Dawoodi Bohras — carrying the name of the 27th Dai — are today a community of millions, spread across the Indian subcontinent, across East Africa, across the Gulf states, across North America, Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australia. They trace their religious genealogy through him. They carry his name in their communal identity. They visit his grave in Ahmedabad and stand in the presence of his resting place with the knowledge that this man — this merchant’s son from Gujarat, this bearer of the Imam’s ‘ilm, this victor of the Mughal tribunal — gave them their name.

The name Dawoodi Bohra is, in this sense, not merely a sociological label. It is a theological statement, a historical claim, and a personal commitment made permanent in language. To be a Dawoodi Bohra is to stand on the side of the 27th Dai; to accept his nass as valid; to recognize the chain of Dais that flows from him and through him; to be connected to the hidden Imam through the line of legitimate representatives that includes him.

Every generation of Dawoodi Bohras renews this commitment. The name is the renewal.

A Note on the 26th Dai: Syedna Dawood ibn Ajabshah (RA)

It is worth pausing to say something more about the 26th Dai, Syedna Dawood ibn Ajabshah (RA) — the predecessor whose nass created the community-defining moment.

Syedna Dawood ibn Ajabshah (RA) served as the 26th Dai from 975 AH / 1567 CE to 997 AH / 1589 CE, a tenure of approximately twenty-two years. He was a Dai of learning and devotion who guided the community through a period of significant growth and institutional development. His tenure coincided with the early years of Akbar’s reign — years of political stability and commercial prosperity in Gujarat that allowed the Bohra community to flourish.

He is buried in Ahmedabad, and his mazaar is also a place of ziyarat for the Dawoodi community.

His decision to confer the nass upon Syedna Dawood ibn Qutubshah (RA) — the act that would define the community’s identity for centuries — was, in the tradition’s understanding, the Imam’s act expressed through the Dai’s mouth. He was the instrument of the Imam’s will, the vehicle through which the succession was transmitted. The name “Dawoodi Bohra” is also, in a deep sense, a testimony to the 26th Dai’s act — the act of a Dai faithfully transmitting the Imam’s designation to his rightful successor.

The Bohra Community’s Relationship with Mughal and Later British Rulers

The Mughal Period (1526–1857)

The Dawoodi Bohra community’s relationship with the Mughal Empire was complex, multifaceted, and — for the most part — productive. The Mughals were Sunni Muslims, and the Bohras were Shia Ismailis; there was a theological difference that could, in other political environments, have led to persecution. But the pragmatism of Mughal governance, and particularly the religious tolerance of Akbar’s reign, created conditions in which the Bohra community could practice their faith and conduct their commercial life without systematic interference.

The farman (imperial decree) system was the primary mechanism through which Mughal rulers expressed their relationship with religious communities. The Bohras received farmans from successive Mughal emperors — from Akbar, from Jahangir, from Shah Jahan, from Aurangzeb — granting them various rights and protections. These farmans were valued and preserved by the community as guarantees of their religious freedom and commercial rights.

The relationship was not always easy. The increasingly Sunni-orthodox tendencies of later Mughal rulers — particularly Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707), who reversed many of Akbar’s pluralistic policies — created pressures on the Bohra community that their predecessors had not faced. However, the community’s commercial importance, their reputation for honest dealing, and their general quietism in political matters meant that they were never subjected to the systematic persecution that other religious minorities sometimes experienced under later Mughal rule.

The Dais of the late Mughal period navigated these political shifts with wisdom and care, maintaining the community’s religious integrity while preserving its relationship with the imperial authorities. The records of this period in Dawat history are a testament to the practical wisdom of the Dais — their ability to protect the community’s interests in politically difficult environments without compromising the essentials of the faith.

The British Colonial Period (1757–1947)

The gradual replacement of Mughal power by British colonial rule over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries created a new political environment for the Dawoodi Bohra community — one that was in some ways more challenging and in other ways more accommodating than what had preceded it.

The British colonial administration, like the Mughal before it, was primarily concerned with maintaining order, collecting revenue, and protecting trade. The Bohra merchant community, as one of the most commercially active groups in western India, was of interest to the British primarily in their commercial capacity. The British were, in general, more scrupulous than the Mughals in maintaining formal legal neutrality between religious communities — a policy driven partly by political calculation (divide and rule required that no single religious community be obviously favored) and partly by the genuine Protestant Christian conviction that matters of religion were a private affair, not a matter of state.

The court system established by the British — with its emphasis on written law, documented evidence, and formal legal procedure — created new challenges for the Dawat community. The question of who had authority within the Bohra community — questions of succession, of the administration of waqf properties, of the limits of the Dai’s communal authority — were increasingly adjudicated not by Mughal farmans but by British colonial courts.

The most significant confrontation between the Dawat authority and the British colonial legal system was the Chandabhai Gulla case and the subsequent Reforms Movement controversies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries — but these belong to the history of later Dais and later chapters.

For the era of the 27th Dai himself, the British were not yet a presence in India. The colonial period belongs to the story of his successors. But the Dawoodi Bohra community that navigated the colonial period was the community that he had built — consolidated, institutionally robust, with a clear sense of its own identity and legitimacy that had been tested and vindicated in the Mughal court.

The Meaning of Being Dawoodi: A Meditation

To be a Dawoodi Bohra is to carry a specific answer to the question: whose community are you?

The answer is: we are the community of Dawud — of the 27th Dai who received the nass from the 26th, whose claim was witnessed by the senior members of the Dawat, recognized by the overwhelming majority of the Tayyibi faithful, and vindicated by the court of one of the greatest emperors in Indian history.

We are the community whose identity was forged in the fire of a succession dispute — a dispute that could have destroyed us but instead clarified us. We know who we are because we had to fight for the knowledge. We carry our name because the name was worth carrying — because to carry it is to testify that the nass is real, that the chain is unbroken, that the Imam’s guidance reaches us through a legitimate representative.

The name Dawoodi is:

A historical claim: that the 27th Dai received a valid nass, that his succession was legitimate, that the chain from him to our present Dai is unbroken and sound.

A theological affirmation: that the Imam’s care for his community is real, that the divine guidance that arranged the Mughal verdict and the community’s recognition is the same guidance that continues to operate through the living Dai.

A personal commitment: that each Dawoodi Bohra, in calling herself by this name, is renewing her acceptance of the tradition — the nass, the misaq, the hudud, the connection to the Imam — that defines who she is.

A communal bond: that the millions of Dawoodi Bohras across the world, from Surat to Sydney to Chicago, who call themselves by this name, are bound to each other by more than ethnicity or culture — they are bound by a shared theological commitment, expressed and maintained through the name.

The 27th Dai gave them this. The man who stood before the Mughal court and was vindicated; the man who built the Indian Dawat’s institutional foundations; the man who transmitted the Imam’s ‘ilm through a period of extraordinary challenge; the man who lies in the mausoleum in Ahmedabad — he gave them their name, and with it, their identity.

His Salawat

اَللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى مَولَانَا دَاوُودَ بُرهَانِ الدِّينِ بنِ قُطبشَاه أَوَّلِ الدَّاعِي الَّذِي حَمَلَ اسمَ الدَّاوُودِيَّةِ وَأَسَّسَهَا الَّذِي وَقَفَ أَمَامَ الفِتنَةِ بِصِدقِ النَّصِّ وَقُوَّةِ الحَقِّ وَجَمَعَ الأُمَّةَ الكُبرَى حَولَهُ بِأَمرِ الإِمَامِ وَبَرَكَتِهِ وَحَفِظَ الدَّعوَةَ مِنَ الفُرقَةِ وَصَانَهَا مِنَ الضَّلَالَة وَكَانَ بُرهَاناً عَلَى الدِّينِ وَشَاهِداً عَلَى الحَقِّ فِي زَمَانِه

Allahumma salli ‘ala Mawlana Dawud Burhan al-Din ibn Qutubshah, Awwal al-da’i alladhi hamala ism al-Dawudiyya wa assasaha, Alladhi waqafa amama al-fitna bi-sidq al-nass wa quwwat al-haqq, Wa jama’a al-umma al-kubra hawlahu bi-amr al-Imam wa barakatih, Wa hafiza al-da’wa min al-furqa wa sanaha min al-dalala, Wa kana burhan ‘ala al-din wa shahidan ‘ala al-haqq fi zamanin.

O Allah, send blessings upon our Master Dawud Burhan al-Din ibn Qutubshah, The first Dai who bore the name ‘Dawoodi’ and established it, Who stood before strife with the truth of the nass and the strength of right, And gathered the great community around him by the Imam’s command and blessing, And preserved the Dawat from fragmentation and guarded it from misguidance, And was a proof of the religion and a witness to truth in his time.

اللَّهُمَّ ارحَم مَولَانَا دَاوُودَ بُرهَانَ الدِّينِ بنَ قُطبشَاهَ وَارزُقنَا شَفَاعَتَهُ وَزِيَارَتَهُ وَبَرَكَتَهُ آمِين يَا رَبَّ العَالَمِين

O Allah, have mercy on our Master Dawud Burhan al-Din ibn Qutubshah, and grant us his intercession, his ziyarat, and his blessing. Amin, O Lord of all the worlds.

Quick Reference

See also: Syedna Dawood Ibn Qutubshah, Dai Al Mutlaq Institution, Syedna Dawood Ibn Ajabshah 26th, Dawoodi Sulaimani Schism, Fatimid Caliphate, Imam Al Tayyib, Tayyibi Dawat, Hurrat Al Malika, Syedna Shaykh Adam Safiuddin 28th, Mughal India Dawat, Bohra Merchants Surat