Mombasa Qabrastan

History of Mombasa Qabrastan

In the evolution of Khoja Shia Ithna-Asheri Muslim Community,acquisition of grave yard or cemetery as a burial place has been of prime importance. Wherever they settled, members of of the Khoja community have paid special attention to the acquisition of burial place before building a Mosque or Imambara. There is historical background to this outlook. When the Ithna Asheri Khoja separated from the larger Khoja community in order to openly practice their faith as Khoja Ithna Asheri, they were denied right of burial in the ancestral Khoja cemetery.

Until then, all Khoja functioned as united Khoja community with their tripartite set of beliefs overlapping with each other. Regardless, of their leanings towards the Ismaili,Sunni or Ithna-Asheri sects, they would all be buried in the common Khoja cemetery.

In 1862, when the first group branched out to be known as Sunni Khoja and the second group followed suit, a decade later, to be known as Shia Ithna-Asheri Khoja, the separating groups were barred from being buried in the ancestral common cemetery.

In 1873, when a group of Ithna-Asheri Zuwwar visiting Kerbala was persuading Mulla Qadir Husein to to return with them to India to help provide spiritual guidance to the Community. Mulla Qadir Husein expressed his reservations on two counts.

Mulla Qadir Husein feared that if the larger Khoja community denied them permission to bury their dead in the ancestral Khoja cemetery , the enthusiastic group of Khoja wishing to openly practice the Shia Ithna-Asheri faith would succumb to such pressure and revert to original combined Khoja community. To be denied right of burial in the ancestral community cemetery was viewed as the stigma in those days.

The second question posed by Mulla Qadir Husein was Who would they marry their children if the larger Khoja community would not permit their sons and daughters to marry their sons and daughter?

Even after the return of of Mulla Qadir Husein to India in 1873, this question of burial kept recurring. Mulla Qadir Husein raised this question once more.

Khalfan Rattansi and Dewji Jamal pledged that if the larger Khoja community refused them burial in the ancestral Khoja cemetery , they undertook to transport corpses of such )individuals to Kerbala for permanent burial. Khalfan Rattansi pledged Rs 10,000/- (a large sum in those days) for this purpose. In the meanwhile, Dewji Jamal also acquired a piece of land in Kerbala as a burial ground.

There was concern that until such time when the corpses are transported to Kerbala, where could they be intemed even on a temporary basis. Mulla Qadir Husein obtained permission to this effect from the Trustees of the Irani cemetery.

Lalan Alidina was assassinated in Karachi in 1876. His remains were later transferred to Kerbala for permanent burial. In the same year, in Mumbai, Shahid Killu Khataw had to be buried in the Iranian Cemetery.

Before the Zanzibar Jamat was established and the emerging Jamaat could acquire graveyard of its own, a child died in the family of Dewji Jamal in 1880. Dewji Jamal recognised that as it happened earlier in Mumbai in 1876, when the daughter of Khalfan Rattansi and Killu Khataw were deied right to of burial in he common Khoja cemetery, same faith would befall on him in Zanzibar.