Research Article
Charting the Future of the Ginans: Needs and Expectations of the Ismaili Youth in the Western Diaspora
Karim Tharani
Information Technology Librarian
University of Saskatchewan Library
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Email: karim.tharani@usask.ca
Received: 8 Oct. 2021 Accepted: 23 Feb. 2022
2022 Tharani. This
is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons‐Attribution‐Noncommercial‐Share Alike License 4.0
International (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly attributed, not used for commercial
purposes, and, if transformed, the resulting work is redistributed under the
same or similar license to this one.
DOI: 10.18438/eblip30055
Abstract
Objective – The heritage of ginans of the Nizari
Ismaili community comprises hymn-like poems in various Indic dialects that were
transmitted orally. Despite originating in the Indian subcontinent, the ginans
continue to be cherished by the community in the Western diaspora. As part of a
study at the University of Saskatchewan, an online survey of the Ismaili
community was conducted in 2020 to gather sentiments toward the ginans in the
Western diaspora. This article presents the results of the survey to explore
the future of the ginans from the perspective of the English-speaking Ismaili
community members.
Methods – An online survey was developed to solicit the needs
of the global Ismaili community using convenience sampling. The survey
attracted 515 participants from over 20 countries around the world. The
English-speaking members of the Ismaili community between 18 to 44 years of age
living in Western countries were designated as the target group for this
study. The survey responses of the target group (n = 71) were then benchmarked
against all other respondents categorized as the general group (n =
444).
Results –
Overall, 85% of the respondents of the survey were from the diaspora and 15%
were from the countries of South Asia including India, Pakistan, and
Bangladesh. The survey found that 97% of the target group respondents preferred
English materials for learning and understanding the ginans compared to 91% in
the general group. Having access to online ginan materials was expressed as a
dire need by respondents in the two groups. The survey also revealed that over
90% of the respondents preferred to access private and external ginan websites
rather than the official community institutional websites. In addition, the
survey validated the unified expectations of the community to see ginans become
an educational and scholarly priority of its institutions.
Conclusion – Based on the
survey results, it can be concluded that the respondents in the target group are educated citizens of
English-speaking countries and regard the heritage of ginans to be an important
part of their lives. They value the emotive and performative aspects of the
tradition that help them express their devotion and solidarity to the Ismaili
faith and community. They remain highly concerned about the future of the
ginans and fear that the teachings of the ginans may be lost due to lack of
attention and action by the community institutions. The development and
dissemination of curriculum-based educational programs and resources for the
ginans emerged as the most urgent and unmet expectation among the survey
respondents. The article also identifies actions that the community
institutions can take to ensure continued transmission and preservation of the
ginans in the Western diaspora.
Introduction
The word “ginan”
is a derivative of the Sanskrit term jnan,
which means knowledge or gnosis. In the context of the Nizari
Ismaili community, the term is used for the community’s collection of gnostic
hymn-like poems. The religious corpus of the ginans comprises some 1,000
individual works composed primarily using Indo-Aryan dialects with loanwords
from Perso-Arabic languages. While the ginans originated in the Indian
subcontinent, the Ismaili community is now a global and culturally diverse
community living in over 25 countries around the world (The Ismaili, 2022).
The emotive
tunes of the ginans continue to be cherished by the community members in the
Western diaspora, particularly those who come from the Indian subcontinent
lineage commonly known as Khojas. Due to the language barrier, however,
the teachings of the ginans remain inaccessible to the English-speaking community
members born and raised in the Western diaspora. This issue is further
compounded by the inaction of the community institutions to develop and
disseminate educational resources for the motivated community youth interested
in learning about the teachings of the ginans. Failing to attend to the needs
and expectations of the youth – who are ultimately responsible for carrying
these traditions forward – may result in the loss of the tradition altogether.
To address this lacuna and explore the future of the
ginans in the digital age, an online
survey was conducted in 2020 to gather and analyze the needs and expectations
of the Ismaili community members interested in the ginans from across the
globe. The survey was administered independently at the University of
Saskatchewan, which currently hosts the searchable online ginan portal called Ginan
Central. Following a brief review of the history of the community and the
corpus of ginans, this article presents the results of the survey. The insights
from the survey results inform the discussion on the future of the ginans in
the Western diaspora.
Literature Review
Today’s digital age presents unprecedented
opportunities for ethnocultural communities to teach and transmit their
knowledge in ways that were not possible in the print era. With information technology becoming an essential enabler for learners
in Western countries, this study is based on the premise that the successive
generations of the Ismaili community expect to engage with the ginans online
and on-demand. Thus, the use of information technology in
conjunction with traditional teaching can enhance motivation and engagement of
the community youth, which in turn can ensure the long-term viability of the
ginans in the Western diaspora.
This research utilizes the e-learning theoretical
framework which identifies three theoretical dimensions of an effective
e-learning system (Aparicio et al., 2016). These dimensions include people,
technology, and services. The people dimension defines various roles
that stakeholders may have in an e-learning system, such as learners, content
providers, educators, etc. The technology dimension of an e-learning
system serves as an interface to communicate and connect users with the content
curated for learning activities. The services dimension of an e-learning
system encapsulates the pedagogical models and instructional strategies that
guide the design and development of the e-learning system.
In the context of this study of the Ismaili
community and its tradition of the ginans, the e-learning system framework is
applied by identifying community learners (representing the people dimension)
whose needs and expectations to engage with the ginans online (i.e., the
technology dimension) must be gathered and analyzed to develop effective
curriculum and instruction (manifesting the services dimension). This study
assumes that understanding the needs and expectations of the community and its
youth remains crucial for ensuring that the tradition and its teachings
continue to be passed on from generation to generation in the West. Thus,
the initial focus of the study was to gather and analyze the needs of the
Ismaili community as depicted in the figure below (Figure 1).
Figure 1
E-learning
system framework and the ginans.
The Ismaili Community of the Indian Subcontinent
As mentioned
earlier, the present-day Nizari Ismaili community
members were historically referred to as the Khojas in the pre-colonial
Indian subcontinent. The religious path of the Khojas was known as Satpanth (True Path) which subscribed to the single
spiritual reality of humans irrespective of specific religion, race, or
practice. The ginans were venerated as spiritual teachings by the followers of Satpanth, the authorship of
which is attributed to several preacher-saints who are known as pirs and
sayyids in the community. The ginans were composed using a mixed
language that borrowed vocabulary primarily from Indo-Aryan languages,
including Gujarati, Hindi, Sanskrit, among others (Shackle & Moir, 2000).
The use of a mixed language enabled the composers to draw from the “bewildering
thicket of Indian religions, mythologies and intellectual traditions… The
ginans thus became and remained, until the contemporary project to
reconceptualize and reformulate the Ismaili Tariqah
(Tradition), the de facto supreme scripture for Satpanth
Ismailis.” (Alibhai, 2020, n.p.). The historical
practice of composing ginans came to an end in the mid-nineteenth century and
no new ginans have been composed since then (Asani,
2011).
The subsequent
colonization of India forced the Satpanth followers
to choose between the two dominant religious persuasions – Hinduism and Islam.
As a result, the community’s identity evolved from Satpanthi
Khojas to Ismaili Muslims. The end of the colonial rule in 1947 resulted in the
partition of the Indian subcontinent into two independent countries, India and
Pakistan. While the tradition of ginans is the heritage of the Satpanthi Ismailis, it continues to be cherished around the
world, albeit as one of many of the community’s diverse devotional religio-cultural traditions, including qasida, munqabat, munajat,
and geet. In the context of this study, the
term community is used to refer to those members of the Nizari Ismaili community in the diaspora who continue to
recognize and revere ginans as part of their religio-cultural
heritage.
The Origin and Evolution of the Corpus of Ginans
The initial
efforts to formalize and preserve the ginan corpus can be traced back to
various Ismaili individuals and entrepreneurs in the late 19th
century. For instance, Lalji Devraj (1842-1930) of India is credited to have
published the initial canon of authorized texts of ginans
in Khojki (Asani, 2011). A
few specimens of these historic publications from India have been catalogued
and preserved at Harvard Library (Asani, 1992). In
the first quarter of the twentieth century, the responsibility to publish
ginans was taken over by community institutions – starting in 1922 with the
Recreation Club Institute in India and followed by the Ismaili Tariqah and Religious Education Board
(ITREB) – a network of community-led national and regional committees across
the globe. The ITREB remained responsible for publishing religious materials
available to the community members, including the ginans.
In 1977, the Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS) was established for the
community by the Aga Khan to promote historical and contemporary study of
Muslim cultures and their relationship with other societies and faiths. Over
time, the mandate of developing curriculum and instruction for religious
education was gradually assumed by the IIS. As Karim (2022) points out, an
unfortunate consequence of this transition has been the lack of ginan
publications:
[The IIS] has produced over a hundred books,
including five volumes on the primary materials in its collection relating to
the Arab and Persian aspects of the movement. The institute has received
hundreds of Satpanth-related manuscripts from
communal and family collections since the late 1970s; however, these sources
have suffered from neglect and their cataloguing was still awaiting completion
in 2021. Harvard University published its catalogue in 1992. Even though the
endowment of the IIS has been funded mainly by Khojas, it has produced only three
monographs on their tradition.
Asani (2021) also observes that while the Satpanth
Ismailis continue to revere ginans, the “Hinduistic” elements of the ginans remain problematic for
the institutions. This divergence of perspectives on the ginans
between Satpanth Ismailis and certain Ismaili
institutional circles remains a barrier in making any significant headway in
preserving the ginans through formalized teaching and transmission (Asani, 2021):
Anxieties about perceptions that other Muslims may
have of the ginans, in particular their vernacular Indic character, have been
the primary concerns to Ismaili institutions. These concerns have led to a
marked de-emphasis of the semantic dimension of the gināns in the contemporary articulation of official Ismaili
doctrine in favor of a Quranic one. Instead, there is an increased focus on the
performative aspects of the gināns, and their ritualization as a form of Ismaili
“devotional literature,” thus reframing them within the context of Ismaili
literary traditions in Arabic and Persian (p. 50).
This methodical reformulation of the ginans
from “Satpanthi scripture” to “devotional literature”
by the community institutions led to grave concern and anxiety about the future of ginans, particularly
among the Khoja Ismailis. Consequently, local community preachers
and missionaries (referred to as Al-waez in
the community) took it upon themselves to preserve and propagate the scriptural
status of the ginans. The efforts of Kamaluddin Ali
Muhammad and his wife Zarina Kamaluddin, notes Virani
(2015), have made ginans more accessible and comprehensible to those not
familiar with Gujarati and Khojki scripts:
Al-Waʿiẓ
Kamaluddin Ali Muhammad and al-Waʿiẓa Zarina Kamaluddin have made Herculean efforts to study and
translate this literature. Their work has added tremendously to our knowledge
of not only the Ginans, but of medieval South Asian verse in general, for the Ginanic symbols and vocabulary draw on the rich universe of
mystical meaning that had become the common inheritance of Sufis, yogis,
sadhus, bhaktas and sants. All students of this field
and lovers of the Ginans are indebted to their endeavours (p. viii).
In 2020, the IIS established the South Asian Studies (SAS) unit with
the mandate to
“contribute to current academic debates as they relate to Islam and Muslims in
South Asia and to further scholarly understanding of Satpanth
history, literature, heritage and identity to promote critical thinking in the
field of South Asian Ismaili Studies” (The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2018).
While this broad mandate falls short of
mentioning the ginans, it is hoped that a primary responsibility of this unit
will be the development and dissemination of ginan materials to meet the needs
of community members, in particular the English-speaking community members now
living in the Western diaspora.
Aims
The
purpose of the online survey was to gather and analyze the needs and
expectations of the community members who wish to learn and understand the
ginans, and to pass on the tradition and its teachings from generation to
generation. This survey was guided by the following research
question: What are the needs and expectations of motivated English-speaking
Ismaili community learners to engage with the ginans in the Western diaspora?
The use of information technology in learning and engaging with the ginans was
assumed to be an important consideration for the English-speaking learners born
and raised in the West.
Methods
An online survey
was developed as part of this study to solicit the needs of the global Ismaili
community. The survey questionnaire contained a total of 20 questions, none of
which were mandatory and allowed participants to skip over any of the
questions. The survey questionnaire is available as an appendix (Appendix A).
The online survey was administered independently of any Ismaili community
institutions. This independence also necessitated recruiting community
participants for the survey directly using a variety of communications channels
popular in the community, including Ginan Central at the University of
Saskatchewan, Ismaili.Net Heritage, JollyGul, and GinanGuru.
Results
The online survey was administered between July 9,
2020, and September 10, 2020. It attracted 515 participants from over 20
countries around the world. Given that the global population of the Ismaili
community is estimated to be approximately 12 to 15 million, the results of
this survey are not generalizable to the entire global Ismaili community (The
Ismaili, 2022). As noted in the table below (Table 1), most of the respondents
living in the West were from Canada (46%), the United States of America (23%),
and the United Kingdom (4%). Respondents from Pakistan (8%) and India (5%) were
the leading participants from South Asia. Overall, around 85% of the survey
participants were from the diaspora and 15% were from the South Asian
countries.
Table 1
Survey
Respondents by Country
|
Country |
No. of Respondents |
Percentage |
|
Canada |
237 |
46% |
|
United States of America |
116 |
23% |
|
Pakistan |
43 |
8% |
|
India |
26 |
5% |
|
United Kingdom |
21 |
4% |
|
Other |
72 |
14 % |
|
Total |
515 |
100% |
Demographic Statistics
The age distribution of the respondents was grouped
into seven intervals between 18 years and those over 75 years of age. With a
98% of response rate for the question on age, the highest number of respondents
of the survey (24%) were in the age group of 55 to 64 years old (see Figure 2).
Figure 2
Survey respondents by age groups.
The question on gender was answered by 505
respondents, of whom 290 identified as female (57%), 213 as male (42%), and two
as neither male nor female (0.4%). The lead by female respondents was
consistent across all age groups except in the group aged 75 years and over,
which was predominantly male at 70% (see Table 2).
Table 2
Survey
Respondents by Gender
|
Age Groups |
Female |
Male |
Other |
Total |
|
18 to 24 years old |
52% |
45% |
2% |
100% |
|
25 to 34 years old |
52% |
48% |
0% |
100% |
|
35 to 44 years old |
58% |
42% |
0% |
100% |
|
45 to 54 years old |
64% |
35% |
1% |
100% |
|
55 to 64 years old |
65% |
35% |
0% |
100% |
|
65 to 74 years old |
56% |
44% |
0% |
100% |
|
Over 75 years old |
30% |
70% |
0% |
100% |
In terms of educational attainment, over 75% of the
respondents claimed to have at least one degree and only 3% of the respondents
had not completed a high school degree (see Figure 3). Further analysis of this
data revealed that 89% of the respondents from South Asia had at least one
degree as opposed to 75% of respondents in the diaspora with at least one
degree.
Figure 3
Survey respondents by highest level of education.
Around 37% of the survey respondents identified
themselves as employed professionals. In addition, 20% of the respondents
identified as either business owners or self-employed. Over one-quarter of the
respondents (27%) identified as either retired or homemakers. A visual summary
of the primary occupation of the survey respondents is presented in the chart
below (see Figure 4).
Figure 4
Survey respondents by primary occupation.
Target Population Profile
As evident from the demography analysis, there was a
wide range of diversity in terms of geography, age, gender, education, and
occupation among the respondents. Owing to this geographic and demographic
spread of the survey participants, the survey respondents were divided into two
groups. The survey target group consisted of respondents who
belonged to the target population defined for this study – English-speaking
Ismaili community members aged between 18 and 44 years who currently reside in
Euro-American countries. In contrast, the general group comprised the
respondents who fell outside the target population. The target group
respondents were identified by combining the responses of four specific
questions in the survey (Q1 – Country of residence, Q2 – Age group, Q6 –
Community membership, and Q10 – Primary language).
As depicted in the chart below (Figure 5), of the
515 total survey respondents, 496 respondents identified themselves as members
of the Ismaili community. A total of 376 of these respondents lived in
Euro-American countries, and 238 of them designated English as their primary
language. Finally, the pool of respondents in the target group was reduced to
71 when the age requirement was considered. Thus, the final size of the survey
target was determined to be 71 or around 14% of the total number of respondents
(n = 515).
Figure 5
Identifying respondents in the survey target group.
Gathering Needs and Expectations
It was helpful to benchmark the target group in
relation to the other respondents in the general group to analyze the needs
assessment survey data. Doing so helped provide a consistent baseline in
identifying and comparing, as well as contextualizing, unique needs and
attitudes between the two groups. For instance, when analyzing the data for the
question on the importance of ginans in their lives (Q7), the expected
difference in the attitudes between the two groups could now be visualized. A
lower percentage of the target group (89%) attached moderate to high importance
to ginans than the general group (97%), as depicted in the figure below (Figure
6). The evidence also validates the fundamental premise of this study that
ginans must be made relevant to the younger generations based on their current
socio-economic contexts.
A strong agreement between the needs of the two
groups was observed with regards to having access to ginan resources. An
overwhelming majority (97%) in both groups attached moderate to high importance
to having online access to ginan resources. On the question of preferred
devices to access online ginan resources as well, there was notable synergy in
the needs of the two groups. The use of mobile phones remained the most
preferred device in the target group for 97% of the respondents in comparison
to 91% for the general group. The two groups diverge in their preferences,
however, when it comes to accessing ginan resources in the form of books, CDs,
cassettes, etc. More than one-quarter (28%) of the respondents in the general
group attach moderate to high importance to analog resources in comparison to
less than one-tenth of the respondents in the target group.
Figure 6
Importance of ginan in target and general respondents groups.
Given the demography of the target group, it was
expected to find an overwhelming demand (97%) for the Latin script and English
as the language of instruction for the ginans. It was surprising, however, to
find the English language to be preferred by 91% of the respondents in the
general group. While none of the other scripts come close to the strong support
shown for English, Khojki and Gujarati remain alive
and important in the community even today (Figure 7). The findings of the
survey reflect the historical decline of Khojki and
Gujarati scripts in favour of English as a substantial number of the community
members have moved away from the Indian subcontinent to the West.
Figure 7
Language preference for learning and understanding
ginans.
Most of the respondents in both groups (89%)
considered online access to ginan materials to be important. Due to the lack of useful ginan content on the official community
institutional websites, community
members use various external websites to access ginan materials
(Figure 8). Thus, there is a deep
desire in the community to use online ginan websites and content that are
either produced or endorsed by community institutions. As one community
participant stated, the need for developing “a unified website which is
accredited by IIS that is made available globally and it should have authentic
text and raags of ginans” (Respondent #506).
Figure 8
Most preferred websites for accessing ginan materials.
To ascertain the types of online materials desired
by ginan learners, a variety of options were presented to the respondents to
rank as part of the needs assessment survey. These options were ranked
independent of each other by the respondents. Having access to ginan texts and
translations in English was ranked as the most desirable resource for learning
and understanding of the ginans (Figure 9). This outcome is not surprising as
it is a common practice to use ginan text and translation side-by-side during
in-person instructional sessions.
Figure 9
Useful resources for learning and understanding
ginans.
The second most desired
content type was audio recitations of ginans. In an in-person instructional
setting, the instructor is responsible for reciting ginans to the learners. In
an online and self-learning setting, where there are no instructors, the
availability of digital audio is crucial. The need for information on ginan
categories was also ranked as desirable by 84% of the respondents. The ginan
categories are used to group ginans based on various ceremonial and topical
themes. In recent years, the knowledge of ginan categories has been confined to
the community elders and experts who typically impart this knowledge to
learners during their in-person instructional sessions.
Another sought-after resource
for learning and understanding ginans that was ranked considerably higher in
the needs assessment survey was the summary of individual ginans, commonly
referred to as ginan “gist” in the community. Over the past decade, it has
become a common practice for reciters to read out the gist of the ginan in
English that they are called upon to recite during congregational services held
for special occasions. The gist texts explain the message and sentiments of
ginans in broad strokes for the English-speaking members of the congregation
who often struggle to understand what is being recited. Despite this being a
common practice, the community institutions have yet to produce any publication
with ginan gists that can
be readily accessed by the community.
Ginan dictionary and
multimedia ginan videos were ranked equally high in the survey. When analyzed
based on specific groups, only 67% of the respondents in the target group
attach moderate to high importance to a ginan dictionary as opposed to 80% of
those outside the target group. The need for multimedia videos is also
relatively less pronounced in the target group at 77% as opposed to 81% in the
general group.
Figure 10
Thematic summary of the needs and expectations of
the survey respondents.
The qualitative analysis of the only open-ended
question in the survey (question # 20) revealed three distinct themes (Figure
10). Overall, the survey found that the availability of ginan resources in
English remains a crucial need for the target group members who have little or
no knowledge of the language of the ginans. The development and dissemination
of curriculum-based educational programs and supporting materials for the
ginans emerged as the most urgent and unmet expectations. The sentiment for a
more pronounced acknowledgement of the heritage of ginans and its significance
in the communal and scholarly undertakings of its institutions and leaders was
found to be equally prevalent amongst the target and general group respondents.
Discussion
Based on the analysis
of the survey data, an aggregate profile of the needs and expectations of the
target group – English-speaking Ismaili community members aged between 18 and
44 years who currently reside in the West – can be depicted as follows. A typical target group member is an
educated citizen of an English-speaking country such as Canada. They consider
ginans to be an important part of their life even though the language of ginans
remains mostly foreign to them. They value the emotive and performative aspects
of the tradition that help them express their devotion and solidarity to the
Ismaili faith and community. They remain very concerned that the ginans, and
more so the teachings that the tradition encapsulates, will be lost if nothing
is done about it by the community and its institutions.
The
survey results provide tangible evidence of the need to utilize information
technology for making ginans accessible. The survey revealed that close to 90%
of the survey respondents preferred having access to ginan materials online,
which challenges the taboo of incorporating contemporary information
technology to complement traditional ways of accessing and teaching the ginans.
From a learner-centric perspective, the use of information technology is imperative
for engaging learners to embrace traditional languages and traditions.
There is little
doubt that the present-day ginan corpus has survived over the past centuries
primarily due to the foresight and adaptability of the Ismaili community to embrace
print technology to preserve the ginan texts. Now it is time for the community
to once again summon its spirit of adaptability and courage to embrace
information technology to ensure the continuity of the ginans in the digital
age. The future survival of the tradition of the ginans in the West remains
highly dependent on the continued engagement of the community youth through
information technology.
With its
deliberate focus on the people dimension of the e-learning framework to
gather community needs, this research opens pathways to expand on the technology
and process dimensions of the e-learning system framework in charting
the future of the ginans by the Ismaili community and its institutions. The
community institutions are well-positioned to address some of the fundamental
issues to ensure continued transmission and preservation of the ginans in the
Western diaspora.
Standardized Romanization
The phonetic
demands of the oral and mixed nature of the ginan language posed challenges for
the limited phonetic strength of the Khojki script
initially used to transcribe the ginans (Virani, 2017).
Unfortunately, these shortcomings were never addressed systematically and were
passed on as the ginan corpus was canonized from Khojki
to a more established Gujarati script. The canonized ginan
corpus in Khojki and Gujarati were then used as the
basis for the romanization of ginans into the Latin or English writing system. As a result, variant ginan romanization conventions started to emerge
from different countries where the community resided. For instance,
the palatal or hard “d” sound as in the word doctor, is
found to be romanized with variants such as the use of successive d (dd),
capitalization (D), italicization (d),
and with a dot below (ḍ). Community
institutions such as the national ITREBs and the IIS are
well-placed to standardize romanization conventions for the transliteration of
the ginans.
Having a
standardized romanization convention will not only make the ginan corpus more
reader-friendly but will allow ginan texts to be computationally analyzed using
natural language processing for various purposes, including creation of lexical
resources. As Bowker (2018) explains, availability of credible and
representative corpus remains at the heart of enhancing human understanding
through computational analysis in language learning:
Consider that a corpus is a text file. It could be made up of tens,
hundreds, or thousands of documents and may run to hundreds of thousands or
even millions of words. Trying to count the number of words, or the number of
times each word occurs, would be a time-consuming, labor-intensive and
error-prone process if it were done manually. However, this type of work is
easily accomplished by a computer, and corpus analysis software can be used to
calculate several different measures of frequency, including raw frequency
counts (e.g., word lists), measures of disproportionate frequency (e.g., keyness), and measures of relative frequency (e.g.,
collocations) (p. 361).
Ginan Dictionary
Another potential measure that the community institutions can take is
to commission an English dictionary of the ginans. While several ginan
resources feature back-of-the-book ginan glossaries with English meanings, an
English dictionary of the ginans is yet to be developed and published. If
ginans are to be understood by English-speaking youth of the community, the
availability of a ginan dictionary must become a priority for community elders
and leaders. Given the high preference in the community for online access, it
may be worthwhile to make such a dictionary available online.
When it comes to forgotten and endangered languages, a dictionary
becomes a tool for language preservation (Gippert et
al., 2006). With the language of the ginans being oral, mixed,
and endangered simultaneously, it must be preserved not just for the community
but also for scholarly research. Thus, a comprehensive ginan dictionary will
make it possible to study rare and complex forms of linguistic expressions manifested
in the vocabulary of the ginans.
Ginan Curriculum
There appears to be a deep desire in the community for its institutions
to embrace a programmatic approach for the development and administration of
curriculum-based in-person and online ginan classes. The expectation here is
that the curriculum for these classes will not only teach the meanings and
tunes but will ensure that the history and teachings of ginans are also made
relevant to the community’s contemporary context as a diaspora community. At a
deeper level, this need of the community
youth is indicative of their desire to find comparable and compatible
expressions of their faith and devotion in English-speaking societies. From
this perspective, “translation” is no longer an exercise in finding linguistic
equivalence but, as Stewart (2006) notes, a quest to seek equivalence of one’s
faith in the local culture (p. 286-87):
[T]he search for
equivalence in the encounter of religions—when understood through the
translation models we have characterized as literal, refractive, dynamic, and
metaphoric—is an attempt to be understood, to make oneself understood in a
language not always one’s own; it does not necessarily reflect religious
capitulation or theological ignorance or serve as the sign of a weak religious
identity…. The texts that reveal actors attempting to locate commensurate
analogues within the language tradition capture a unique ‘moment’ in the
process of cultural and religious encounter, as each tradition explores the
other and tries to make itself understood (p. 286-7).
The ginans, like
many other ethnocultural traditions and knowledge, remain under-studied as an
academic area of research in Western academia. From a
broader perspective, the results of this study have wider relevance to other
diasporic ethnocultural communities that may be facing similar challenges in
imparting and safeguarding their traditions and knowledge.
Conclusion
This article presented a brief historical overview of how the Ismaili community members have managed to
safeguard the ginans despite the geopolitical upheavals that the community has
been subjected to as a political, ethnic, and religious minority community. It
also unveiled the present divergent perspectives on
the ginans between the community members of Khoja descent and the
community institutions which continue to exacerbate the anxiety about the
future of ginans. Finally, the responses of the global
online survey were analyzed to identify the needs and expectations of the
community to chart the future of the ginans in the Western diaspora. The survey
found that the availability of online ginan materials and resources are highly
desirable by the English-speaking community members who want to learn and
understand the teachings of the ginans. In addition, the survey also uncovered
the community’s strong expectation to see the ginans become a priority in
educational and scholarly programming and publishing initiatives of the
community institutions.
Acknowledgement
This article is an abridged version of the author’s
unpublished doctoral dissertation, titled Tradition and Technology: A
Design-Based Prototype of an Online Ginan Semantization Tool, which was supervised by
Professor Jay Wilson at the University of Saskatchewan.
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Appendix A
Online Survey
Questionnaire
