[eBook] [PDF] For Rebuilding Community 1st Edition By Shenila Khoja Moolji

[eBook] [PDF] For Rebuilding Community 1st Edition By Shenila Khoja Moolji

Throughout the 20th century, Shia Ismaili Muslim communities were forced to move from their homes many times. In Rebuilding Community, Shenila Khoja-Moolji explores how these communities, especially the women, rebuilt their lives after being displaced. The book focuses on Ismaili Muslim women who left East Pakistan and East Africa in the 1970s and started new lives in North America.

Khoja-Moolji shows how women played a key role in recreating their religious communities, known as jamats. Using interviews, field research, and memory texts, the author highlights how women’s everyday actions—like cooking for special religious days, caring for the sick, and sharing miracle stories or recipes—helped keep their community connected. These actions not only strengthened spiritual bonds but also helped heal the trauma of displacement.

The book argues that religious communities are not automatically maintained but are built through daily acts of care and passed on to future generations. By focusing on the women’s efforts, Khoja-Moolji challenges the idea that displaced people are helpless and instead shows them as strong and resourceful.