What question did this study set out to answer?

The aim is to examine the historical development and economic dynamics of three Gujarati Muslim communities between 1800 and 1975.

March 25, 2026Southeast Asian studies0 citationsOpen Access

Michael O’Sullivan. No Birds of Passage: A History of Gujarati Muslim Business Communities, 1800–1975. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2023.

TTTetsuya Tanaka

Key Points

The aim is to examine the historical development and economic dynamics of three Gujarati Muslim communities between 1800 and 1975.
Analyzed history from the post-Mughal period through British colonial rule and beyond.
Explored the roles of jamaats as organizational institutions within these communities.
Studied the impact of kinship networks and their relationship with state authorities.
Identified significant economic success alongside wealth disparity and distributional conflicts.
Highlighted the transformation of jamaats from religious institutions to corporate entities.
Discussed the unique cultural identity shaped by both Islamic and Hindu influences.

Abstract

In No Birds of Passage, Michael O'Sullivan explores the history of the Bohras, Khojas, and Memons-three Muslim business communities from Gujarat and neighboring regions in west ern India-from the post-Mughal nineteenth century through the period of the British Empire to the end of British colonial rule, the Partition, and the late twentieth century.It also analyzes the economic success and consequent distributional conflicts, inequality, and wealth disparity within these communities, which are characterized by their organizational institutions called jamaats.In discussing the discursive commercial and kinship network of the Bohras, Khojas, and Memons, the book looks into the significance of the middle power, i.e., the unique interme diate position that these groups attained in the public sphere through close relations with the state authorities under Pax Britannica between the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean, East Africa, and the South China Sea.It provides a highly nuanced and novel insight into correlations between Islamic studies and the development of capitalism by interpreting the transition of jamaats from precolonial religious and caste-linked institutions into "corporate Islam" (corpo rate caste institutions).Literature on the Bohras, Khojas, and Memons in South Asian studies has often focused on the Shia Ismailis in these communities for their particularly "esoteric" character, although there are also Sunni and Shia non-Ismailis among them-as this book notes.The literature also examines the communities' social customs, which resemble Hindu customs in some respects and are said to be derived from their mythical origin of conversion from Hinduism to Islam across western India.For such reasons, the communities' Muslimness is often questioned by orthodox understandings of Islam, and their legal exceptionalism, which deviates from Islamic law, has been emphasized in previous studies (Khan 1997;Blank 2001;Nejima 2002).O'Sullivan provides a refreshing and significant description of the three Gujarati Muslim

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