FIRST ISMAILIA MISSION CONFERENCE, Dar es Salaam, 1945

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Subject: Mowlana Sultan Muhammad Shah - FIRST ISMAILIA ASSOCIATION MISSION CONFERENCE, Dar es Salaam on 20th July 1945


"EXCERPTS

Hazrat Mowlana Sultan Mohammed Shah, at The FIRST ISMAILIA MISSION CONFERENCE in Dar es Salaam on 20th July 1945.

"Hazrat Mowlana Dhani Salaamat Datar Imam Sultan Mohammed Shah arrived at 9 am on Friday, the 20th of July, 1945, at H.H. the Aga Khan Boys' Secondary School, Kisutu Street , Dar es Salaam .

He was received and garlanded by the Presidents of H.H. the Aga Khan Executive Council for Africa and H. H. The Aga Khan Supreme Council for Africa . A recitation of Surat ul Fatiha of the Holy Quran was made.

A recitation of the Holy Ginan was made. Mowlana Hazar Imam made the following speech:

First of all I must welcome you all, gentlemen, to this Mission Conference, and the ladies who have also come.

It is a great pleasure to see you all here. I hope this is a final break from the past as it has happened in the other conferences.

"The first regrettable thing about all missionaries and religious activities is that, I am sorry to say gentlemen, that a person like Dr. Ivanow of Russia knows more about the Ismaili religion and its meaning than most of our bhagats put together and many of our leading gentlemen.

Again, a man like Mr. Fyzee, a Bohora gentleman, of Islamic Research Association, knows more about the Ismaili religion than most people of this Faith.

I cannot go further without telling you at once that we all owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr. Mecklai who has done wonderful work. He, has, like anybody else, weaknesses, but he has done a great deal of work; work that will remain historical and has made a great name for Ismailis amongst all learned circles by establishing the Islamic Research Association and by getting men like

Dr. Ivanow and Mr. Fyzee to look into the ancient documents. And, I think, we cannot do better than pass a resolution of thanks and appreciation for the work done by Mr. Mecklai. "Here in Africa today we want to start an Ismailia Association on the same lines as the Bombay Association. Once for all to make professional missionaries in Africa, free from India ; to have a new system of recruiting missionaries, as well as honorary and volunteer missionaries. Very little of our religion is generally known.

First of all I will give you two or three examples that will show that even most of our people are ignorant of our Faith.

"Number one: As rightly said by one of our missionaries, Mr. Hameer Lakha, that with regard to religion, you must never reason with people who have no religion. This is perfectly true because Islam and Ismailism are built on iman and momin.

Iman means faith and momin means one who has faith. A momin who has true faith does not mean to be a philosopher. It means one who has got faith. If you have good luck to have faith then the religion is easy.

If you have got no iman then there is no hope. Iman is a thing that one can get by praying for iman.

There is no other way or short cut to it.

"Number two: In 1905, Juma Bhagat, one of our great missionaries who had rendered great services to me, and other very very pious Ismailis, came to me---that is exactly forty years ago---and said that in the Dua the word which referred to 'fish' should be withdrawn. I said to them: Do you intend to drop one of the foundations of the Faith?
When there was nothing but fish on earth, God stood as witness and you must have no doubt to that kind of witness from above. And of course they understood and dropped it.

"In Bombay , eight years ago, many of our people came to me and requested to add just one word in the Dua and then,
they said, everything was all right. I asked what was that one word. They said that instead of 'Ali Allah' to say 'Aliyun Haliyullah'. So I said: "You better drop the whole Dua if you want to alter that word.

You are ignorant. It is your ignorance and not that 'Ali Allah' is wrong.

You read my Farmans that I made in Bombay in 1905-6, interpreted by Kameria Haji, when I explained fully that there was a fundamental difference between Christianity and Ismailism.

In Christianity they believe that Jesus the man was God Almighty, and during the thirty three years of his life on earth,
he was the Almighty.

For the Ismailis, during the sixty years of his life on earth Ali was the prisoner of the material world, limited by it and suffering constantly. When we think of Ali, it is not the man during those sixty years but the Eternal that came from God and returned to God directly."

"Pir Hazrat Hasan who was very wealthy and had great comforts (of life) was told by a Jew that he was enjoying heaven on earth. Pir Hazrat Hasan replied that if he (the Jew) only knew the difference there was between the moment when the angel of death would offer him (Pir Hasan) his rose and the worldly advantages which the Jew saw,
he would understand that Hasan suffered the limitations of hell in that life.

A SIMILE OF A RIVER

"There is a very important Ayat in the Quran:" Inna lillahi wa inna ilehi raajay-oon" that is, we are for God and unto Him we are returning. Shariati people do not understand this. This is the thing that must be understood.

According to Ismaili religion Allah is the Ocean. Ali during his life on earth was the river separated from the Ocean of the Almighty—separated from it and running towards it overcoming all material resistances.
He was running towards the Origin. The haqiqati people should understand the meaning of this ayat, from haqiqati point of view. This ayat means more than all the rest of the Quran.

"Then of course Pir Sadruddin and others (Pirs) have put forward the doctrine that all momins are the small streams starting from the earth then joining the Ocean through the River. This is a doctrine of the Ismailis. It is perfectly clear.

There is nothing new. The perfect momin, after death, and Imam should not be separated. It is like a river which flows through the earth, stones, rocks and various other obstacles but reaches the ocean carrying with it all kinds of smaller streams.

Now, all this has already been made clear by Ismaili writers and thinkers, and sifted and made clear and printed in Iran .
This is the doctrine which is the true heart of the Ismaili religion."

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Extract from an Address by Mowlana Sultan Muhammad Shah at the Ismaili Association Mission Conference held at Dar es Salaam in July 1945

http://www.ismaili.net/timeline/1945/19 ... xtract.pdf

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Another partial rendering of the Minutes of that Conference in 1945 by Abu Aly Missionary. See what Imam said about Farmans of past Imams which were not published.

http://ismaili.net/timeline/1945/1945-i ... erence.pdf