The Ismaili Success Story in B.C.

Adriana Barton | Image: Dina Goldstein | Published: July 01, 2006

“My main mosque is my car,” jokes Mossadiq Umedaly, an Ismaili Muslim. And what a lavish “mosque” it is: a silver Porsche Turbo he tools around in daily as he commutes from his West Vancouver home to Burnaby’s Xantrex Technology Inc., the power-technology company he plans to build into the next Ballard Power Systems. His goal isn’t all that far-fetched. Umedaly and former Ballard CEO Firoz Rasul, also Ismaili, first met as 16-year-olds in an Outward Bound school at Mount Kilimanjaro. Reunited decades later in Burnaby, with Umedaly as Ballard’s CFO, they raised that company’s value to a cool US$6 billion in 1998.

As chairman of both Xantrex and Premier Campbell’s Alternative Energy and Power Technology Task Force, Umedaly is lucky Ismaili prayer is less ritualistic than daily prayers in many Muslim traditions. As he puts it: “If I’m in a business meeting, I can’t stop everything and say, ‘Look, I have to kneel on the floor and pray.’”

Umedaly says three prayers a day (often in his Porsche) and pays visits to a jamatkhana, or house of prayer and community. There, he joins other Ismailis to revere Allah and to hear readings in English or Gujarati taken from writings by the Ismaili spiritual leader, a man called His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, or the Aga Khan. In the prayer hall, Ismailis meditate and sing spiritual poems called ginans. They also donate up to 12 per cent of their income in cash, without expecting a tax receipt. Privacy is crucial; outsiders are not allowed to observe Ismaili rituals and all seven jamatkhanas in Greater Vancouver are inconspicuous by design.

Driving past the Ismaili Jamatkhana and Centre on Canada Way, you’d never guess this Burnaby site was designated by the Aga Khan as one of only three “high-profile” jamatkhanas in the world (the others are in Lisbon, Portugal, and London, England). In fact, you might not notice it at all.

Designed by Bruno Freschi and opened in 1985, the fortress-like structure is graced with copper domes and a sunken courtyard garden – a symbol of earthly paradise. But this “paradise” and the three-storey building are barely visible from the road. The structure was largely dug below ground and “hidden deliberately,” says Farrah Jinha, an Ismaili PR professional who used to give tours of the centre. “It’s very much assimilated into the community.”

Hidden deliberately. This jamatkhana could be a metaphor for the local Ismaili community, whose low profile belies its tremendous impact on the B.C. economy. Larco Group of Companies owner Aminmohamed Lalji and his kin are routinely listed among Canada’s 100 richest families in magazines such as Canadian Business; Report on Business magazine estimated his wealth at $884 million. Abdul and Shamim Jamal, who started out with a chicken farm in Chilliwack, now privately own and/or operate 14 seniors’ facilities under the Retirement Concepts banner with their son Azim. Among other real estate holdings, Noordin and Farida Sayani privately own five of the 17 Executive Hotels and Resorts, a chain they founded and run with their son, Salim.

And for every Lalji, Jamal, Umedaly and Sayani (all of whom live in West Van mansions), there are countless Ismaili realtors, bankers, medical doctors and lawyers in B.C., including Liberal Mobina Jaffer, who in 2001 became the first Canadian senator to be sworn in on the Koran. You didn’t know she was Ismaili? How about CTV/TSN sports reporter Farhan Lalji? Or UBC alum Nadir Mohamed, now based in Toronto as president and COO of the communications division of Rogers?

Islam-a-phobia in the West, especially after 9/11, could explain why Ismailis don’t advertise their faith. But Ismailis of Indian background have been living in B.C. in significant numbers since the early 1970s. And like many other Muslims, they have about as much in common with Islamic extremists as George W. Bush does. “It is not natural for people to blow themselves up,” says Umedaly. “We as a society should be wondering how we have put people in the situation that they do so.” So why haven’t Ismailis played a more public role as modern-thinking Muslims?

The Vancouver Sun’s religion reporter, Douglas Todd, has often bemoaned the community’s secrecy during his decade of trying to cover Canada’s Ismaili. (That community by the way, has close to 75,000 members in Canada, according to the Aga Khan’s Secretariat in France, and about 11,000 in Greater Vancouver.) His frustration reached a peak after the Aga Khan paid a brief visit to Vancouver in June 2005.

“Ismailis are happy to highlight the Aga Khan’s many valuable charity projects,” wrote Todd. “But try to dig below the polished surface of their tight-knit community, and the door is invariably shut.”

Well, maybe not invariably. Few among the 20 or so Ismailis approached for this BCBusiness article declined to be interviewed. And contrary to Todd’s experience, local Ismailis were generally open about their spiritual beliefs, their personal lives and the secrets behind their often staggering financial success. Ismailis tend to be charming, well dressed and exceedingly gracious; they might insist on giving you a lift or picking up the tab for lunch. And lunch, at their suggestion, is more apt to be at the sumptuous Wedgewood or Sutton Place hotels than at one of Vancouver’s few Ismaili restaurants (where African dishes such as fried cassava root might be followed by Indian tandoori chicken).

Ismailis of a certain age speak with the eloquence and diction of the highly educated; many attended Aga Khan schools in East Africa and completed their PhDs in Europe. Before their expulsion from Uganda by dictator Idi Amin, they were bankers, lawyers and coffee plantation barons. “We were referred to as the Jews of East Africa,” says lawyer-turned-real-estate-broker Farouk Verjee, “and that’s a compliment, by the way.”
Hanif Muljiani was eight years old when his family arrived penniless in Vancouver in 1972. His father, formerly the principal of the Muljianis’ privately owned school in Uganda, worked as a parking lot attendant and took other menial jobs – a typical story for B.C.’s Ismailis. “To come here and have to start again, literally from scratch – it’s quite a humbling experience,” Muljiani recalls. He paid his own way through university and became a chartered accountant. At 42, Muljiani is now president and owner of The Portables, a company that supplies display booths and marketing services, and recorded revenues of $13 million in 2005.

If Ismailis didn’t lose their Midas touch after their exodus from East Africa, it’s likely because their role model is a multibillionaire. The Aga Khan owns a bank in Pakistan, plantations in Kenya and a chain of luxury hotels, not to mention his own jet, stables of racehorses and an estate outside Paris. In all, his holdings generate an estimated US$1.36 billion in sales annually, according to a November 2005 Bloomberg.com article. For Ismaili Muslims, the Aga Khan’s riches do not detract from his role as their spiritual leader, or imam, who they consider a direct descendant of Islam’s prophet Muhammad. “The beauty of Islam is it doesn’t see a distinction between the secular and the religious; you don’t have to be doing good and be poor,” explains Umedaly.
The Aga Khan, 69, has devoted much of his life to good works. After receiving an honorary Companion of the Order of Canada last year, he was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy for health, education and development initiatives in strife-torn countries undertaken by the Aga Khan Development Network, which disburses about US$300 million annually for such projects. Ismailis follow in his philanthropic footsteps – literally. In Vancouver, the annual Ismaili Walk for Kids raised $200,000 last year for a United Way children’s program. The 2005 annual World Partnership Walk, a countrywide Aga Khan Foundation Canada event, raised over $4 million for development initiatives in Asia and Africa.