to the codification of the legal systems of the Bengal, Madras, and Bombay presidencies, and the first Indian census in 1871, which saw the formalization of religious and caste identities as categories of classification. Amid this context, Arnould asserted that the case hung on the question of the “original religion” of the Khojas, as this would determine their identity and thus their rightful leader. Trial The plaintiffs formulated their case against the Aga Khan on religious grounds, arguing that the Khojas were Sunni Muslims, and that, as a result, the Aga Khan had no authority over the community. The plaintiffs asked the court to take four steps in order to remove Aga Khan's authority and institute a system of self-governance: first, an accounting of all Khoja communal property in Bombay; second, the collection of all community property under the court's supervision; third, the institution of a regularized election procedure for selecting the leadership of the community; and fourth, an injunction prohibiting the Aga Khan from interfering in the community's property and affairs, influencing the election of the community's leadership, or asserting any power to excommunicate Khojas, deprive them of their privileges, or demand payments in a spiritual capacity. The Aga Khan's attorneys made several claims, notably that the Khoja community had a long history of loyalty to the Aga Khan and his ancestors. They presented letters from as early as 1793 from the Aga Khan's father to the Khoja jamat in order to demonstrate that the Khojas had paid remittances to the Aga Khan and his ancestors. Further, the attorneys sought to invalidate the argument that the Khojas had been Sunni: they disassociated the Khojas from “classical Islam” by citing Perry's 1847 ruling that “they possessed no translation of the Koran,” and asserted that since they had been identified as “Muslim” by Perry, this indicated they were Shia, as Perry had called them “Hindus with a Muslim cultivation and Muslim development of their creed.” The crucial piece of evidence proved to be an analysis of the Ismaili poem Dasavatar (“the Ten Avatars”). The poem, part of the Ismaili devotional hymns known as the ginans, is the work of Pir Sadruddin, the founder of the Khojas. While the first nine chapters of the ginan focus on Hindu avatars, the final chapter focuses on Ali (Muhammad’s son-in-law and the first imam in Shia Islam) and regards Ali as Nakalanki, the tenth avatar.