Muslims formed a disparate and unwieldy community in Bombay in the nineteenth century. The Islam that was professedly held in common by various groups could barely provide a sense of unity or cohesion to people so widely diverse in terms of language, customs, and also of forms and practices of belief. By the middle of the nineteenth century, a class of wealthy ship owners, ship-builders, and merchants, belonging to the varied communities that constituted the city, of which Muslims formed an important part, had emerged. This class was outward-looking, modern, and generally reformist in outlook: Gujarati or Maharashtrian, its goals of social reform, education, as well as political awareness, were gradually beginning to be perceived as goals held across communities, and increasingly across different regions.