Present Activities
While most Dawoodi Bohras have traditionally been traders, currently many are professionals. Within South Asia many are doctors, and in the Far East and the West, a large number now work as consultants or analysts, as well as medical professionals. Dawoodi Bohras are encouraged to educate themselves in both religious and secular knowledge, and as a result, the number of professionals in the community is rapidly increasing.
Dawoodi Bohra believe that the education of women is equally important to that of men, per a hadith from Muhammad: "seeking of knowledge is obligatory for all Muslims, both male and female." Many Dawoodi Bohra women choose to enter the workforce. The founding of Al Jamea tus Saifiyah, an Arabic Academy for Dawoodi Bohras in Surat and Karachi, is a sign of the importance of education in the Dawoodi Bohra community. The Academy's curriculum encompasses religious and secular education for both men and women.
As it is for other Shia Muslims, remembrance of the martyrdom of the Imam Husayn, in Karbala, Iraq, is an essential part of every Dawoodi Bohra community activity. Every year, the head of the Dawoodi Bohra community delivers religious discourses for ten days during Muharram, culminating in the 10th day of Muharram, ‘Āshūrā, and these are attended by a large number of community members. The martyrdom of Hussain is remembered with every prayer every day during ‘Āshūrā and all the attendees perform matam (beatings of their chests); matam is especially practiced in the month of Moharram and, also in other Islamic months. One key difference to be noted is that Dawoodi Bohras practice matam using only their hands and their religious practice forbids the use of any implements in matam. This is in stark contrast to other Shia sects that often use knives, blades, and metal chains in their matam.
Read more about this topic: Dawoodi Bohra
Famous quotes containing the words present and/or activities:
“... the loss of belief in future states is politically, though certainly not spiritually, the most significant distinction between our present period and the centuries before. And this loss is definite. For no matter how religious our world may turn again, or how much authentic faith still exists in it, or how deeply our moral values may be rooted in our religious systems, the fear of hell is no longer among the motives which would prevent or stimulate the actions of a majority.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent-building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)