The Alamut Castle as its present ruins stands and is structured on a huge cliff, a piece of rock known as Mount Hudkan, in the highest ranges of Elburz Mountain. In his testimonial "History of the Islamic Peoples" the author Carl Broklemann describes. "In Egypt Hassan ibn Sabah was won over to the Ismaili doctrine of the Fatimid caliph Mustansir. But Nizar failed to ascend the throne in A.D. 1095.
Hassan ibn Sabah's followers were called Nizaris. Meantime in A.D. 1090, Hassan ibn Sabah truned up in Persia. Hassan ibn Sabah claimed to be the emissary of Nizar. With a small band of followers, he encamped in front of the mountain fortress of Alamut "the Eagles Nest" Sabah seized the fortress of Alamut from the officer of Persian Emperor Malik Shah which then became the seat of his and the Ismaili power. Sabah's agents were trained in severest fanaticism. The murder of an enemy of the true faith, designated by their Master was presented to them as a work well pleasing to God. Such commendable persons were called Fida'is the one's that Self Sacrifice."
To this text of Carl Broklemann, I would like to provide the original version of Marco Polo, when he was in Alamut, the city state of the twenty seventh Ismaili Imam Rukhnuddin Khurshah, in 1252:
"After describing in glowing terms the magnificent gardens that surround the elegant pavilions and palaces built by the grandmaster at Alamut, Marco Polo proceeds: Now no man was allowed to enter the Garden, save those whom he intended to be his ASHISNIN. There was a fortress at the entrance to the Garden, strong enough to resist all, the world and there was no other way to get in.
He kept at his Court a number of youths of the country, from 12 to 20 years of age, such as had a taste for soldering.... Then he would introduce them into his Garden, some four or six or ten at a time, having first made them drink a certain potion which cast them into deep sleep, and then causing them to be lifted and carried. So when they awoke they found themselves in the Garden.
When therefore they awoke and found themselves in a place, so charming, they deemed it was Paradise in very truth. And the ladies and damsels dallied with them to their hearts content. So when the old man would have any Prince slain, he would say to such a youth: "Go thou and slay so and so and when thou returnest, my Angels shall bear thee into Paradise. And shouldst thou die, nonetheless, even so, will I send my Angels to carry thee back in to Paradise" (The Book of Marco Polo, the Venetian, translated by Henry Yule, Volume 1, Pages: 146-149: London: 1875).
The Ismaili Imam's had made a separate homeland in the city state of Alamut that was also defined as Eastern Ismail'ias where they remained for 165 years. Halaku Khan, the Mongol evicted the Isamili's from Alamut in December 1256 with a carnage, slaughter of 12,000 men, women and children. Writes Hitti in "History of the Arabs" of Halaku Khan's massacre of Ismaili's at Alamut: "Even babies were ruthlessly slaughtered." The poet, Sheikh Saadi, expressed his horror at the terrible scenes, he witnessed at the sack of Alamut:
"It is meet Heaven should rain tears on Earth
At the destruction that has fallen,
Oh Muhammad! If on the Day of Judgement, you will
Raise your head above the Earth,
Raise your head now and see the tribulations of the people now."
Little is heard of the Ismaili's after the destruction of Alamut, by Halaku Khan in A.D. 1256. The frightened community existed in Nizari, the Persian translation incognito or in Arabic mustatir (hidden) from the second half of thirteenth to eighteenth Century, in the deep forests of Karakal Pakistan, Uzbekistan. Recognition of each other, by the beleaguered Ismailis was in the exchange of salutations: "Ya Ali Madad" and response was "Maula Madad." The word Madad in Turkish as subsequently defined in Urdu means Help.
Ismailies in their desperation and predicament looked and turned for succor to their First Imam, invincible Maula Ali (peace be upon him) while they survived in the Karakal Pakistan territory of Uzbekistan. Thwarted in Central Asia from expanding their community, apprehensive for their own lives, the Ismaili Imam's attention was given to the sub-continent, for the spread of their distinct sect that had roots among the rank and file, Shiites. Thirtieth Ismaili Imam Shah Islam in 1430 A.D. from his gadi in Moynak, Uzbekistan, deputed Pir Sadr-al-din, to Sindh. In his Book "Preaching of Islam" Page 274, Sir Thomas Arnold, Chief Justice of Bombay High Court (1866) has written. "Sindh was also the scene of the labours of Pir Sadr-al-Din, an Ismaili missionary who as the head of the Khojah sect about the year 1430.
In accordance with the principles of accommodation practised by this sect, he took a Hindu name and made certain concessions to the religious beliefs of the Hindus, whose conversion he sought to achieve and introduced among them a Book, entitled "Dasavatar." This Book has from the beginning the accepted scripture of the Khojah sect and it is read by the bed side of the dying and periodically at many festivals. The first of Pir Sadr al Din's converts were won in villages and towns of Upper Sindh. He preached also in Cutch and from these parts, the doctrine of this sect, spread southwards through Gujarat to Bombay.
And till the present day, Khojah communities are to be found in almost all the large trading towns of Western India and the seaboards of the Indian Oceans." Ismaili converts from Hindu Lohana's mercantile community of Kathiawar and Sindh, flourished in the sub-continent, particularly in Bombay, through the patronage of the British rulers. Ambitions were revived by the forty eighth Ismaili Imam Hassan Ali Shah, Aga Khan the First, to have an Ismaili State in Karakal Pakistan, where the Ismaili Imam's had lived in exile for five hundred and fifty years (1256 to 1800). For this Imam Hassan Ali Shah had the overt support of the British and the financial help and means of the Central Asian Ismaili merchant princes, flourishing in Bombay.
Purposes of British Raj were to install puppet rulers represented in Imam Hassan Ali Shah in the region of Karakal Pakistan of Uzbekistan and Shuja ul Mulk in Afghanistan. However, the scheme was brought to naught in what has come to be known as the Great Game or Tournament of Shadows, as described in the Courts of the Russian Czars at St. Petersburg. In the biography of Mohan Lal Kashmiri written by Hari Lal Gupta (1943) the author relates Sir Alexander Burns, British plenipotentiary, posted in Kabul was murdered in 1841, in the failed uprising, initiated, orchestrated by the British against Dost Mohammed, the Afghan Emperor in Kabul.
British scheme for Central Asia was to introduce the forty-eight, Ismaili Imam Hassan Ali Shah, Aga Khan the First, in Karakal Pakistan, in Uzbekistan and Shuja ul Mulk in Kabul. This was brought to naught, frustrated, undone, with the cold blooded murder of General Sir Alexander Burns, and the simultaneous public execution ordered by the Uzbek Emir Nasarullah of the British spies, legendary Colonel Stobbart and Captain Conolly in Bokhara (Kipling: The Man who would be King). Consequences of assassination of Sir Alexander Burns in British Embassy, Kabul led to the battle of Ghandamack, (Jalalabad) in November 1842. British and their allies that included the Ismaili cavalry of Imam Hassan Ali Shah were vanquished by the forces of Afghan Emperor Dost Mohammed, Uzbek warlord Akber Khan and Cossacks of the Russian Czar Nicholas the First, at Ghandamack.
Defeat of the British and their allies culminated the First Anglo Afghan War (1839-42) and the retreat of the British to the security of the sub-continent. ("A Lethal Game" NEWSWEEK: February 3, 1992). In November 1842, Imam Hassan Ali shah fled with his Uzbek cavalry from Ghandamackto Miani, seeking the benevolence of the British in Sindh, under Sir Charles Napier. February 15, 1843, on the steam boat Fateh Mubarik, command post of Sir Charles, over the river Phulelli at Miani, Hassan Ali Shah, Aga Khan, the First signed the protocol with Sir Charles Napier, for conquest of Sindh and settlement of Ismaili's from Karakal Pakistan, Uzbekistan, in the territories of the Talpur's.
Two days later, February 17, 1843, was fought the battle of Miani. This time, Ismaili cavalry won the day for the British. They defeated the Talupur's at Miani that were followed by the victories of British and their Ismaili allies at Kadum Gah and Hyderabad. Sindh came under the occupation of the Raj. Kurrachee (Karachi) was seceded to the domain of the British. The first act of Sir Charles was to perpetuate the memory of his famed colleague General Sir Alexander Burns of Afghanistan, by endowing the name of Burns to the main street and a Park for Kurrachee. The British Military Academy in Abbotabad was also given the nomenclature of Burns Hall. Likewise ten thousand Ismaili, men, women and children refugees who had come from Uzbekistan to escape the wrath of Emir Nasarullah were allowed settlement in Sindh by Sir Chalres Napier. Gadi of Ismaili Imam Hassan Ali Shah was thereafter moved to sophisticated and urban Walkeswar area of Bombay. British rulers had rendered permission to the Ismaili's to settle in Sindh at the behest of Imam Hassan Ali Shah, Aga Khan the First. In return for this gesture and protection of the Imam, Hassan Ali Shah's Ismaili followers contributed 10% of their Income to the Jam-aat fund that was known as Doosan or 10%.
"Even by about 1866, the Aga Khan's Income from his votaries in Asia was stated to be Sterling Ten thousand Pounds," reads the contents in the Judgement of Chief Justice Sir Louis Pitman Russell, delivered on February 24, 1908, in the much publicised Suit No 729 of 1905, Haji Bibi Plaintiff versus Sir Sultan Mohammed Shah, Aga Khan, the third, in the Esplanade Bombay High Court. In his rendering, Justice Sir Russell echoed the ruling of his predecessor Justice Sir John Arnold: "No Khoja, as it was decided in the Aga Khan Case, was entitled to ask for its 'Dasoon' Accounts or to question the use to which it was put." (Bombay High Court Reports (1866) Volume XII Pages 323 to 363) British Judges in India were not free. They had to follow the dictates of the Viceroy. Earl of Minto wanted Sir Sultan Mohammed Shah to be favoured. In return, quid pro quo, adoption of British policy of divide and rule Aga Khan the third was advised to establish the Muslim League to which he complied.
Muslim League was formed under the tutelage of the Viceroy, Earl of Minto in the Vice Lodge of Simla on October 1, 1906, with Aga Khan, the third, as its President. Constitution of Muslim League was drafted by Aga Khan's votary, Sir Rahimtoola Chinoy, the first article read: "to promote feelings of loyalty in the British Government." Sir Rahimtoola's daughter Amina bai, my Amina aunt, was married to Ghulam Ali, younger brother of Seth Mohammed Ali Habib.
Seth Mohammed Ali Habib:
In the sub-continent, during the decade of 1870, a massive famine, spread in the upper regions of the Kutch and in Sindh about the area of Mulla Katiar (Matli) and Tando Mohammad Khan which even today hosts very, large Ismaili and Isna'asheri Khoja settlements. Subsequently, the Dust Bowl of 1870's extended to the state of Kathiawar. Along with the exodus of Khoja's of Kathiawar, a young child, named Habib sailed with his father Esmail, a cultivator of Jamnagar state from Pourbunder to Bombay, where he resided with the immigrants around the shrine of Kokni divine Mohammed Shah Pir, in the area which had now come to be known as Khoja Molla and Crawford Market of Bombay.
According to my father, the legendary Habib Esmail, began working in his early teens by engraving utensils for which he came to be known as Kasara (Engraver) and carrying Tiffin's in the forenoon, from residences of the Seth in Khoja Molla to their pedi's (Offices) in Fort Bombay. While doing blue collar chores for the Company of Khoja Mitha bhai Nathoo, he attracted the attention of the Owners for his diligence and hard work. Habib Esmail was inducted as a clerk in the organisation. In the years before the First World War (1914-18), given his dint of hard work, the industrious Seth Habib Esmail initially was made a Partner and later acquired the firm of Khoja Mitha bhai Nathoo which became the base of his multi faceted operation. The Wall Street Crash of Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, witnessed the bankruptcy of many a Khoja Ismaili firms, the most prominent of them being the late Sir Mohammed Currimbhoy Baronet's family.
In the wake of the collapse of the Currimbhoy's and Khoja enterprises, like a phoenix, from no where, out of the debris of closed, folded and shut down of business and established houses in Bombay, emerged Habib Ismail and his four sons Ahmed, Dawood, Mohammed Ali and Ghulam Ali, in the firms of Habib & Sons and the sister Company Habib Bros. Their leader, Seth Mohammed Ali Habib moved on from the Bullion and Cotton businesses to open the first Muslim Bank of the sub-continent that was the Habib Bank. Right Honourable Mohammad Ali Jinnnah inaugurated the Habib Bank on August 7, 1941, at Dada Manzil, Mohammed Ali Road, Bombay. Mohammed Ali Habib designated his nephews, sister Sakina bai's sons, Razzak bhai, Saleem bhai and Mithoo bhai in charge.
Habib Ismail (Kasara) married Rehmat bai. They had four sons, Ahmed, Dawood, Mohammed Ali, Ghulam Ali and a daughter Sakina. Rehmat bai expired suddenly in the years after the culmination of the First World War, while Habib Ismail was in Italy. Fundral of Rehmat bai in the Pir Mohammed Shah Ismaili Cemetery was arranged by my Grandfather, Seth Esmail bhai Dossa, for which Rehmat bai's sons Ahmed, Dawood and Mohammed Ali remained indebted, most appreciative of his gestures to their mother. Periodically, they visited my Grandfather at his residence in Dossa Court and Moti Mahal, Bombay. Following the Partition, Grandfather migrated from Bombay to Karachi. For the three years 1948-51, my grandfather lingered with cancer in Karachi. As an adolescent, I used to see Seth Ahmed, Seth Dawood and Seth Mohammed Ali calling on my grandfather Seth Esmail bhai Dossa at my chacha Kasimali's residence, Dossa Villa. My Kassimali chacha looked after his ailing father, for three years, until grandfather expired at the age of eighty-two on November 5, 1951.
Habib Ismail never married again after the passing away of his wife, Rehmat bai in 1920. His children were brought up by a Parsi Governess Gul bai, who converted to Islam at the behest, inculcations and instance of Seth Mohammed Ali, and reposes in the Habib family Cemetery of Khurasan Bagh.
Untimely demise of his mother, Rehmat bai while his father was travelling in Europe, had a reaction, throw back on Mohammed Ali. Seth Habib Esmail had a fondness for Arab race horses. His pride stable of horses, particularly the colt Yusuf and filly Sultana, vied on the Bombay, Poona, Bangalore, Madras and Calcutta Race Courses. Habib Ismail's collection of horses, specially brought from Studs of Mosul, equated to those that were retained by the Aga Khan and the Maharaja of Baroda. Business and love for his horses, kept Habib Ismail away, for periods, from his wife, four sons and daughter in Bombay. Mohammed Ali was Rehmat bai's favourite child the apple of her eye.
My Papa was a contemporary of Seth Mohammed Ali Habib, described in the twenties up to mid thirties, Habib family subscribed to the Ismaili Jam-aat. However, contributory factor, after the death of his mother, Rehmat Bai, Seth Mohammed Ali became a devout, staunch Shiite Isna'sasheri. In defiance, ire and vehement opposition to hierarchy of Kamaria's and Mukhi's of the Ismaili Jam-aat, he used to offer his Thursday, evening and Friday Zohr prayers at the Isna'asheri Pala Gali Mosque. Papa stated Seth Mohammed Ali turned inordinately religious, a workaholic, became a stoic, scrupulously honest in his business dealings, commitments, intolerant of any indulgences from himself, his family members and his staff members, in the code of conduct, that were in accord with the norms of strict Islamic values. Seth Mohammed Ali Habib was known to work hard and pray hard. Papa related that he had witnessed Seth Mohammed Ali bereft of his shirt, perform Matam in the main circle of Kesr Bagh on the auspicious nights of Moharrum and with the Alum of Hazrat Abbas (peace be upon him) he led the procession of Ashura.
So when his father, Seth Habib Ismail expired in 1931, natural corollary, his family, now under the leadership of Seth Mohammed Ali would leave the Ismaili Jam-aat. Values of Ismaili's were lax, considering that their Imam Aga Khan, the third, Sir Sultan Mohammed Shah, divorced, his first wife, cousin Princess Shahzadi in Bombay and married a sixteen year old Italian ballerina, Theresa Magliona in Cairo. Aga Khan lived in England, France and Switzerland.
Theresa Magliano died in 1926 and was buried next to her infant son, Mehdi, in the Christian Cemetery of Turin. Khoja Shiite Isna'asheri Jam-aat was a splinter of the main Ismaili Jam-aat, formed in 1898. The founders of the Isna'asheri Jam-aat Hirji Allahrakia and Lalji Sajjan were brutally murdered in Bombay, on March 10, 1901, by Ismaili Fid'ai's Kurji Rajjan and Noor Mohammed Ali, posing, themselves, to be the ancient Hassanins of Alamut. The British administration took immediate cognisance, arrested and tried Kurji Rajjan and Noor Mohammed Ali for first degree murder.
There was no clemency for pre-meditated killing in the Raj. Kurji Rajjan and Noor Mohammed Ali were sent to the gallows in the Mazgoan jail of Bombay, for the cold blooded assassination of Hirji Allahrakia and Lalji Sajjan. Contrary to the liberal Ismaili's, mores of the Isna'asheri's were conservative, in accord with the Holy Quran. Pattern of behaviour were focused around the Mujtahid's that came from Iran. These were in keeping with the strict dictums of Seth Mohammed Ali.
In the mid thirties, over the argument with the Kamaria, why he was going to Isna'asheri gatherings, Seth Mohammed Ali, angrily left the meeting of collectors of Dasoon of Ismaili Jam-mat in the Jam-aat Khana of Samuel Road. Raising his hand, Seth Mohammed Ali shouted from now onwards, he and the Habib family would not contribute to the coffers of the Ismaili Jam-aat. Thereafter he resigned from the Ismaili fold. Proposed by Seth Haji Dawood Nasser and seconded by Seth Rajab Ali bhai Ibrahim Batliwala, Seth Mohammed Ali and his three brothers, Seth Ahmed, Seth Dawood and Seth Ghulam Ali signed up in the Isna'asheri Jam-aat.
The Aga Khan's Supreme Counsel retaliated the abandoning of Ismaili Jam-aat by Mohammed Ali Habib and his Habib family, with a narrow approach. Among other things, described in the letter of Aly Hadi Madany, the Habib Brothers were not permitted to enter the burial ground of Pir Mohammed Shah and thereby restricted to offer al Fa'thea at the grave of their father Seth Habib Ismail. He is buried adjacent to the iron grille that forms the enclosure to the graveyard, on the demarcation of one end, at the corner of Sandhurst Road.
Aly Hadi Madany, then Secretary of Right Honourable Mohammed Ali Jinnah, observed the four sons of Habib Ismaili, during the years of the Second World War, reciting the Lord's prayer, from the pavement opposite the fence. In 1998, my sister Munira Arif Mooraj was at the Ismaili Cemetery. Munira explained, seventy years after his burial the marble edifice of Habib Esmail's tomb is even today, can be seen with his name in Gujarati from main Sandhurst Road. My grandfather remained a nominal Ismaili until the end of his years and was buried in the Ismaili Cemetery of Goli Mar, Karachi. Grandfather remained indebted, for the help rendered to him, in the formative stages of his life in Bombay, by the Forty-eighth Imam Hassan Ali Shah and his daughter-in-law Lady Shams Ali Shah grand daughter of Qajar Emperor Fateh Ali Shah.
Like the patriarch, Habib Esmail my grandfather, Seth Esmail bhai Dossa, reached Bombay in 1870 from Pourbunder in famine stricken Kathiawar. He etched out a humble living, working as a coolie, porter in the docks of Bombay. An orphan, supporting his widowed mother, two brothers and two sisters, my grandfather could never forget the support of his Imam Hassan Ali Shah in those difficult and most trying days. Grandfather used to honorifically call Imam Hassan Ali Shah Maro (My) Imam. He refused to distance himself from the Ismaili Jam-aat due to the obligations of Imam Hassan Ali Shah and named his grndson Hassan Ali after the Imam. As an Ismaili grandfather could go to the burial ground of Pir Mohammed Shah in Sandhurst Road. To oblige Mohammed Ali Habib whom he admired for his known philanthropies, grandfather, would relate with pride, while in Bombay he never missed a Thursday when he did not wash with his own hands and place rose chadors, over the remains of the Italian white marble tombs of his erstwhile friend Seth Habib Esmail and his wife Rehmat bai. (Concluded)