In the context of IslamOnline.net's special coverage of the issue of Muslims in South Africa, Shafiq Morton offers his perspective on the history of Islam in the country. Below is the third of a three-part series.
In the Cape Town area, there are nearly thirty prominently marked graves, regarded locally as kramats, or burial places of saintly people. They can be found scattered in the mountains encircling the city and much legend surrounds them.
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Map of Cape Town (1770 AD) |
It is for this reason that scholars such as Muhammad `Adil Bradlow have argued that much of South Africa's early Islam was practiced far away from the prying eyes of the Dutch and Colonial authorities. Bradlow argued that small runaway communities coalesced around exiled Sufi sheikhs in the secrecy of Cape Town's mountains (Davids and de Costa).
What academics are unanimous about, however, is the nature of the spread of Islam in the Cape from the 1700s to the 1800s. Law forbade the sale of baptized Christian slaves, and so slave owners indirectly encouraged their slaves to remain Muslim. In addition, Muslim slaves were regarded as more reliable domestic servants due to their sober habits.
The increasing manumission of Muslim slaves and the increase of the "Free Black" population also added to the mix, so much so that by the 1800s one-third of the population of Cape Town had become Muslim, either through birth or conversion.
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By the 1800s one-third of the population of Cape Town had become Muslim, either through birth or conversion. |
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In 1780, one of the Cape's most eminent personalities from Southeast Asia was banished to the Cape. Imam Sayyid `Abdullah ibn Qadi Abdus Salam (known locally as "Tuan Guru" or "Master Teacher") arrived in Table Bay and was immediately transferred to Robben Island. Tracing his genealogy to the sultanate of Morocco and the house of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), Tuan Guru, a Tidore prince from the Trinate Islands, was convicted for conspiring against the Dutch.
While on Robben Island, Tuan Guru did not remain idle; he even managed to write out several copies of the Qur'an from memory. He also wrote out from memory a work entitled Ma`rifatul Islam wal-Imam (The Knowledge of Islam and Faith), a theological treatise which embraced Ash`arite[1] argument including Imam Sanusi's famous Umm al-Barahin (The Mother of All Proofs).[2] This text, written in Arabic with an interlinear Malay translation, became the primary reference work for Cape Islam well beyond the 19th century.
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The sword and shield of Imam Sayyid ‘Abdullah ibn Qadi Abdus Salam (Tuan Guru) |
Upon his release in 1793, Tuan Guru married a free black woman called Khaija
van de Kaap and established a madrasah. This heralded the first ever texts written in Afrikaans (Dutch-based language spoken in South Africa), using the Arabic alphabet. After the British arrived in South Africa in 1795, Tuan Guru managed to persuade the British Governor, General Craig, to allow him to build a mosque in Cape Town. The permission was only given after he had defied authorities by leading several incident-free Jumu`ah (Friday) Prayers in a disused quarry.The advent of religious freedom in 1804 and the emancipation of all slaves in the 1830s, saw a plethora of mosques being established in the Cape. When Tuan Guru died in 1807, at the age of 95, he had laid firm foundations for Islam.
In his many writings, Dr. Achmat Davids has observed that the 19th century was characterized by much dispute, mainly concerning doctrine and leadership. He maintained, however, that these disputes were necessary for Islam in the Cape, as they acted as "regulators of the communal value system." Davids also pushed the idea that these conflicts engendered the liberal and progressive traditions that exist in the Cape today.
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Dr. Achmat Davids has observed that the 19th century was characterized by much dispute, mainly concerning doctrine and leadership. |
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Sheikh Abu Bakr Effendi, the founder of the Hanafi[3] school of jurisprudence in South Africa, was one person who not only landed in this conflict, but who also openly — if not controversially — embraced it. Born in Kurdistan, he came from an aristocratic Quraishi family from Makkah. Sent to the Cape as a qadi (judge) at the urging of the British via the Ottoman government, he landed in Cape Town in 1862. Unfortunately, the colonial authorities had neglected to investigate into which school of legal thought was predominant in Cape Town.
Unlike the imams in the Cape who were fixated by the Shafi`i[4] school of jurisprudence, Sheikh Abu Bakr was a strict follower of the Hanafi school. He set up a madrasah in Cape Town, and Tuan Guru's grandsons were among his first students. Sheikh Abu Bakr gained notoriety in 1869 when he ruled that rock lobster and snoek (a barracuda-type fish caught by local fishermen) were haram according to Hanafi rulings.
Sheikh Abu Bakr, who passed away in 1880 at the age of 45, nevertheless did make several major contributions to South African Islam. His first contribution was his educational role and the publication of the bilingual Afrikaans-Arabic Bayan ad-Din (The Exposition of the Religion), in 1877. Printed by the Turkish Ministry of Education in Istanbul, it is one of South Africa's most historically interesting publications. His second contribution was the introduction of the fez (a type of hat) for men and the reinstitution of the hijab for women.
Eight years after the death of Sheikh Abu Bakr, another luminary in the Cape was destined to emerge in the community. This figure was the 16-year-old Muhammad Salih Hendricks who had studied in Makkah under the wings of Sayyid `Abdul-`Aziz Maliki, a prominent Makkan personality.
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After decades of selfless service to the community, Sheikh Muhammad Salih passed away in 1945, but not before having trained a whole new generation of imams and educators. |
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It was now 50 years after the emancipation of slaves, and Muhammad Salih came from a family of emancipated slaves, political exiles, and European converts. On a visit to the country town of Swellendam, Imam Hajji Hijji, Muhammad Salih's father, informed Sayyid `Abdul-`Aziz that his son was going to study medicine in London. Telling the imam that the young boy should instead become a doctor of the soul, Sayyid `Abdul-`Aziz undertook the responsibility to be his guardian in the holy city.
After studying in Makkah for 15 years, Sheikh Muhammad Salih left the holy city and stopped over in Zanzibar for a year to work as a qadi, before finally arriving in Cape Town. He did not arrive to a warm welcome. Dr. Yusuf da Costa states in his book that a "hydra of jealousy" surrounded Cape Town's first locally born qadi.
Despite many niggling problems, Sheikh Muhammad Salih succeeded in building the Azzawiyyah mosque in 1921. Situated on the lower reaches of Cape Town overlooking the harbor, it soon became a focus of Islamic learning.
According to Hajji Ganief Allie,[5] one of the last surviving followers of Sheikh Muhammad Salih, the dedicated religious scholar had kept up a program of education that has never been equaled by any other religious teacher in Cape Town. After Fajr Prayer, he would conduct classes for imams. After 10 a.m. he would give lessons to descendants of the Prophet (peace and blessing be upon him), many of whom had fled to South Africa to avoid persecution. After `Asr Prayer there were more classes, and between Maghrib and `Isha’ Prayers, evening lessons were held. On Thursdays, he would give public lectures, and on Sundays, he would lecture on Imam Al-Ghazali's Ihya `Ulum ad-Deen.
After decades of selfless service to the community, Sheikh Muhammad Salih passed away in 1945, but not before having trained a whole new generation of imams and educators. He added much to the spiritual foundations already laid by Tuan Guru, Sheikh Abu Bakr Effendi, and others who had sacrificed so much for Islam at the foot of Africa.
Sources:
Davids, Achmat and Yusuf de Costa. Pages from Cape Muslim History. Pietermaritzburg: Shuter and Shooter, 1994
** Shafiq Morton is a senior South African journalist and a presenter at the Voice of the Cape radio station.
[1] A school of early Muslim philosophy that was named after its founder, the theologian Abul-Hassan Al-Ash`ari (d. 945).
[2] Al-Sanusi Abu `Abdullah Muhammad ibn Yusuf is an Ash`arite theologian who was born in Tlemcen, Algeria, and studied in Algiers. He wrote several books, such as `Aqidat Ahl at-Tawhid and `Umdat Ahl at-Tawfiq.
[3] A school of Islamic jurisprudence that was established by Nu`man Abu Hanifah (d. 767).
[4] A school of Islamic jurisprudence that was established by `Abdullah Muhammad ibn Idris Ash-Shafi`i (d. 820).
[5] Based on interviews with the author.