Lausanne World Pulse – Global Christianity, Contextual Religious Identity and Local Theologies: Īsā Imandars and Khrist Bhaktas in South Asia

Īsā Imandars in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Cultural and religious life in Bangladesh is deeply influenced by Islam, the faith of more than four-fifths of the population. In the Bengal region, Christianity was first introduced by Catholic missionaries in the seventeenth century and later by Baptist missionaries (including William Carey) in the nineteenth century. However, the number of Christians has always been very low in the delta, and the converts to Christianity typically

come from low-caste or outcaste Hindu communities.

To a large extent, religious life in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, follows that of rural Bangladesh where Sufi mysticism is an alternative to the more legalistic and somewhat restrained religious life of Sunni Islam. In contrast to the villages, however, Dhaka is open to the global economic market and to global culture. The whole drift of modern city life in Dhaka is thus toward global economy and an entertainment culture but at the same time rooted in Sufi-inspired Sunni Islam. This is the context for the groups of believers in Jesus which I followed

during my fieldwork¹, and who term themselves Jesus imandars,

or more correctly, Īsā imandars—“those faithful to Jesus.”

Worship and Worship Environment of Īsā Imandars
I frequently participated in the Jesus-prayers, the milad-e-Īsāe,
of one of these groups of imandars. The leader of the group, Mehrab, made his living from a small company; the group met on Fridays in Mehrab’s office. Although Mehrab’s daughters and

wife occasionally joined the group, the small jama’at, “fellowship,”

consisted solely of male participants. As the men arrived, Mehrab’s

daughters handed them copies of Kitab ul Mugadesh (a Muslim

Bangla translation) and a homemade collection of Īsāe songs,
“Jesus songs.”

Both books were placed in the decorated wooden bookstand in front of each participant so that the books did not touch the floor. Some of the songs were translations of well-known English devotional songs while others were accommodated folk songs,

baul gan. Each meeting started with singing.

As in Muslim religious culture in general, reading and reciting long
passages from the kitabs, the “holy books,” was a regular part of
every meeting in Mehrab’s jama’at. However, rather than reciting the
Qur’an in Arabic, the imandars read and recited the Kitab ul Mugadesh, the Bangla translation of the Old and New Testament. In particular,

the Book of Psalms (Zabur) and the apostolic letters were frequently

recited.

Mehrab would usually deliver a sermon which related to one of the texts read aloud; an underlying theme in all his sermons was the

relationship between Muslims and imandars. The question of whether

an imandar was still a Muslim especially occupied the minds of the believers. “Jesus was a Muslim,” Mehrab once said, “Muslim means ‘surrender to God,’ and Romans 2 says that Jesus surrendered his life and so I am also a Muslim.” There are, of course, different kinds of Muslims: those committed to God through Muhammad and those

committed to God through Īsā, Jesus; the imandars are of the latter

type. Mehrab often concluded his sermons with a call to the imandars to be holy; not simply to pursue the ritual holiness of Hinduism or

Islam, but to partake in the living prophet’s (Jesus’) holiness.

Besides the recitation of the Kitab ul Mugadesh and the sermons,
prayers are an important part of the imandars jama’at. In contrast to
the formal and highly-ritualized Muslim namaz prayers (i.e. salat in
Arabic), the imandars’ prayers are more informal and personal. However, it is not only through prayers that the interior and personal

relationship with God is built; it centres on the imandars’ emphasis

on faithfulness as the fundamental characteristic of an imandar. To truly become faithful to God is not merely an outwardly ritual activity; it is an interior and personal commitment through following the

once-sacrificed, but now living, prophet Īsā Mashi.

Prophethood and the Nature and Person of Jesus
A central claim in the imandars’ theological understanding is thus the nature and person of Jesus. Particularly, the notion of prophethood

occupies the imandars’ minds. In agreement with common Islamic

theology, the imandars recognize Jesus as a prophet witnessed by
his nispap (sinless-ness); however, somewhat in contrast to orthodox Islamic beliefs, they underscore the continuity of Jesus’ prophethood, manifested by God through Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus is thus not only

a prophet but the prophet, the embodiment of ethical qualities and

divine spiritual power.

Jesus’ death on the cross is therefore not merely the death of a
human but should be understood as qurbani (sacrifice). Through interior faithfulness toward Jesus, his demands and his guidance, the

imandars participate in Jesus’ sinless-ness and sacrificial death. In this

way, the imandars argue theologically for interconnectedness between Jesus’ authority as prophet, his sacrificial death and their own relation

to God through faithfulness toward Jesus.

In their religious practice and theological reflection, the imandars translate Christianity in a number of respects such as recitation of the

kitabs and the exercise of personalized ritual prayers. Through this

translation, they consciously place themselves in a broader Indian

Islamic form of religiosity with its folk songs and milad prayers. Also,

the central Christian claim concerning Christology is translated into

meaningful Islamic terminology. However, the imandars’ understanding

clearly transcends Islamic Orthodox theology insofar as the interconnectedness between Jesus’ prophethood, sacrificial death and

sinless-ness is concerned. Therefore, even if the imandars claim to

still be a type of Muslims, they display a fundamental identity with

the larger Christian theological tradition.

Endnote

1. The fieldwork was carried out in October–December 2002 and January–October 2004. The fieldwork consisted of participant observation in a number of religious groups and in qualitative interviews with thirty-five men and eight women from Muslim

backgrounds.