New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the influential Dawoodi Bohra community in Mumbai Friday and said an atmosphere of unprecedented trust has been created in the last few years in India.
Modi inaugurated a new campus of the community’s principal educational institute — Aljamea-tus-Saifiyah or the Saifee Academy — in Mumbai’s Andheri East.
He spoke highly of Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin — the current leader of the world’s Dawoodi Bohras and also the 53rd Dai al-Mutlaq or the “absolute missionary”.
Modi said: “I am not here as a Prime Minister or a chief minister. I have been connected to this family for four generations. All four generations have visited my home.”
After opening the fourth campus of the Aljamea-tus-Saifiyah, he added: “Visiting the campus and this family is like visiting my own family.”
“In the parameters of change — with time and development — the Dawoodi Bohra community has always proved itself. Today, the expansion of important educational institutions like the Aljamea-tus-Saifiyah is a living example of this,” Modi said.
The Aljamea-tus-Saifiyah works to protect learning traditions and the literary culture of the community, and also imparts Arabic learning.
Earlier in the day, Modi inaugurated several infrastructure projects and two Vande Bharat Expresses during this second visit to the city in a month.
On 19 January, Modi inaugurated and laid foundation stones of projects worth over Rs 38,000 crore in Mumbai, as the city heads into civic polls in March or April.
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