ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books The Moral Stories The Khoja Who Discoverd the Truth Over five hundred years ago, some people in India and Iran held a strange belief about God. They believed that God entered into everything in the Universe and that everything has the essence of God. The believers of this originally were Hindus as well as a sect of Muslims.

Among the leaders of this belief were Peer Sadruddeen, an ancestor of the Aga Khans in Iran as well as one Hindu known as Sahadeva Joshi. With this belief, they made up a religion which they labelled as Sat Panth meaning Right Path. The followers of this new path came to be known as Khojas which is said to be a Sindhi word derived from the word "KHOJ" meaning to search. Perhaps it meant that the Khojas are those people who originally made deep search to find a religious path.

It is also said that the word KHOJ A is derived from the word Khwaja meaning a man of distinction a title awarded by the Peer to the newly converts to the Sat Panth. The creed of this new religion is based on incarnation of God i.e. God entered into some human beings, as believed by Hindus. To nine incarnations of Hindu God Vishnu, they added Hazrat Ali (A.S.) as the tenth incarnation. They believed in him as God as did Alawites - the Nusairies in Syria.

They proclaimed themselves Shias as well, meaning the followers of Hazrat Ali (A.S.) and his family. It is mentioned that a Persian mystic by name Ali Itahi had come to Kutch in India. He took with him some eager Khojas to Iran and introduced them to the ancestors of the Agha Khans. It is thought that these firm believers in the new religion and the close followers of Peer Sadruddeen came to be known as Bawas. After the death of the Peer, they became the guardians of the religions of the Khojas.

It is these Bawas who preached that the Agha Khans were incarnation of God and included this belief in the GINANS - the prayer book read usually in Jamat Khanas. The Bawas had considerable influence over the Khojas as they also controlled the various ceremonies concerning marriage and death, etc. The Khoja faithful who took their lessons from the Bawas came to be known as Bhagats.

The Khojas were mainly a trading community resident in Bombay, Karachi as well as lesser numbers in towns and villages of Kutch and Kathiawar in India. Some of them migrated to Zanzibar and other East African towns during the years 1850 - 1900 to expand their business.