Mouvement religieux transnational ou mobilité de caste indienne ?

The Daudi Bohras belong to a business community originally from Gujarat (North-West of India). Since the second half of the XIXth century, this community tends to move out of its native area so as to adapt to the new mercantiles opportunities in India and abroard (East of Africa, Indian Ocean Islands, and in a second wave Usa, Midlle East). We ll point out how the community identity well defined, usefull in the connexion of a web of trade, has been reinforced so as to maintain a particular culture. Daudi Bohras are ismaili musulims, the particularity of this faith resides in a devotion to an own succession of religious leaders. While the community's expectation is to preserve its particularism, the statut of the supreme autority ll be redefined by some religious innovations to face the tensions and social changes.