Teaching and learning have long held a central place in the life of Ismaili communities, and in the recollections gathered here it appears less as a job than as a vocation or a calling. Some of these teachers can name the moment that calling arrived. Others found it more gradually, through curiosity, through a teacher’s example, or despite the expectations of those around them.

The episode is dedicated to the memory of two teachers and scholars: Rai Dr Sayyid Jalal Hosseini Badakhchani, who devoted his life to researching, preserving and teaching Ismaili thought, history and literature, first in Iran and later at The Institute of Ismaili Studies; and Alwaez Vazir Fida Ali Aisar, who spent more than six decades in Gilgit-Baltistan training generations of teachers, preachers and educator