In defiance, the Sumrah Dynasty of Sindh (1026–1356) retained a Hindu culture that remained favorable to the Nizari Ismailis, who traced their ancestral history to the Fatimids of Persia. 4 Kassam points to atrocities inflicted in Sindh by Afghan and Turkish ghazis (i.e., warriors) and how they devastated temples, plundered royal coffers, and ill-treated women in the name of Islam. Why were the Lohanas (and other groups) in Sindh open to the teachings of Nizari Ismaili missionaries like Pir Sadardin? While existing literature addresses questions about “when” and “how,” there is little about “why.” Nonetheless, Tazim Kassam, in Songs of Wisdom and Circles of Dance: Hymns of the Satpanth Ismaili Muslim Saint Pir Shams, does delve deeper into this question. Individuals holding the Khwaja title could gain their position through wealth, genealogy, the virtue of service to a King, or by marriage. Instead, it marks an achieved state that assumes socio-economic power. Khan posits that the title Khwaja (Khoja being its Gujarati and Sindhi pronunciation) does not ascribe a socio-economic status. It was a title given to nobles, merchants, and teachers. Pir Sadardin invented “equivalences between Hindu and Muslim concepts” to facilitate his mission and proposed the title of “Khwaja,” an Islamic equivalent of Thakur. This group claimed to be martial caste Rajputs and adopted the “Thakur” title to symbolize their status.
2 In Conversions and Shifting Identities Ramdev Pir and the Ismailis in Rajasthan, Dominique-Sila Khan states that the term “Khoja” dates to the fifteenth century and Pir Sadardin, a Nizari Ismaili missionary who undertook a da’wah mission among Lohana. 1 The Khoja Ismaili community came into being because of these missions. Nizari Ismaili missionaries carried out da’wah missions in South Asia between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Sindh is a region historically rich in Ismaili missionary activity.