What place do community kitchens have among the Bohris? Nabilah Noorani takes us through the Faiz al-Mawaid al-Burhaniyah kitchen in Vapi, Gujarat, deliberating on this question.
Tiffin number 165 goes to the Pardawalas. There are two people at their home and they prefer less rice. Tiffin 82 here goes to Chala locality at the Saboowalas,” declares Nafisa Nalwala, a community kitchen volunteer, with the confident authority of someone who knows her people by their meals. “Go ahead, ask me about any tiffin code!” she beams, challenging me to an impromptu quiz on the food preferences of community members. Her pride in service is unmistakable.
One of its first volunteers, Nafisa has been working at this kitchen since its inception—cooking, packing, and sending off tiffins that now sustain hundreds of families each day. The kitchen in question is housed within a local masjid in Vapi, a town in south Gujarat, and belongs to the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community. From this modest space runs a simple system—one tiffin delivered daily to every subscribing Bohra household in the area.
These meals are part of a bigger project that is formally called the Faiz al-Mawaid al-Burhaniyah (or FMB), which roughly translates to “abundant blessings or bounties that flow from the plates of the spiritual leader Syedna Burhanuddin”, who started this endeavour in 2011. It was then scaled across the globe, including Vapi, by his son and the current leader, Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin, to over 135,000 households across 869 cities, sustained by more than 7,000 volunteers and paid staff.
The idea is simple: to provide at least one wholesome and nutritious meal a day to every Bohri Muslim household. This is rooted in Prophet Muhammad’s teachings (and by extension, Islamic philosophies) of feeding others, especially the vulnerable, and sharing food as acts of worship. It is run entirely on donations by the community, with those who can afford it paying more to subsidise the service for the less privileged. Many members also donate what they save from their own reduced food expenses back to the collective kitchen. As a Bohri Muslim myself, though not a subscriber to this service, I can see what the institution offers people.
Murtaza Kanchwala, a volunteer who comes in every evening to ensure the day’s operations conclude smoothly, had agreed to show me around. “Come at four,” he had said, the hour when the day’s work reaches its busiest rhythm of filling and dispatching the tiffins. I meet him at the instructed time, and together we walk in through an entrance so tight, one has to turn sideways and almost wriggle in.
The community kitchen housed inside the Vapi masjid is a simple square box, with a blue tin roof and almost no furnishings. There are two big racks lined with rows and rows of steel tiffins. Murtaza explained that the one on the left was where members who live close to the masjid dropped off empty tiffins and the one on the right was where they picked up freshly filled ones. Inside the kitchen are large steel pots and lids along the walls; a shelf holds jars of spices and some cutlery. On that day, three cooks were stirring the bhaji and frying the vadas in preparation for the day’s menu—pav bhaji and batata vadas—that would go out to about 220 families.
I saw a stray bag of onions and a basket of potatoes, clearly insufficient to make the food that went into all the tiffins stacked outside. Murtaza later explained that, by design, nothing here is stored for long. The kitchen buys its produce fresh each morning, following strict guidelines to prevent pests, ensuring that every meal is prepared from ingredients brought in that very day.
“Come at four,” he had said, the hour when the day’s work reaches its busiest rhythm of filling and dispatching the tiffins.
Within 15 minutes, I came across Nafisa and Mehraj (owner of the catering firm hired to cook) arguing passionately about the number of vadas and pieces of pav to fill in each tiffin. She proposes a tiered system using the number of tiffin layers as a rough proxy for household size—four vadas for the two-layered ones, eight for the three-layered, and ten for the four-layered. He countered with the total count prepared, their negotiation continuing with great intensity, both sincere about wanting to do right by the people they serve.
Later, Nafisa told me she was part of the Dana Committee, a fundamental part of all FMB kitchens, formed to oversee food wastage. She made it a point, she said, to see that every last morsel found its way into a tiffin. Mehraj, meanwhile, spoke of the challenges of running a community kitchen—the constant vigilance against contamination, the hazards of working with fire. Then, breaking into a smile, he added that there is great barkat (blessing) in serving the community and that he values the trust they place in his team. “Vapi Jamaat koi jaldi nahi karte aur koi complaint nahi karte, humein accha lagta hai,” he said. (“No one from the Vapi jamaat rushes us or complains; we like that.”)
After all the tiffins were filled, volunteers drove some tiffins to various locations themselves, easing commute for community members living far away, and loaded the rest in two rickshaws. I followed one of these tiffins to Alefiya Khorakiwala’s house, a family friend and long-time subscriber of the tiffin service. To her, the idea of eating one common meal a day, knowing that every other member of the community, across classes, is being nourished from the same source, is very powerful.
Given that the meal receives the patronage of the spiritual leader, she believes the food has shifa (healing) and helps cure the body, mind, and soul. She quickly added, “Of course one only feels this if one has faith. Everything in Islam requires intention.” It helps that on many days, the food is quite delicious. Alefiya eagerly looks forward to mutton biryani and paneer bhurji days from Mehraj and his army of cooks.
Beyond the spiritual, the tiffin service carries a more practical promise—it frees women, who still shoulder most of the responsibility of feeding their families, from at least one daily cycle of cooking and cleaning. And in doing so, it returns to them something rare and precious—time.
From the community’s higher ranks, it is suggested that this time be devoted to religious study, children’s education, or small businesses. Many women speak of the real relief this extra time brings with the potential of rest, and the freedom to pray more, to redirect their energy elsewhere. Yet how this newfound time is spent, and who decides its worth, remains an open question.
What tensions arise between personal aspiration and prescribed purpose, and what else could these pockets of time hold? While a part of the community, I am less regular in my practice of its teachings, and therefore unsure of whether there is a need for deeper feminist inquiry here. Perhaps the better question is—does it even matter? Women are gaining time, even if within the boundaries of faith. Isn’t that liberating enough?
Beyond the spiritual, the tiffin service carries a more practical promise—it frees women, who still shoulder most of the responsibility of feeding their families, from at least one daily cycle of cooking and cleaning.
I stand on shaky ground as I attempt to make these critiques. I identify as a Bohri woman myself, but am not bound to the same expectations or accountability to the community. I witness the kitchen as an outsider but with the warmth of a familiar half-stranger.
Free of kitchen duties for one meal a day, like some other women in the community, Alefiya is grateful for the extra time on hand now. She has started doing hifz (learning the Quran by heart) and volunteers for various local initiatives. Most importantly, she is now free to travel to visit her daughters, married in far-off cities, since the tiffin food is enough for two daily meals for her husband. “I don’t have to worry about him anymore!” For Alefiya, nourishment comes not just from what’s on the plate, but from the freedom it quietly allows.
Nabilah Noorani is the Projects Lead at The Locavore and has previously worked at the intersection of agriculture, policy, and technology. Currently based in Goa, Nabilah has developed a deep love for the outdoors. When not chasing the elements, she spends her time reading long essays and cooking short recipes.
