Alibhai Thawer
- 1877/08/10
- 1920
- Business
- Parents
- Siblings
- Haji Thawer 1863–1931
- Partners
Alibhai was the third son of Thawer Mohamed.
Accordingto an old British Passport that was found recently he was born on 10th August 1877. The passport was issued on 18th November 1918 at Rajkot, and was valid for a journey to Zanzibar. At 41 years this was obviously not his first passport or his first journey out of India.
From other accounts, he was about 20 years old when he followed his older brother Pirbhai to Africa. He arrived in Dar es Salaam and soon afterwards he went to Madagascar where he started a small shop. After a few years he went back to India, married Sonbai and then returned to Madagascar.
While living in Madagascar it appears that Alibhai took an local Malagasy wife with whom he had a son Abdul Rassoul, who still lives in Madagascar and apparently doing quite well for himself. When the uprisings took place in the Congo in 1960, he contacted the Alibhai family to offer them help to start a business in Madagascar. During these years in Madagascar Alibhai went back to India several times, to visit his family and other relatives. He had five children with his wife Sonbai, the last, a set of twins,one of whom died in infancy.
In 1920, while still in Madagascar, Alibhai came down with an illness for which he was mistakenly given a wrong injection and he died from its effects. Sonbai and young children were still living in India; Mussa the youngest was only 6 years old at the time. Pirbhai, Alibhai's older brother who was settled in Tabora now assumed responsibility for his brother's family. He sent his son Karmali with a cousin, Juma Haji to Madagascar to wind up Alibhai's business, and the money thus collected was used to support the family back in India. Pirbhai then sent his second son Fazal to India to marry Alibhai's eldest daughter Jenabai. Sonbai, the widow of Alibhai stayed on in India. She is buried in the cemetery near the family home in Lalpar.
