From Blended “Europeanish” to Neo-Fatimid Styles. Architecture and “worlding” of an Indian Ocean Trading Community

Paper Abstract: The paper focuses on two architectural styles popular among Dawoodi Bohras – a Muslim Shia community primarily associated with trade based on a wide network between Africa and Asia, especially around the Indian Ocean. The community traces its lineage to the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt (10^th - 12^th century), before shifting its centre to Yemen onto Gujarat (16^th century) and Mumbai (India) nowadays.

Firstly, the community’s increasing prosperity in late 19^th / early 20^th century led to the rise of a specific vernacular style of architecture in western India blending eclectically neoclassical “Europeanish” styles with local ideas and values. This architectural splendour was largely based on wealth generated in Asia and Africa e.g. trade in Ethiopia.

Secondly, especially in late 20^th century the community leadership embarked on a new visual culture trajectory propelled through visits of the Dawoodi Bohra spiritual leaders (“Dai”) to Cairo. The 52^nd Dai’s journey in 1978 led to an ambitious reconstruction project for historical Fatimid sites such as al-Anwar mosque. This vision was subsequently “concretized” through a Neo-Fatimid style in community infrastructures (mosques, hospitals, universities) in Mumbai, Dar-es-salaam, Dubai etc.

The community’s architecture, I argue, has been shaped by colonial encounters as much as by interactions crisscrossing the Indian Ocean. More than an architectural preference, its current rejuvenation of its Fatimid, North-African legacy may be understood as a “worlding practice” in Aihwa Ong’s (2011) sense, i.e. expressing a Bohra vision based on religion and combining deen (spiritual) and dunya (worldly).