10/26/2025
1905 — Confused followers of the Aga Khan
The court records from the Haji Bibi Case indicate that the witnesses appearing before
Judge Russell were “Khojahs” but they did not know the distinction between the sect of
“Ismailis” and “Ithna'ashries.”
Below are Three extracts from the Bombay Law Reporter Haji Bibi Case (1908, Volume 11, pp.438, 440-42, 454):
1. The first witness of the plaintiff goes as far as to say that he considers
His Highness the Aga Khan and his family as his Murshed, i.e., spiritual leader....He concludes by saying that he is a Khojah, but he is neither Ismaili nor an Asnashari. He does not know the distinction between the
two.
2. [Witness] Fazulbhoy Joomabhoy Lalji in the commencement of his
evidence says there is no difference between the faith of a Khoja Ismaili and an Asnashari and he said to me that the Asnasharis believed in 12 Imams. Khoja Ismailis believe the same and never believed anything else.
And again he says at page 345 that he really believes the first Aga Khan was an Asnashari.
3. Witness No. 3, Nathu Virji, is neither Shia Ismaili nor Shia Asnashari.
He cannot say what sort of a Shia Khoja he is. He does not understand what is meant by Shia Ismailis nor Shia Asnasharis. But he believes only in the 12 Imams.
if his views on the subject of his own religion were somewhat obscure to say the least.
If the converted Khojahs were truly Ismailis believing in the Imamate of the ancestors of
the Aga Khan from day one of their conversion by Pir Sadr-din, then such confusion would not have lasted for seven centuries. Secondly, if Aga Khan I, who arrived in 1840, had converted the Khojahs as Nizari Imami Ismailis upon his arrival, then these confusions would not have lasted for seven decades, by the time the witnesses appeared before the judge. The only logical answer would be that the indoctrination of he theory of “Hazar Imam” must be a very recent one, for the converted Khojah Ithna'ashries, the then followers of the Aga Khan I and II.