amardeep wrote:Waheguru ji ka Khalsa, Waheguru ji ki fateh.
Ya Ali Madad!
I have been reading the various debates on this forum for a few days and the knowledge given has been a joy to my heart. I have learnt so much about ishamiism as well as sikhism(my religion) and seen the similiarities we have. its quite astonishing. I look forward to learning more from you and im so glad i have found this forum
I have a few questions though.
How many ishamilis are there worldwide?
Do you recognice the twelwe imams that ithna sharia muslims follow?
Do you have your own mosques, or do you go the regular shia mosques?
what is the difference between a Pir, Imam and Prophet?
Is it possible for a common man as myself, to meet your Holy Imam eg in 10 years or so, without being a muslim myself.
Your Ginans are beautiful, they are very similar to the writings of our Gurus. Where can i listen to them being sung in their traditional raags. i only see recitations on this website
May peace be upon you all
Sastriakal Paaji,
Am glad to hear that you relish and enjoy the board and our discussions and discourse on the various areas of faith in general.
I will attempt to answer some of the questions that you have raised and for the others, I have no doubt that kmaherali will point you to topics within the forums where these have been discussed and elaborated upon.
How many ismailies are there worldwide?
That is a loaded question, there are ismailies in places where it is not possible to do a headcount - i.e. China, i do know that in Canada/U.S. it is anticipated a 175,000 - 200,000 ismailies, East Africa - 25,000...India/Pakistan maybe a million ismailies...(someone probably has more accurate figures than my estimations)
Do we recognize the 12 imams of the Shia Ithna Asheris?
No we don't recognize all 12 Imams - we have the first 5 imams in common - upto Jaffer is Sadiq - whereby the Shia Ithna Asheris followed Musa Kazim and become known as the Twelvers and we followed Ismail thus the name Ismailies or Seveners. Also it is our belief that the Current Aga Khan traces a direct paternal lineal descent to the First Historical Imam Ali - and this is thru Imam Ismail - the line of Musa Kazim went extinct at the 12th Imam.
Do we have our own mosques? or do we go to regular Shia Mosques?
We have our own Mosques that are termed Jamat Khanas - i.e Community Houses. I don't know what part of the world you reside in, otherwise I would direct you to examples of such.
The difference between a Pir/Imam/Prophet?
I beleive kmaherali will point you to other forums where this discussion has been had, however if not, I will be happy to exchange emails discussing this with you - let me know.
Is it possible for you to meet the Holy Imam?
Yes it is possible, but all depends upon the Holy Imam. Many non muslims have met the Imam, once again, I don't know how famialiar you are with the Ismaili Imamat or Imamat Institutions such as AKDN, or what part of the world you reside in.
I will direct you to
www.theismaili.org for more information in regards to this.
In terms of ginans, yes we have a tremendous canon of ginanic literature and you might be interested to know that we also have punjabi ginans and some of our ginans you can actually hear sung in some raags, our raags do vary from country to country as each ethnic differentiation brings a slight modulation in raags.
Shams