MUMBAI, India — Covered from head to toe, the women stood separate from the men and in many ways acted out traditions common to all Muslims.
They prayed in Arabic and beat their chests. Thousands of Dawoodi Bohra Muslim women cried as their leader, Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin, spoke on the occasion of his 100th birthday at the Saifee Mosque in Mumbai’s Bhendi Bazaar.
But rather than wearing black burqas, like other religious Muslim women in India, these Bohra women wore hot pink.
They also wore deep reds, forest greens, bright blues. Every color imaginable, it seemed — except black.
Some say that’s no coincidence.
The traditional costume, called a rida, worn by Dawoodi Bohra women represents one of many ways this community of about 1.2 million people differentiates itself from other Muslims in India, say sociologists and historians.
India’s 161 million Muslims tend to be a marginalized minority with lower education and income levels than the country’s Hindus and Christians. There is also long-standing prejudice against Muslims by those who perceive the community as violent, poor, socially backward and sexist. This can cause discrimination against Muslims in everything from housing to jobs.
The Bohras want none of that.
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