Bohra women: Cut from the same cloth

Wrapping fashion and tradition in a colourful embrace — the Dawoodi Bohra rida.

In Cairo’s 1,000-year-old Fatimid mosque, the Jamea ul Anwar, someone asked the spiritual leader Syedna Muhammad Burhanuddin (TUS) about the different ways that their Dawoodi Bohra women dressed when they came to the masjid. The year, according to community member Mustafa Jackwala, was 1979 and the discussion took place during the first Muharram congregation.

“We should encourage our people to wear what the royal family wears,” one of the Syedna’s sons is reported to have suggested, referring to the Qasr-e-Ali. But then, according to Jackwala, someone in the gathering objected to this idea, asking how it would be appropriate to allow ‘common’ people to wear what the royal family wore? The Syedna’s son replied simply: We want our people to look like us.



The women of the royal family used to wear the hijab, as decreed by the late Syedna Taher Saifuddin (AQ), who led the Dawoodi Bohras from 1915 to 1965. After the discussion in the mosque that day, though, his son took it upon himself to examine the sartorial identity of his people.

For example, in India the women preferred a cotton or silk scarf over a matching silk bodice and petticoat under a dark silk burqa. And the women from the royal family draped themselves in elaborate saris inside the confinement of the Saifee Mahal in Bombay. Even distant Dawoodi Bohra communities in Sri Lanka and Africa favoured saris and skirts with a shawl to cover their heads.  Subsequently, the Syedna’s wife came up with the design for the rida. It consists of a poncho-like top with the pardi and a flap to cover the face, and the lenga or loose-fitting skirt underneath. The word means ‘the chador of Bibi Fatima’, the daughter of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

The history of this discussion is mentioned in a 2011 thesis on the rida’s contribution to the textile cottage industry of Pakistan by Zahra Arif Lotia at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. With a few years of the declaration that the Dawoodi Bohra women adopt the rida, it became a common sight.



“No changes can be made to the original cut because of the religious significance,” explains Yousuf Petiwala, who has sold them from his Jamali Shaadi Shop, in Karachi’s Najmi Market in Saddar for eight years. Indeed, today, the women of this particular denomination of Shia Islam can be instantly recognised the world over for their uniform way of appearing in public. As they say, you are what you wear. And with the rida, the outer garment became a symbol of their religious identity.

Rida Ritual

No matter what your age, the rida is part of a woman’s daily wear after her misak ceremony of initiation. Petiwala maintains that once a girl comes of age it is “compulsory” to wear the rida before leaving the house. But Aquila Aftab, who has been designing ridas for almost 27 years, disagrees, saying, “It is worn to a masjid... and it’s a very personal thing.”

PHOTO: FILE

The misak ceremony introduces a young woman to the rida. “It’s a reason for the entire family to get together and celebrate over a Bohra-style feast in a thaal,” adds Farida Yunus Marvi, who has 25 years of rida-designing experience.

But the ceremony has more to it than just the rida appeal. “The misak, more than anything, is a little ceremony welcoming the consciousness towards the practice and pursuit of the religion,” says Zahra Rangoonwala, the creative manager at Team::ants who had her own ceremony at the age of 13. Her mother affectionately stitched her first rida which was cut out of a pearly white, silky fabric with pink and lilac flower details — purple being her favourite colour. “I wanted to start wearing a rida already, and often practiced doing my pardi on my mom’s rida,” she recalls.

For all-female gatherings, a rida-cum-jori is preferred, as you can simply remove the pardi and wrap a dupatta around yourself.

Dear Designs

Farida Yunus Marvi says that all you need is 5.5 yards of fabric for a rida. The beauty of its architecture is that you can turn any type of fabric into one. Although Petiwala says that the women generally avoid see-through materials such as georgette. The type of fabric is mostly chosen by occasion; for weddings you can take your pick from a wide array of silk fabrics or jamavar and stick to cotton or wash-and-wear for everyday ridas.

Along with fabric, the colour selection is also closely allied with the shades of the season. “During summer, pastels and chikkun fabric are in vogue,” adds Petiwala.

Late Syedna Taher Saifuddin, who led the Dawoodi Bohras from 1915 to 1965. PHOTO: FILE

The designs are mostly seasonal and revolve around the latest shalwar kameez trend. “Pick any shalwar kameez catalogue and we’ll make a copy rida out of it... same print and embroidery,” says Petiwala, who entered the business in his mother’s footsteps. Tahera Petiwala stitched ridas at home on a small scale. “Since we don’t have a catalogue, customers point out the designs and we duplicate them,” he says. Marvi will even rip off the border from an old sari or shalwar kameez to make a rida for some of her clients.



But not all designers wish to flip through magazines and catalogues to unleash their creative streak. “My designs stem from the multicoloured ribbons and prints that I buy,” says Aquila Aftab. “I lay them out and match them.” She started out by stitching her own clothes after college as a hobby, and soon transformed her favourite pastime into a full-time career. Her daughter, Farida Adnan, provides some valuable assistance. Aftab and Petiwala also offer a broad range of designs that include salma-sitara work and screen printing.

Wedding Wear

Marvi caters to high-end customers who sometimes approach her to design their wedding ridas or joris. “On average it takes me two months to design and stitch a wedding jora because of the intricacy of the work that is usually done by hand,” she says. “But if you need it urgently, I’ll have it ready within a month.” Her bridal rida designs range between Rs8,000 to Rs10,000 and joris can cost around Rs500,000, depending on how much you are willing to fork out. The ones Aftab designs are priced between Rs2,500 and Rs10,000 and can be made available within two weeks. “Ridas are preferred when the ceremony is taking place inside a masjid, otherwise brides often opt for lengas,” she says, having worn a jori for her own wedding ceremony.

At Jamali’s Shaadi Shop, a rida can be churned out much faster and at a lower rate, starting from Rs2,000. “It takes me one day to stitch a regular rida if I work from morning to night,” he says.

Although wedding season may seem the busiest month for designers, Marvi gets orders for exclusive ridas especially during Ramazan, for Lailat-ul-Qadr that falls in the last 10 days of Ramazan and for Syedna Mohammad Burhanuddin’s birthday celebrations. It’s when every girl wants to outdo the one sitting next to her inside the Jamaatkhana.



The trend of wearing fashionable ridas for Lailat-ul-Qadr has, however, changed in the recent past. “It is fading because everyone realises that wearing such a fancy rida makes it difficult to pray all night,” says Rangoonwala. Elaborately detailed ridas are now set aside for weddings or Eid.

While a rida’s original purpose may have been to cover, it has easily morphed into a fashion symbol that is frequently associated with a level of comfort. Aftab, for one, confesses that it is perhaps the most convenient apparel. “You don’t have to wear a dupatta over your head and then constantly worry about it slipping,” she says.

No matter what their motivation to wear one, Dawoodi Bohra women all know that the rida makes them stand out. Rangoonwala often gets curious looks when traveling abroad. Sometimes she is even stopped with questions. “I end up replying that it’s just a creatively done ‘burqa’ or ‘abaaya’,” she says. “I definitely feel proud about being [Dawoodi] Bohra and wearing a rida.

With additional input from Fatima Attarwala

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, September 15^th, 2013.