Dawoodi Bohra Forum

Prof Abbas Hamdani has passed away. He was 93 years old. May his soul rest in peace. He taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and was the scholar of Ismaili history and of Ikhwan us Safa in particular. A gentle soul who wore his scholarship lightly, he had won many awards and honours for his scholarly works. The Bohra clergy had ostracized him for his refusal to toe the official line. He was well respected in the Islamic world but very few Bohras knew about him. RIP.

May Allah s w t bless him and rest him in peace. Amen.

Inna Lillah hey waa Inna Elehi Rajeum

If you can more info about him and his struggle will be great, also a picture for record.

Sounds like we lost some great scholar. any pic available of him

and where will he be buried India or US

I believe it was his grandfather, Fayz Allah Hamdani who was the first to testify in court that there was no Nass to the 47th Dai.. He was, ofcourse, shunned from the community.
His great grand father, Mohammed Ali Hamdani was apparently a titan when it came to Ismaili belief knowledge... Has scribed many books of Bohra faith.

A few years ago I came across a book which is sort of a catalogue/detailed bibliography of all the books in Abbas Hamdani's possessions which he donated to the Ismaili Library in UK.. It is an excellent catalogue which will let you know what books you should seek to learn more.. It is also interesting to know what a massive collection of books this family has had.. a lot of their books are not even mentioned in those catalogue as these are only which Prof Abbas had.. many books had been taken away by the 51st Dai from his uncles and some other destroyed, lost or ruined through worm damage.

A true loss to our faith

A tribute to Abbas Hamdani, written by his daughter Sumaiya Hamdani:

Torchbearer of a scholarly legacy

Abbas Hamdani was a scholar of Islamic history and philosophy who descended from a long line of scholars in the Bohra community and relatives of its da’is. His forefather, Sayyidi Ali b. Sa`id al-Hamdani left his family’s ancestral home in Yemen in the late 1700s, at the invitation of the 39th da`I Ibrahim Wajih al-Din (d. 1754). The da`wa had just headquartered in Surat at that time because the English East India Company was extending its policy of religious toleration to its control of that important trading and manufacturing town. This prompted the da`is to establish a center of learning there. Read more

How about making some of these books available online for easy access to the Bohra community. Then those who are interested can read.

From the Institute's site:

The Hamdani Collection

The Muhammad Ali Hamdani Collection, housed in the IIS’s Ismaili Special Collections at the Aga Khan Library, represents a large segment of the Hamdani family’s library, that has been collected over seven generations by an eminent family of scholars from the Da’udi Bohra community in India and Yemen. The Hamdani Collection has a fascinating provenance, attested by the many seals and signatures of Professor Hamdani’s distinguished forebears. It represents one of the most significant collections of Ismaili writings and contains some 300 manuscripts and rare imprints in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and Gujarati. It was Professor Abbas Hamdani, who re-gathered a large portion of his family’s collection, and generously donated them to the IIS for preservation and research purposes.

The IIS publication Arabic, Persian and Gujarati Manuscripts: The Hamdani Collection contains detailed descriptions of the manuscripts in the Hamdani Collection. It explores the content of the works and the codicological features of the manuscripts. The introduction also contains a comprehensive history of the Hamdani family.

Also see this catalogue of the Hamdani Collection.