REBUILDING COMMUNITY

Khoja-Moolji explores the centrality of women to Ismaili diasporic communities.

As members of a sub-sect of Shia Islam, tightknit Ismaili communities make up part of the diaspora of Muslims throughout Southeast Asia, East Africa, and the West. Indeed, because of the legacies of colonialism—from territorial annexations to the partition of India and Pakistan—displacement has been a central theme of Ismaili life over the past century. A professor of Muslim Studies at Georgetown University, the author was born in Pakistan to an Ismaili family. The book begins with the story of her mother, Farida, who has taken care of fellow Ismaili immigrants to the United States for more than two decades. The book’s analysis focuses on the central role of women in maintaining Ismaili communities throughout the world through the grassroots creation of a “protective web, an infrastructure of care.” Their activities, from cooking during religious festivals and washing ritual objects to taking care of elders and emptying bedpans at refugee camps, the book convincingly argues, sustain Ismaili culture and communities by “producing sociability, repairing past trauma, and furnishing continuity from one generation to the next.” While traditional Ismaili histories focus on top-down narratives, “[w]e still know little, however, about the lives of ordinary Ismailis,” Khoja-Moolji notes. Though the book’s impressive inclusion of more than 570 endnotes and a 16-page bibliography speaks to the author’s solid grasp of printed primary sources and academic work on Ismailis, this book’s most striking feature is its centering of “more hidden and sometimes intangible practices of placemaking.” Various sources of information, including oral history interviews conducted by the author, family cookbooks, and unpublished journals, take readers into the kitchens, community centers, and clinic waiting rooms where Ismaili women share stories, recipes, and family photographs. The author of two previous academic books on Muslim women from Southeast Asia, Khoja-Moolji is an expert on the topic, but she’s careful to avoid academic jargon, embracing an accessible writing style that is supported by a wealth of photographs and maps.

A powerful reminder of the importance of women to the forging of community.