Karimjee Jivanjee

The Karimjees originated in Mandvi, a tiny seaport in Kutch, India's northwest. They are Shia Muslims, known as Bohras. They were most likely minor traders with some agricultural experience. During the early nineteenth-century famines and economic hardships in Northwes .

 India, people were driven to seek other sources of income. Sail to Zanzibar was one alternative. Jivanjee Buddhaboy, the Karimjee Jivanjee family's founding father, came in Zanzibar in 1818. At the time, the South Asian population in Zanzibar probably numbered less than 1,000 persons, mostly young males.