Jiwa Story

The Imambara of Moshi

Under the iconic snows of Kilimanjaro, to the south in the town of Moshi, there is a pretty white mosque with distinctive spires. Hidden behind it is a building called an imambara, the ‘hall of imams’. It is doubtful if many of the inhabitants of the now populous Tanzanian town know much about the buildings except that they belong to ‘some Indians’.

The mosque’s history can be traced back to 1899, the year that two adventurous brothers, Shariff Jiwa and Jeraj Jiwa, came to Africa by dhow from their hometown Tithwa in Kathiawad, in northeastern India. After they disembarked at ______, they walked – they would certainly have joined a trading caravan — the ___ miles through the nyika, the thorny scrubland that gave Tanganyika its name, to Tabora. There they worked for Alidina Visram, the great entrepreneur whose chain of dukas covering all of East Africa, right up to the Sudan, provided a launching pad for dozens of ambitious young merchants such as these two. They worked there for two years, getting experience, learning Swahili, the markets, the structure of the Indian trading network. Then in 1902 they walked to Lake Victoria to start their own wholesale trading business in the embryonic port of Bukoba, on the western shore of the lake, just south of the border with Uganda. From there they expanded, opening branches in other growing trading centres — Mwanza, Ujiji (on Lake Tanganyika), Kondoa and Moshi in Tanganyika, Kisumu and Mombasa in Kenya. “Through their socializing nature they established a very good rapport, with their zeal and personality they became very popular amongst the other wholesale traders.” As their business flourished they were joined by their brother Nazarali. As Shariff was the eldest and most dynamic the family business was generally known by his name.

In 19__ Shariff Jiwa married Sherbanu Pradhan Virjee of Mombasa and their first child son, Karmali, was born in ___. Then Mohammedali was born in Mombasa in 1909; after him came another ___ sons and __ daughters. Jeraj and Nazerali likewise married and fathered large families. Soon the Shariff Jiwa Family became one of the most prominent in their community, the community known as Khoja Shia Ithnasheris.

The Khoja Shia Ithnasheris came into being in the late 19th century when some of the Khoja Ismailis, Indian followers of the Aga Khan, split from the Ismailis in a dispute over community accounts and joined the Ithnasheri (Twelver) branch of Shi’a Islam. As Ismailis were already well established in Zanzibar and other east African ports, and were beginning to make their way inland (Alidina Visram was an Ismaili), it was easy for Khoja Ithnasheris to slip into the stream of enterprising pioneers.

As they (and their families) would have been recent converts, the Khoja Shia Ithnasheri pioneers took their religion seriously. They would meet for prayers and religious celebrations in the homes of the more wealthy — often no grander than a mud-walled house-shop with a thatched or tin roof. For instance, it recorded that when Karmali Hansraj arrived to start a business in Ujiji in 1910 “The Sermons (majlis) were conducted at Nasser Virji’s residence and all the houses were built of raw clay bricks (known as “thebe”). . . . The Sermons were mostly conducted and the feasts served there up to 1936.”

In the few towns when and where the community (called a jamaat) became large enough to warrant it, they would build an imambara, the ‘hall of imams’ where the faithful gather to hear the heart-wrenching sermons preached at the beginning of the Muslim year, the first ten days of the month of Muharram, which commemorate the deaths of their first imams, Hassan and Hussein, grandsons of the Prophet Mohammed, and their followers in a terrible battle near Kerbala. Christianity likewise focuses on the gruesome death of its founder but the ‘Passion Plays’ in which some communities re-enact Jesus Christ’s crucifixion seem staged dramas compared to the communal mourning majlis of Muharram which culminate on the tenth day in a frenzy of self-flagellation. The halls were of course used for other purposes, the celebrations of the various Muslim Idds and for community weddings and other get-togethers. Often a musafirkhana, a ‘travellers’ hall’ (i.e., caravanserai or, more prosaically, a guest house) would be built nearby, and a mosque, typically with distinctive little decorative spires denoting its Indian heritage.

Because the Khoja Shia Ithnasheris came to east Africa as traders, soon there were community structures in all the port towns fringing the East African coast — Mogadishu, Lamu, Mombasa (there are two in Old Town), Tanga, Bagamoyo, Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam. As they expanded their businesses into the interior, more were built. In some places the buildings were financed by the jamaat but in many they were financed by an individual or a family, generally ‘for the blessing’ (ithaale thawab) of a deceased parent or grandparent.

Which is what happened in Bukoba. The Shariff Jiwa family did well there; they not only engaged in wholesale trading but also had a coffee farm and a coffee factory. Business prospered, other Ithnasheris settled there, numerous enough to warrant the building of a mosque — financed by the Shariff Jiwa family. What year was it built? After Tanganyika became independent the family was denied the license of processing coffee so the factory was closed down, the buildings being used as warehouses by the Cooperative Union. Are there any Ithnasheris left? What has become of the mosque?

Although none of the family settled in Nairobi they had important business connections there, and so when the Shia Ithnasheris were raising money to build a mosque, the heirs of Shariff Jiwa contributed generously. This was the mosque on Park Lane in Ngara, which was built in 1945 and which for half a century remained the only Shia Ithnasheri mosque in Nairobi.*

But it was in Moshi that the Shariff Jiwa family really left its mark, thanks to the energies of Shariff Jiwa’s son Mohammadali. He had been born in Mombasa in 1909 and attended the Allidina Visram Indian School and at the time was one of the few students of the Ithnasheri community who passed the London metric. exams. In 1931 he moved to Moshi to take care of the family business there, and expanded in all directions — a leather tannery, a factory for manufacturing leather items, a flour mill, a petrol station, and a sisal estate in nearby Himo. Under Mohammadali’s directorship the Moshi Trading Company became one of the biggest exporters of coffee in the area.

Mohammadali was an extraordinarily active social worker. He was a great contributor to the Indian Public School and served as its president for 18 years. For many years he was also the president of the Muslim Association of Moshi, as well as being the secretary of the Ithnasheri Jamaat. In ___ he financed the building of the mosque, while the money for the guest house was donated in the name of his wife, Zainab (Jena) Khaki. When had the imambara been built?

His honorary services to the public of the Kilimanjaro area and the Muslim community were so impressive that in 1955 the British government honoured him by making him a Member of the British Empire. In 1959–1960 he served as mayor of Moshi town. Due to ill health he retired from the most posts, but remained in Moshi where he died in 1998. Although the community there now has dwindled to only ____ faithful souls, the buildings are still in use. So to this day, on the first ten days of Muharram, one can hear in the imambara of Moshi the dramatic sermons that commemorate the tragedy of Kerbala, more than twelve hundred years and ___ thousand kilometres – check distance on a map away.

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* Due to the city’s changing demography, in the late 1990s a whole new Khoja Shia Ithnasheri complex has been built in Lavington. The mosque on Lamu’s waterfront also reflects the changing demography. As, family by family, all the Khoja Shia Ithnasheris left the island town (the last in the 1990s) the pretty green-spired mosque was given to the Sunnis. But ‘Shia Ithna-Asheri Mosque-Lamu’ can still be seen clearly written over the entrance.

Note: The basis of this story are the biographies of several family members that appeared in the Community Directory of the East African Khoja Shia Ithnasheri Jamaats published in 1960 and, translated by F. Ali, which were forwarded by Rosemin Nazerali Jiwa and Mohsin Nazerali Jiwa. For a detailed description of the Khoja Shi’a Ithnasheri religion and practices, and the community’s history in Kenya, see Through Open Doors; A View of Asian Cultures in Kenya by Cynthia Salvadori.

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