AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION LAWYERS

Conference of the Birds

An Abridged Version of Farid Ud Atta's "Mantiq Ut Tayar" (reprint 1924, 19 x 12.3 x 1 cm)

Like Rumi and Hafiz, the name Attar conjures up images of passionate attraction to the divine. Attar was a Persian Sufi of the 12th century and his masterpiece is The Conference of the Birds, an epic allegory of the seeker's journey to God. When all the birds of the world convene and determine that they lack a king, one bird steps forward and offers to lead them to a great and mighty monarch. Initially excited, each bird falters in turn, whereupon the leader admonishes them with well-targeted parables. These pithy tales are the delight of this 4,500-line poem, translated deftly into rhymed couplets. What is your excuse for not seeking God? Your life is fine already? You prefer material pleasure? You are holy enough? You have pride, lack courage, or are burdened with responsibility? Attar has an answer to encourage you on the path to the promised land. And when you get there, the king may not be what you'd expect, but you must make the journey to see. --Brian Bruya

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Shia Muslims are a large minority among India's Muslims. However, there has been no particular census conducted in India with regards to sects, but Indian sources like Times of India and DNA reported Indian Shiite population in mid 2005-2006 between 25% to 31% of entire Muslim population of India which accounts them in numbers between 40,000,000[1][1] to 50,000,000[2] of 157,000,000 Indian Muslim population[3]. However, as per an estimation of one reputed Shiite NGO Alimaan Trust, India's Shia population in early 2000 was around 30 million with Sayyids comprising just over half of the entire Shia population[4]. According to some national and international sources Indian Shia population is the world's second-largest after Iran[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13], Shiite population was also acclaimed publicly as second largest by the 14th Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh quoted in the year 2005.[14][15] One of the lingering problems in estimating the Shia population is that unless the Shia form a significant minority in a Muslim country, the entire population is often listed as Sunni. For example, the 1926 rise of the House of Saud in Arabia brought official discrimination against Shias. The Shia-majority areas of Al-Hasa, Qatif and Hofuf on the Persian Gulf, Western Arabia provinces of Jizan, Asir, and Hejaz that had large Shia minorities have officially been completely stripped off their religious identities.[16] Shiites are estimated to be 21-35 percent of the Muslim population in South Asia, although the total number is difficult to estimate due to the intermingling between the Muslim Sects and practice of taqiyya by Shiites.[17]

However,some external sources like the Pew Research Center figure them between 10 to 14 percent giving the numbers between 16,000,000 to 24,000,000[18]. However, the Pew Research Center report is not considered authentic by many Shiites and also national and International reports after taking into consideration the report released by Britannica Book of the year in 1997 which put the estimates of Shiite population in India in 1996 over 26,000,000[19][20][21] out of entire Indian Muslim population of 103,000,000 at that time.[22][23]

There are many big and small towns and villages with majority Shiite Muslim population in India. Many Sayyids between 12th to 16th century migrated to the Indian subcontinent to escape the persecution of Shias in mostly Sunni ruled Middle East. Prominent places in India with majority or considerable Shiite Muslim population are Kargil, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Barabanki, Lucknow, Hallaur, Sadaat Amroha and Naugawan Sadat. Shias in Hallaur, Sadaat Amroha and Naugawan Sadat are majority Sayyids. Among the Shias of India an overwhelming majority belongs to the Ithna Ashari (Twelver) division, while the Shias among the Khoja and Bohra communities are Ismaili.[24] Dawoodi Bohras are primarily based in India, even though the Dawoodi theology originated in Yemen. India is home to the majority Dawoodi Bohra population most of them concentrated in Gujarat out of over 1 million followers worldwide.[25]


There is no certainty as to when the Shia community first established itself in India. As per historical evidences and the genealogy maintained by the Sayyids who migrated to India from Middle East the history of Shia Islam traces long back around 1000 years. The rulers of various dynasties of India and also in the 11th century the rulers of Multan and Sindh which are now part of Pakistan were adherents of Shia Islam.[26] The Nawabs of Awadh and Hyder Ali & Tipu Sultan of Mysore, who were rulers in India, were also Shia Muslims.[27]

Shia culture and belief has left its influence all over India with Imam al Husain ibn Ali becoming the revered personality in India not only for the Shias but also from non-Muslim communities, especially the Hindus of northern India who participate in ceremonies commemorating Husain ibn Ali's martyrdom on the day of Ashura.

Shaykh al-Mufid writes that before the Battle of Karbala, Husain ibn Ali and the commander of the enemy forces, Umar ibn Saad, met at night and talked together for a long time. After that meeting Umar ibn Saad sent a letter to the Governor of Kufa, Ubayd-Allah ibn Ziyad in which he wrote that Husain ibn Ali has suggested that he go to ‘one of the border outposts’ of the rapidly expanding Muslim empire as a way of resolving conflict.[28] Other traditions name that border outpost as Al Hind or India. Even though Husain ibn Ali himself was not able to go to India, some of the Shia did emigrate there for various reasons, including those who came as refugees from Umayyads and Abbasids persecution.[29] These refugees brought with them rituals which kept alive the remembrance of Karbala and their Shia Identity.[30]

Its narrated by Abd al Razzaq al Muqarram in his work of Maqtal al-Husayn that prior to his martyrdom, Al Abbas ibn Ali whi

70 Satterlee Street, Tottenville, Staten Island, New York City, New York

The Henry Hogg Biddle House, built in the late 1840s, is a rare surviving example of a house that combines in its design spring eave construction with Greek Revival style architecture. The French-derived spring or bell-cast eave was widely used on Staten Island from the late 17th century on. Its combination here with a two-story tall Greek Revival columned portico illustrates one of the most striking of the responses made by Staten Island builders to the high style Greek Revival residences built there by wealthy New York City merchants in the 1830s.

The Biddle House is particularly unusual in that it preserves an extremely rare, and possibly unique, instance on Staten Island and in the rest of New York City of double-height Greek Revival style porticoes used at the front and rear elevations of a structure, creating a dramatic and imposing effect.

The twin porticoes of the Biddle House are a response to its attractive elevated location and provide it with impressive facades whether seen and approached from the street or from the waterfront. Its setting, which includes a long approach drive, fencing and plantings, enhances the character of the architecture.

The Biddle House design expresses the self-described status of its original owner, Henry Hogg Biddle, as a "gentleman," and his position as an important member of both the immediate community of Unionville and the larger village of Tottenville. Today the house stands as a major monument of 19th-century vernacular architecture on Staten Island.

Early History of the Biddle House Site

The immediate setting of the Biddle House, a long rectangular waterfront plot of approximately two acres, was once, like the entire southwestern end of Staten Island, part of the 1600-acre manorial grant received by Captain Christopher Billopp in 1676.

Located about 900 feet south of the Biddle House, Billopp's manor house, a designated New York City Landmark known today as the Conference House, was constructed soon thereafter and occupied by four generations of that family.

To avoid forfeiture during the Revolutionary War period, Billopp's great-grandson, Colonel Christopher Billopp, divided the family lands, already diminished by early sales to slightly over a thousand acres, into nine farms of varying sizes, and sold them off between 1780-81.

The Biddle House site was part of the 373-acre farm which, together with the former Billopp manor house, was acquired by Sainuel Ward in 1781. In 1801 Ward's son Caleb, who occupied the Billop residence until his death in 1834, sold the 30-acre waterfront parcel which includes the Biddle House site to Isaac Butler, Henry Biddle's future father-in-law.

Butler, a farmer, innkeeper and operator for several decades of the ferry to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, which docked near the foot of today's Amboy Road, was already in possession of an approximately 43-acre farm on the northern side of this major Staten Island thoroughfare.

Henry Hogg Biddle

Henry Hogg Biddle was born in New York City about 1806 as Henry Biddle Hogg. In 1828, Henry, his widowed mother Ann, and his two older brothers legally reversed their sur- and middle names to become known as Hogg Biddle. ; Shortly thereafter, Henry and his mother moved to Staten Island; little more than a year later Arm Hogg Biddle died at age 57. She was the first of many Biddle family members to be buried in the graveyard at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Richmondtown.

In February 1831, Biddle married Isaac Butler's daughter Harriet; her father had died just three weeks earlier. Under the terms of Isaac's 1830 will, the 73-acre homestead farm was left to his son Cortlandt and daughters Harriet and Emily (another large farm near Princes Bay was left to his two older children). In 1831, Isaac Butler's estate was divided; thereafter, Henry Biddle seems to have been the person who made the principal decisions relating to the homestead farm.

The Biddle house appears to have been built after the death of Henry's first wife, who died in 1842. The dwelling occupied by Henry, Harriet, their two sons William Henry and Charles Stevens (baptized at St. Andrew's in 1837 and 1840), and Harriet's brother Cortland Butler, was probably the Butler farmhouse located closer to Amboy Road on the original portion of the Butler farm.

The available information concerning Henry Biddle's economic circumstances suggests a construction date for the house in the late 1840s. Biddle's profession is unknown, but he was actively involved in a number of real-estate transactions. In 1835 he obtained a substantial mortgage on

the entire Butler farm from the island's north-shore-based developers, William Staples and Minthorne Tompkins.

Defaulting on the mortgage, he was able to re-acquire the Butler family farm in 1840 at a public auction. His land transactions in the following decade, however, suggest an improved economic status. A

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