Kera

(In 1880 ed.) Kera, on the Mándvi road about twelve miles south of Bhuj, a village of about 2057 inhabitants, is a convenient halting place, with a large and strong fort, and a considerable trade in cloth and ironware.

South-east of Kera, a small village, on a pretty rising ground, has the well-wooded shrine of the saint, Ghulam Ali. Within the enclosure are three chief buildings, a mausoleum, dargáh, with a tomb under a canopy, supported by twelve small Muhammadan columns. Against the pall lies the photograph of a Moghal saint, and below him Hassan and Husain, and in a third frame the prophet Muhammad, the face left blank in part obedience to the orders of the Kurán. In the middle of the quadrangle, in front of the mausoleum, stands a canopy, chhatra, with a flat roof and side balconies and a tombless mausoleum to Dádi Ali Sháh. The doors have projecting shields between floral ornaments, like those found at Maiji Sáhiba's tomb at Junagad and on the palace at Navánagar in Káthiáwár.

Pir Ghulam Ali Shah Kadwál,a descendant of Pir Sadr-ud-din the Kera saint, first settled at Kadi in Gujarát. Passing through Cutch in 1792 he came to Kera, and, liking the place and finding the people friendly, settled there. By clearing of spirits a haunted hill close to the village his fame spread. He raised a building called the Panchtan sacred to the five, Ali, Fatima, Hassan, Hussain, and Muhammad. About four years later (1796) Ghulam Ali died in Kurrachee.

The Khojás of Kurrachee wished to bury him there. But he appeared in a dream and told one of his followers that his body had already passed to Kera. Somewhat doubting, they opened the coffin, and, finding only rose leaves, sent the coffin to Kera where it was received with great ceremony and a tomb built.

Hearing of her husband's death, his wife, Aján Bibi, came from Gujarát and settled in Kera.

Losing her son in 1807, she renounced the world and spent the rest of her life as an ascetic, endowing an alms-house, sadávrat, where, to the destitute of all castes and creeds, daily doles of grain are still given. Aján Bibi died in 1827 (S. 1884). Both this lady and her husband Ghulam Ali continued Sadr-ud-din's work of adding to the Hindu element in their form of faith. He wrote a work, and she some hymns, kirtan, on spiritual knowledge, brahmdnyán.

They are both said to have paid great respect to the Hindu religion, and, within their lands, to have forbidden the taking of animal life. In their honour on the 11th of the bright half of Chaitra (March-April) a fair is held lasting for a week. It was begun in 1796 by Khoja Ládak Sumár of Ghogha in Cutch. The Khoja community of Kera manage the charitable institutions and keep an account of the presents received from the followers, murids.

It had been the base of an important female Ismaili missionary, called Begum Sayeda, who lived from 1785-1866. She helped popularise the Nizari Ismaili branch of Islam in Kera by including many of the Indian/Hindu customs and rituals.

Kera is populated mainly by Kanbis and Khojas who are progressive cultivators.