Soofie Mosque - KwaZulu-Natal
History:
Sheikh Abdurahman Matebe Shah was exiled to Constantia, Cape Town in the Cape by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) following his resistance to the Dutch occupation of the East Indies. The sheikh used his exile to consolidate the teaching of Islam among slaves in the Cape, many of whom came from Muslim backgrounds in Malaysia and Bengal.
The VOC period
During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century the Dutch continued to exile Muslim leaders from Batavia to the Cape: they includedSheikh Yusuf of Bantam, who lived at Faure in Cape Town. Probably the first imam to live in Cape Town was Said Alochie of Mocha inYemen, who was sentenced to work on Robben Island for ten years in 1747. Said Alochie later moved to Cape Town where he worked as a police constable - an occupation which gave him ample opportunities for visiting slave quarters at night to teach. In 1767 Prince Abdullah Kadi Abu Salaam of Tidore was exiled to the Cape. He wrote a copy of the Quran from memory, and the volume is still preserved in Cape Town; Abdullah assumed leadership of the community in Cape Town and became known as "Tuan Guru". In 1799 the growth of the community encouraged Cape Town's Muslims to petition the VOC for permission to build a mosque. Islam was a popular religion among the slaves - its tradition of teaching enabled literate slaves to gain better positions in their masters' households, and the religion taught its followers to treat their own slaves well.
Arrival of Indian Muslims
In 1800's there were two waves of Muslims that emigrated to South Africa from India. The first began with a wave of immigration by indentured labourers from South India in 1860's. These labourers were brought to South Africa by the British. 7-10% of these labourers were Muslim. The second wave of immigrants were merchants or traders that arrived from North India and settled in Natal, the Transvaal and the Cape. The first mosque in Natal, Juma Masjid, was built in Grey Street in Durban in 1884. It is now the largest mosque in the Southern Hemisphere.
After apartheid
Since South Africa became a democracy in 1994, there has been a growing number of Muslim migrants from South Asia and North Africa; however, their numbers are fairly low.[citation needed] Most of the Muslims are urban dwellers and thus live in or near Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, East London, Kimberley, Pretoria or Johannesburg.
New rise in conversions
According to the Christian Science Monitor, the biggest reason for the dramatic rise in Islam is that the religion is a refuge from sex, AIDS, alcoholism, and domestic violence that is rampant in the black townships, where the greatest rates of conversions are seen. It is estimated that Islam is the largest religion of conversion in South Africa. Islam grew by six fold in thirteen years, during the time from 1991 to 2004. Even though organizations such as IPCI, the Islamic Dawah Movement of South Africa, and the Africa Muslim Agency have been eager to proselytize in the region, there have been other civic organizations such as the MYMSA and the Call of Islam who considered other approaches to weave Islam into the social fabric of South Africa as a more significant way of making the Muslims' presence conspicuous.
According Michael Mumisa, a researcher and writer on African Islam, there has been an increase in the number of black South Africans converting to Islam particularly among the women and the youth. He believes that for some of the youth and women who were schooled in the politics of South African resistance and confrontation with the security forces of the former Apartheid state, the acceptance of Islam has become part of a radical rejection of a society based on Christian principles which are seen as having been responsible for establishing and promoting the Apartheid doctrine through the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. The influence of the radical ideas espoused by Malcolm X is very evident among South African Muslims of all races. Branches of the Nation of Islam are already established in South Africa. Louis Farrakhan paid a visit to South Africa and was received by President Nelson Mandela and African Muslim communities.
Another Reason has been the presence of a growing Number of Sufi Orders and Groups. Amongst these is the Murabitun, a group that has a strong following in Spain. Many young Afrikaners find themselves attracted to its economic radicalism as well as its emphasis on a Western Expression of Islam.
Prominent Muslims:
Prominent Muslims are found in many spheres of South African life, notably in politics where they are represented at all levels of government.
Members of the Cabinet have included Naledi Pandor, former Minister of Education, and current Minister of Science and Technology, as well as Enver Surty. Essop Pahad and his brother Aziz Pahad. Other former Ministers include Kader Asmal (Education) and Dullah Omar[Justice,Transport].
In addition to Cabinet ministers, there are a number of Members of Parliament as well as councillors in the various provinces.[who?] The formerWestern Cape premier, Ebrahim Rasool, is Muslim.
Ismail Mahomed was the first post-apartheid Chief Justice of South Africa.
In sport, the most prominent South African Muslim is Test cricketer Hashim Amla. In rugby, the new talent of Ismaeel Dollie has come to the fore.
Hazrat Sheikh Ahmed Badsha Peer was a highly respected Sufi. He arrived in South Africa in 1860 as an indentured labourer and was given an honourable discharge by the colonial British authorities when he was discovered to be mystic. . His tomb is at the Badsha Peer Square/Brook Street Cemetery in Durban.[8]
Abu Bakr Effendi was a Osmanli qadi who was sent in 1862 by the Ottoman sultan Abdülmecid I at the request of the British Queen Victoriato the Cape of Good Hope, in order to teach and assist the Muslim community of the Cape Malays.
Riaadh Moosa is a popular comedian.
South African school of Islam:
Most South African Muslims are members of the Sunni branch of Islam; there are however a small number of individuals who had converted to the Shi'a school. Although they were vocal in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they seem to have become part of the silent Muslim minority at the turn of the 21st century. This could be attributed to the fact that South Africa's large Sunni oriented community have not adopted a favourable and accommodating attitude towards the Shi'is, and that Iran's influence had dwindled in the 1990s. Organizations such as theJamiat ul-Ulama of the Transvaal (est. 1923), The Muslim Judicial Council (est. 1945)The jamaa of nepali Muslims whose leader is today Dr Jigme Rai and Muslim Youth Movement of South Africa (est. 1970) enjoyed a fair amount of moral and financial support from the Muslim community for their social welfare activities. The once strong Muslim Students Association of South Africa (est. 1974), which had branches on many tertiary campuses, became less vocal and thus lost its grip on student activities; the MSA was thus replaced by Islamic societies that were either independent or affiliates of other Muslim organizations outside these institutions. The Muslim Students Association of South Africa has recently been very active once again. The first National Muslim Students Association of South Africa Conference (first in the last 10 years) was held in Durban in January 2004. MSA representatives from all over the country met here. This was hoped to be a new future of student work in the country. There is also a recent presence of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community who established in the country in 1946,[9]and a small community of Qur'an Alone Muslims.[10][11] There is also a Sufi community.[12][13]
Theology
Sunni's make up the majority of South African Muslims.
Madhab
Most of the Indian community follow the Hanafi Madhab, while the Malay, Kokni Indian & East African Communities usually follow the Sha'afimadhab, which predominates in the Western Cape. There is also an increasingly large number of adherents to the Malikimadhab, composed mostly of recent West African and Maghribi Migrants.
Theological differences between Sunni and Salafi Muslims is noted.
Scholarship
The Dominant traditions of scholarship are the rival South Asian Deobandi/Barelvi schools within the Indian Community.
The Malay Community has a much more varied tradition with graduates of Al-Azhar in Egypt, Umm-al Qurra in Mecca & other universities in Saudi Arabia & South Asia. Most of the Indian scholars are graduates from Deobandi affiliated Madrassahs.
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