LATEST ISSUE

Cover Story

Haji Ajmal Ali was born in a marginal farmer family of Haji Abdul Majid in 1923. It was in the 1950s that Haji Ajmal Ali ventured into a new world, far from his native place, Assam, and started selling agar wood to a friend in Mumbai, who used it to make perfume. Soon, he joined his friend and set up his first shop-- Al-Hafiz Traders at Nagdevi Street, across Mumbai's famous Muhammad Ali Road and Crawford Market. There has been no looking back since that early beginning.

The 85-year-old Haji Ajmal Ali, whose five sons expanded his original business in herbal perfumes into a global network with over 500 outlets, hails from a small hamlet near Hojai in Nagaon district of central Assam. They now commute between Mumbai, Dubai, Jeddah and Hojai, where the Ajmals have their regional business headquarters. ..... Read More

Special Report

The almost million-strong Cheeta-Kathat community, which lives mainly in Rajasthan's Ajmer district, and in parts of neighbouring Rajsamand, Bhilwara and Pali, are a unique people. The Cheetas and the Kathats (also known as Merats or Mehrats) are two related clans. Most of them follow a mix of both Hindu and Muslim customs and many identify themselves as both Hindu and Muslim at the same time. Probably more of them identify themselves as Muslims than as Hindus. Yet, many of the former worship in temples, celebrate Diwali and Holi (in addition to Eid), keep 'Hindu' names and are not familiar with even the basic tenets of Islam. Likewise, almost all Cheeta-Kathats who call themselves 'Hindus' practice male circumcision, bury their dead, eat halal meat, slaughtered in the Muslim fashion, and engage maulvis to solemnize their nikahs in the Islamic way.

Today, both Hindu as well as Islamic groups are active among these people, seeking to bring them into their respective folds. Not surprisingly, this is producing new challenges for the ways in which the Cheeta-Kathats define themselves.

Significantly, 34 year-old Maulana Qasim Rasul Falahi is one of the only two fazils or senior madrasa graduates from the Cheeta-Merat community. He is also the community's only Ph.D. holder. He is presently the head of the Religious Education Committee of the Cheeta- Merat Kathat Mahasabha, a representative body of the Cheeta-Kathats. In telling his story he reflects on his little-known community and his own plans to engage with it. ..... Read More