Ebrahim Salie
Ebrahim Salie is an independent South African historian and an avid archival researcher who has conducted and written pioneering work on Muslims in the Western Cape, South Africa. He is the first social scientist in South Africa who has applied the Bayes’ Mathematical Theory of Probability in order to determine the historical plausibility of controversial events in Muslim history in Dutch South Africa.
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ABTRACT
This Arabic-Afrikaans letter, penned by A.Toffa, A 'Cape Malay' residing in Hanover Street, Cape Town, just before the outbreak of World War I on 28, 1914:
(i) addresses the local religious clergy, learned people, and members of the mosque congregation, vis-à-vis resolving his marital woes;
(ii) manifests a stark contrast between the dialect used by 'Cape Malays' in twentieth century British Cape Town and its environs on the intonation and philological levels; (iii) shows how the exigency of the Muslim faith extends to his subjectivity and Weltanschauung, distorted the barrier between private and public spaces of the Muslims;
(iv) demonstrates the lack of Muslim dependence on secular Dutch-Roman law or profane ethical encryptions vis-à-vis their marriage issues; and,
(v) clearly indicates that Arabic-Afrikaans was not confined to local religious discourse. but was also used in letter correspondence in the absence of official Afrikaans-Arabic dictionaries and its non-usage at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels.
Key words:
Materialism; moral degeneration, hedonism; “commodification of heritage”; critical citizenship; “culture of acquisitiveness”; heritage of slavery; slave history, and neo-Americanism.
‘
ABSTRACT
In this research essay, I use primary and secondary sources to narrate the teachings of Imam ‘Abdullah bin Qadi Abdus-salam. His life at Cabo de Goede, centred on imprisonment, writing, dissemination and waging an “inner holy war”. His teachings, that fundamentally influenced how Muslims experienced and comprehended the world (that is, the culture of Muslims), their subjectivity, identity and consciousness within the context of late 18th and early 19th-century colonial Cape Town, focussed on: waging an inner “holy war; implementing of diverse modes of faith and the Twenty Attributes of God against the backdrop of Asha’ri theology, and displaying pride in “indigenous, diasporic practises and traditions”(adat) of the Malay Archipelago. All these manifestations of his teachings were bent on: creating a new “Muslimness”, effecting a social revolution—a world diametrically opposed to the “world of the infidel (kafir)”—and on consolidating the Muslim faith, Islamic identity and Islamic consciousness in Protestant colonial Cape Town.
Key Words:
Islam; short prayer (dua’a); universal teachings; Twenty Attributes; doctrine of faith (imān); Ash’arism; radical social transformation; sword and the shield, and Major Kuchler’s dagger (kris) and talisman power.
NOTE:
The original version of this research paper consists of 57 papers inclusive of footnotes. An abridge version has been published as follows: Ebrahim Salie, “Tuan Guru’s Educational influence on the colonial Cape Muslims (circa 18th and 19th centuries): A Synopsis”, in: Evaluating Shaykh Yusuf Al-Makassari and Imam ‘Abdullah Tidore’s Ideational Teachings: Reinforcing Indonesia-South Africa’s Relations. Edited by Muhammed Haron and Ardhya Erlangga Arby (Pretoria: The Embassy of the Republc of Indonesia, 2021, Ch.8, pp.188-206.
CHAPTER 1
Muslim Resistance to Hajee Sullaiman Shahmahomed’s Monopoly of Sacred Space: The Struggle for control of the Shaykh Yūsuf Karamat, in Macassar, South Africa and its aftermath, 1908-1942.
Sub-sections:
(3) Old folklore and traditions on Shaykh Yūsuf al-Maqassārī replaced by white academic research.
(4) The Dargah enclosure, constructed by Hajee Sullaiman Shahmahomed for FOUR followers of Shaykh Yusuf: Factual or a historical misrepresentation?
The Corpse of Shaykh Yūsuf Al-Maqassārī: Testing by using Bayes’ Theorem of Probability, whether his corpse was miraculously reshaped or in an “incorruptible” state on exhumation in in 1704 at the Dutch Cape of Good Hope. [51pp]
In this section of the thesis, I will furnish a new method involving understanding and applying Bayes' Theorem of Probability in order to ascertain the level of confidence (expressed as a decimal /or a percentage) vis-à-vis two claims in Muslim history at Cabo de Goede Hoop, namely: Was the corpse of Shaykh Yūsuf al-Maqassārī, that was exhumed at Macassar in Eersteriver in the Cape Colony, South Africa in 1704, not corrupted—that is, showing hardly any signs of decomposition, and therefore, essentially intact? Or was it, miraculously formed from a lump of earth, as claimed by the Riwāyah Sehe Yusupu (Life of Sheikh Yusuf), a popular hagiography that attributes miraculous powers to its subject?
As grandson (b.1731) of the deceased Raja of Tambora and daughter of Shaykh Yῡsuf Al-Maqassarī, Abraham de Haan jr.'s non-slave origins, his royal roots; his profession of the Christian faith ; his designation in the probate inventory as, citizen ("den burger") or as the late burger("wijlen den burger"); his demonstrable wealth; and his marriage to a white colonial woman (Christiena Alesia Eversdijk); his forging of social bonds with the Cape's underclasses at the "Maccassar Down" and credit networks with the white colonists, through participation in public auctions; his endorsement of the 1770-1779 burgher protests geared to garnering more status, wealth and power by attempting not to overthrow the VOC administration but by wresting greater economic and political power from the ruling faction that consisted of VOC officials and prominent burghers; his involvement in diverse economic activities ranging from salt price wars, collection and transport of salt to licence renewal of hunting rights, and finally, his dispute with the British government during its first occupation of the Cape (1795-1803)-all gave him an added advantage in eighteenth-century Cape colonial society.
Comments on and selected extracts from A.Ligtvoet’s 19th-century Dutch translation of the Chronicles/ Diary of Abdul Qadir (King of Tello) and Abdul-Jalīl (King of Gowa), with a Free English Translation By Ebrahim Salie.10pp.
The selected extracts from the “Chronicles” are of importance to our understanding pertaining to many aspects of Muslim history in VOC Cabo de Goede Hoop, in a sense that, they:
• serve as primary evidence for the exhumation of Shaykh Yūsuf’s
remains;
• confirm exhumation as an integral part of South Sulawesi culture;
• shed important light on the reasons for VOC authorities banishing the
aristocratic Indonesian elite to the Cape of Good Hope; but more
significantly, why a VOC banishing order was withdrawn and replaced
with the death penalty; and
• furnish us with historical information hereto unknown and known.
(1) Social Imperialism, the “Liberal” Press, Health Policies and Muslims in 19th-century Colonial Cape Town.
(2) Muslims and Political consciousness in the 19th century, 1884-
1899.
(3) Pledging loyalty to the British Empire at the outbreak of the South
African War 1899-1902.
(4) Aftermath of the South African War: Consolidating white rule in
South Africa.
(5) Dr.Abdurahman, the APO, and H.N.Effenidi’s South African Moslem
Association: the Politics of Unity and Disunity in Cape Town, 1905-
1910.
(6) Indians, identity and Resistance:
(6.1) On the nature of Indian (Muslim, Hindu & Christian) identity in South
Africa, 1860-1914.
(6.2) Muslim ‘Indian” Resistance ,1902-1906,1909.
• Annexures (A.1-A.14)
• List of Illustrations
• Table of Contents
• Ch.6 Final conclusions and An Illustrative Synopsis
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Annexures I, II and III
• Illustrations
• Methodology
• Divisions of Chapters 7-11
• Chapter 12 : Final Conclusions and aftermath
• Indonesian aristocrats and Imams…exiled to Cabo de Goede Hope,
• 1667-1793: By Map, Illustrations and geographical origins.
• Capital Punishment of Slaves, 1687-1777.
In this chapter we will argue that: before the South African War(1899-1902), Hadje Ozeer Ally, M.K.Gandhi and the “Indian” merchant class’s sense of mission, identity and petty-bourgeoisie patriotism, firmly identified with England’s duty to spread the Cape liberal model of equal political rights beyond its Cape ,Natal and Griqualand –West frontiers.
However, after the War, their hope of an equitable dispensation faded as Sir Alfred Milner—Governor of the Transvaal Colony, the Randlords and the local administration in the Transvaal, stabilized the skilled “White” proletariat on the Witwatersrand, consolidated British hegemony and facilitated social control by separating the “White” labouring classes from the “Asian” and “Native” dangerous
classes.
In a nutshell: Milner’s new imperialist plan was bent on merging the four colonies into an Anglicized and prosperous federated dominion within the British Empire; with the overspill, generated by the mining industry, to finance the resettlement of Boers on their farms, the modernization of agricultural production, and the establishment of British and colonial families on the land.Thus, skilled British workers and their families were to be drawn to Johannesburg and other towns along the reef, so as to promote secondary industrial and commercial growth, which were to generate revenue with which to run the colonial administration. Furthermore, a near doubling of the White English-speaking population–which Milner expected would occur within five years after the War—would create a sufficiently large British community to ensure the domination of British culture, values and institutions, and, therefore, would safeguard a pro-British victory in any future elections.
These factors, coupled with the dislocation of Muslim society, effected by the outbreak of the Bubonic plague (1901 & 1904); urban segregation and the disastrous consequences of the South African War; the introduction of restrictive immigration laws; finger-printing as a form of identification; class, racial , ethnic and religious discrimination; opposition to the enfranchisement of non-whites by non-official, nominated local members of the Transvaal legislature—despite the fact that the imperial British government supported a class-based and colour-blind franchise (which would have given educated and “civilized” non-white British subjects the right to vote)—all paved the way for the establishment of Hadje Ozeer Ally’s Islamic Hamidia Society and the commencement of the first passive resistance campaigns in South Africa against British pseudo-liberalism, discrimination and oppression.
Hence, we will shed light on the following in this chapter:
• what it was like being an Asian, and a Muslim in the Transvaal;
• Muslim reaction to the outbreak of the South African War (1899-1902);
• the hypocrisy of British liberalism in post-South African War period;
• the implementation of oppressive legislation;
• Hadje Ozeer Ally’ and his Islamic Hamidia Society’s link to the Ottoman Empire (Uthmaniyyah Khalifah);
• why Britain tried to down-play the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Abdul Hamid II ‘s Pan-Islamism in South Africa;
• how the pilgrimage to Mecca became linked to both “sanitary “ concerns (i.e the prevalence and spread of cholera epidemic and the Bubonic plague) and “security” concerns (that is, the protection of Britain’s colonial Muslim subjects from the “scourge” of Pan-Islamism);
• how immigration laws affected “Malay” and “Indian” Muslims;
• factors contributing to the establishment of the Hamidia Islamic Society;
• why the latter was not an Ahmadi-inspired and controlled organization;
• how Hadje Ozeer Ally and M.K Gandhi minimized criticisms by the “Transvaal “Indian” community;
• the reasons for M. K.Gandhi being influenced by Islam, and the pivotal role played by Hadje Ozeer Ally in the struggle against British injustice.
Thus, our task will be not only to understand Hadje Ozeer Ally, Hamidia Islamic Society and Muslim resistance between 1893 and 1907, but also will to comprehend the context, nationally and internationally, within which they operated. For example, the formation of the Hamidia Islamic Society, cannot be fully comprehended, in one sense, without an understanding of the effects of the South African War (1899-1902) on society; neither can the first mass meeting convened by the Hamidia Islamic Society, without understanding Britain’s foreign policy towards the Sunni Islamic Ottoman Empire, and its policy towards Muslim Turks in South Africa.
Key words: H.O.Ally; Hamidia Islamic Society; Abdul Hamid II, Pan-Islamism; pseudo-British liberalism; urban segregation; Restrictive Immigration Laws; disenfranchisement; British hegemony; religious discrimination; South African War (1899-1902); passive resistance campaigns; resistance; defence of Islamic identity,and ethnic classification.
In this chapter we will attempt to demonstrate that post-Apartheid regimes under Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki rejected slave heritage based on ethnicity, and as a tool for mobilizing and defining “Coloureds” along narrow cultural lines. On the contrary, the slave narrow had to be “Africanized”, “decolonized”, inclusive, feed into a national identity and unity that transcended race and ethnicity. Hence, the government’s silence on the UNESCO Slave Route Project, and the 400 years of the VOC commemoration celebrations of 2002.
However, renewed interest in heritage did not necessarily mean the reawakening of ethnic consciousness, for: deploying slavery was an attempt to find a positive place for the “coloured community” within African discourse and identity which have been linked closely to notions of “authenticity”, “resistance” and “moral authority” . Also, slavery featured in public debate on the “Coloured” identity, in order to bring to the fore issues the Coloured community grappled with but which have thus far been marginalized and silenced. And finally, the invocation of a new slave narrative was bent on eradicating the iniquities of past interpretation of the “world the slaves made”.
Moreover, re-imagining slave heritage and the heritage of slavery in the post-colony, by officialdom, led, ironically, to the re-emergence of new forms of racism, ethnicity, and post-Apartheid tribalism, that manifested itself in, promoting the nebulous rainbow nation concept “One nation, many cultures”; the formation of the “Native Club” (Black Broerder Bond), the apartheid museum and the privatization of the Voortrekker Museum.
Key words: African discourse and identity; post-Apartheid tribalism; “Native Club”; Apartheid museum; privatization; nation-building; African Renaissance.
1996- 2008.
ABSTRACT
NPP victory, the failure of Kleurling Weerstand Beweeging Vir die Voortuitgand van Bruinmense (Johannesburg), Coloured Forum(Cape Town), the essentially white-Democratic Party (DP), and the essentially-black African National Congress (ANC), to energize Coloureds into mainstream post-Apartheid, led to the formation of the December 1st Movement (Cape Town) in 1996, by “Coloured” workers, trade unionists, academics and the youth—most of whom, were actively aligned to the anti-apartheid United Democratic Front (UDF) and Mass Democratic Movement (MDM) of the 1980s.
The December 1st.Movement (Cape Town) was also unaligned to any political party. As a broad social movement, its essential aim was inclusion of “Coloureds” into the process of social and political transformation. The centrality of slave experience and the history of the “Coloured” people—then ignored by the ruling and existing political parties—served as mental frameworks for: (i) the establishment of memory, healing, research, and lobby centres;(ii) engaging with debates on “colouredness”and the “Coloured” identity within an ANC-dominated political milieu, and (iii)for making contact with the global African diaspora, and consequently, ending the political and social marginalization of “Coloureds”.Healing divisions, restoring pride, contesting the “Colored” identity, nation-building, and furnishing a ‘text’ for the “Coloured” underclasses, were, therefore, to be the logical outcome of the formation of the December 1st Movement (Cape Town). However, the movement was criticized by both the ANC and the NNP for its seeming emphasis on ethnicity, and consequently, received little corporate funding, and thus, temporarily withered away. On 1st December 2006 and 2008, it assumed a different form when thousands of people, led by a brass band, decided to, “own the night”, by marching through the streets of Cape Town in order to re-enact the 1838 emancipation march, and to acknowledge and commemorate the role played by slaves in the development of Metropolitan Cape Town. Henceforth, marches through the streets of Cape Town, and the “Slave Walk”, became a regular occurrence, although the December 1st Movement (Cape Town) itself, became defunct.
Key words : Slavery, Emancipation Day, Post-Apartheid, Identity, December 1st Movement, Social Movement, Re-enactment of Slave March, Commemoration, Slave Tree (Spin Street), “Coloureds”, Transformation, Memory.
An analysis of Reverend Dr. J. M. Arnold’s mission to
Muslims in colonial Cape Town, 1875-1881.
ABSTRACT
In this article we will analysis how Christian missionary-inspired discourse, prevalent in the books and pamphlets penned by Reverend Dr. J. M. Arnold, was conspicuously bent on refuting Islam as a divinely–ordained faith.
His vast experience and undertakings in Islamic lands in the Middle-East and the Far East , influenced much of his eventual understanding of Islam, and his adoption of a missionary strategy towards Muslims at the Cape Colony, namely :
(1) using “kind words”, and “Loving” Counsel, based on clearly articulated, meticulously researched theological arguments originally presented in his books on Christian relationship to Islam (1859 and 1874), and bent on creating division, religious intolerance and mutually exclusive debates between Christian and Muslim underclasses in nineteenth-century colonial Cape Town;
(2) propaganda biographies written supposedly by “a Malay”, to show up the supposed dissatisfaction local Muslims had with the follies of Islamic doctrine, discourage white conversion to Islam, and reveal the humanness, “immorality and “falseness” of the Prophet Muḥammed, and finally,
(3) by way of an essentially European-dominated, Christian brotherhood or confraternity , placed under British “protection”, but financially independent of foreign funding; and bent on instilling English mannerism, inculcating the right to be “civilized” ,and eventually, affiliation to the Anglican Church.
We will also show that Reverend Dr. J.M.Arnold’s seven year (1875-1881) stint in colonial Cape Town, ultimately proved abortive, as much of Muslim sentiment towards conversion to Christianity remained “bigoted and uncompromising”. Their responses ranged from damning the crucifix to removal of their children , especially boys, the pillars of their future community, removed from Christian Mission Yet, Christian missionaries were invited into their mosques, rooms were rented by Muslims to them for the execution of their missionary work, Reverend Dr. J. M. Arnold on was praised by the Muslim community on his death in 1881, for his ever courteous, ever kind, and simple eloquence, as opposed to his high–flown theological arguments that caused much bitterness and distrust amongst Muslims in colonial Cape Town.
And lastly, while his seminal work on Islam, was revised and reprinted several times, it was both praised criticized by an orientalist/or Christian missionary reviewer, in the white liberal press in Cape Town, The Cape Argus. Ironically, readers were urged not to overlook the, “modes of missionary enterprise”, as outlined in “Ch.6 Hints for Missionary labour” , because adherents of non-Christians, in general and Islam in particular, were regarded as outside the possibility of salvation !
Key Words:
Christian missionaries; propaganda; Christian brotherhood or Confraternity; Mission schools; Liberal Press; Orientalist; British “Protection”; Prophet Muḥammed; The Holy Qur’an; Khalifah; Muslim Community; Nineteenth-century Colonial Cape Town.
ABTRACT
This Arabic-Afrikaans letter, penned by A.Toffa, A 'Cape Malay' residing in Hanover Street, Cape Town, just before the outbreak of World War I on 28, 1914:
(i) addresses the local religious clergy, learned people, and members of the mosque congregation, vis-à-vis resolving his marital woes;
(ii) manifests a stark contrast between the dialect used by 'Cape Malays' in twentieth century British Cape Town and its environs on the intonation and philological levels; (iii) shows how the exigency of the Muslim faith extends to his subjectivity and Weltanschauung, distorted the barrier between private and public spaces of the Muslims;
(iv) demonstrates the lack of Muslim dependence on secular Dutch-Roman law or profane ethical encryptions vis-à-vis their marriage issues; and,
(v) clearly indicates that Arabic-Afrikaans was not confined to local religious discourse. but was also used in letter correspondence in the absence of official Afrikaans-Arabic dictionaries and its non-usage at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels.
Key words:
Materialism; moral degeneration, hedonism; “commodification of heritage”; critical citizenship; “culture of acquisitiveness”; heritage of slavery; slave history, and neo-Americanism.
‘
ABSTRACT
In this research essay, I use primary and secondary sources to narrate the teachings of Imam ‘Abdullah bin Qadi Abdus-salam. His life at Cabo de Goede, centred on imprisonment, writing, dissemination and waging an “inner holy war”. His teachings, that fundamentally influenced how Muslims experienced and comprehended the world (that is, the culture of Muslims), their subjectivity, identity and consciousness within the context of late 18th and early 19th-century colonial Cape Town, focussed on: waging an inner “holy war; implementing of diverse modes of faith and the Twenty Attributes of God against the backdrop of Asha’ri theology, and displaying pride in “indigenous, diasporic practises and traditions”(adat) of the Malay Archipelago. All these manifestations of his teachings were bent on: creating a new “Muslimness”, effecting a social revolution—a world diametrically opposed to the “world of the infidel (kafir)”—and on consolidating the Muslim faith, Islamic identity and Islamic consciousness in Protestant colonial Cape Town.
Key Words:
Islam; short prayer (dua’a); universal teachings; Twenty Attributes; doctrine of faith (imān); Ash’arism; radical social transformation; sword and the shield, and Major Kuchler’s dagger (kris) and talisman power.
NOTE:
The original version of this research paper consists of 57 papers inclusive of footnotes. An abridge version has been published as follows: Ebrahim Salie, “Tuan Guru’s Educational influence on the colonial Cape Muslims (circa 18th and 19th centuries): A Synopsis”, in: Evaluating Shaykh Yusuf Al-Makassari and Imam ‘Abdullah Tidore’s Ideational Teachings: Reinforcing Indonesia-South Africa’s Relations. Edited by Muhammed Haron and Ardhya Erlangga Arby (Pretoria: The Embassy of the Republc of Indonesia, 2021, Ch.8, pp.188-206.
CHAPTER 1
Muslim Resistance to Hajee Sullaiman Shahmahomed’s Monopoly of Sacred Space: The Struggle for control of the Shaykh Yūsuf Karamat, in Macassar, South Africa and its aftermath, 1908-1942.
Sub-sections:
(3) Old folklore and traditions on Shaykh Yūsuf al-Maqassārī replaced by white academic research.
(4) The Dargah enclosure, constructed by Hajee Sullaiman Shahmahomed for FOUR followers of Shaykh Yusuf: Factual or a historical misrepresentation?
The Corpse of Shaykh Yūsuf Al-Maqassārī: Testing by using Bayes’ Theorem of Probability, whether his corpse was miraculously reshaped or in an “incorruptible” state on exhumation in in 1704 at the Dutch Cape of Good Hope. [51pp]
In this section of the thesis, I will furnish a new method involving understanding and applying Bayes' Theorem of Probability in order to ascertain the level of confidence (expressed as a decimal /or a percentage) vis-à-vis two claims in Muslim history at Cabo de Goede Hoop, namely: Was the corpse of Shaykh Yūsuf al-Maqassārī, that was exhumed at Macassar in Eersteriver in the Cape Colony, South Africa in 1704, not corrupted—that is, showing hardly any signs of decomposition, and therefore, essentially intact? Or was it, miraculously formed from a lump of earth, as claimed by the Riwāyah Sehe Yusupu (Life of Sheikh Yusuf), a popular hagiography that attributes miraculous powers to its subject?
As grandson (b.1731) of the deceased Raja of Tambora and daughter of Shaykh Yῡsuf Al-Maqassarī, Abraham de Haan jr.'s non-slave origins, his royal roots; his profession of the Christian faith ; his designation in the probate inventory as, citizen ("den burger") or as the late burger("wijlen den burger"); his demonstrable wealth; and his marriage to a white colonial woman (Christiena Alesia Eversdijk); his forging of social bonds with the Cape's underclasses at the "Maccassar Down" and credit networks with the white colonists, through participation in public auctions; his endorsement of the 1770-1779 burgher protests geared to garnering more status, wealth and power by attempting not to overthrow the VOC administration but by wresting greater economic and political power from the ruling faction that consisted of VOC officials and prominent burghers; his involvement in diverse economic activities ranging from salt price wars, collection and transport of salt to licence renewal of hunting rights, and finally, his dispute with the British government during its first occupation of the Cape (1795-1803)-all gave him an added advantage in eighteenth-century Cape colonial society.
Comments on and selected extracts from A.Ligtvoet’s 19th-century Dutch translation of the Chronicles/ Diary of Abdul Qadir (King of Tello) and Abdul-Jalīl (King of Gowa), with a Free English Translation By Ebrahim Salie.10pp.
The selected extracts from the “Chronicles” are of importance to our understanding pertaining to many aspects of Muslim history in VOC Cabo de Goede Hoop, in a sense that, they:
• serve as primary evidence for the exhumation of Shaykh Yūsuf’s
remains;
• confirm exhumation as an integral part of South Sulawesi culture;
• shed important light on the reasons for VOC authorities banishing the
aristocratic Indonesian elite to the Cape of Good Hope; but more
significantly, why a VOC banishing order was withdrawn and replaced
with the death penalty; and
• furnish us with historical information hereto unknown and known.
(1) Social Imperialism, the “Liberal” Press, Health Policies and Muslims in 19th-century Colonial Cape Town.
(2) Muslims and Political consciousness in the 19th century, 1884-
1899.
(3) Pledging loyalty to the British Empire at the outbreak of the South
African War 1899-1902.
(4) Aftermath of the South African War: Consolidating white rule in
South Africa.
(5) Dr.Abdurahman, the APO, and H.N.Effenidi’s South African Moslem
Association: the Politics of Unity and Disunity in Cape Town, 1905-
1910.
(6) Indians, identity and Resistance:
(6.1) On the nature of Indian (Muslim, Hindu & Christian) identity in South
Africa, 1860-1914.
(6.2) Muslim ‘Indian” Resistance ,1902-1906,1909.
• Annexures (A.1-A.14)
• List of Illustrations
• Table of Contents
• Ch.6 Final conclusions and An Illustrative Synopsis
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Annexures I, II and III
• Illustrations
• Methodology
• Divisions of Chapters 7-11
• Chapter 12 : Final Conclusions and aftermath
• Indonesian aristocrats and Imams…exiled to Cabo de Goede Hope,
• 1667-1793: By Map, Illustrations and geographical origins.
• Capital Punishment of Slaves, 1687-1777.
In this chapter we will argue that: before the South African War(1899-1902), Hadje Ozeer Ally, M.K.Gandhi and the “Indian” merchant class’s sense of mission, identity and petty-bourgeoisie patriotism, firmly identified with England’s duty to spread the Cape liberal model of equal political rights beyond its Cape ,Natal and Griqualand –West frontiers.
However, after the War, their hope of an equitable dispensation faded as Sir Alfred Milner—Governor of the Transvaal Colony, the Randlords and the local administration in the Transvaal, stabilized the skilled “White” proletariat on the Witwatersrand, consolidated British hegemony and facilitated social control by separating the “White” labouring classes from the “Asian” and “Native” dangerous
classes.
In a nutshell: Milner’s new imperialist plan was bent on merging the four colonies into an Anglicized and prosperous federated dominion within the British Empire; with the overspill, generated by the mining industry, to finance the resettlement of Boers on their farms, the modernization of agricultural production, and the establishment of British and colonial families on the land.Thus, skilled British workers and their families were to be drawn to Johannesburg and other towns along the reef, so as to promote secondary industrial and commercial growth, which were to generate revenue with which to run the colonial administration. Furthermore, a near doubling of the White English-speaking population–which Milner expected would occur within five years after the War—would create a sufficiently large British community to ensure the domination of British culture, values and institutions, and, therefore, would safeguard a pro-British victory in any future elections.
These factors, coupled with the dislocation of Muslim society, effected by the outbreak of the Bubonic plague (1901 & 1904); urban segregation and the disastrous consequences of the South African War; the introduction of restrictive immigration laws; finger-printing as a form of identification; class, racial , ethnic and religious discrimination; opposition to the enfranchisement of non-whites by non-official, nominated local members of the Transvaal legislature—despite the fact that the imperial British government supported a class-based and colour-blind franchise (which would have given educated and “civilized” non-white British subjects the right to vote)—all paved the way for the establishment of Hadje Ozeer Ally’s Islamic Hamidia Society and the commencement of the first passive resistance campaigns in South Africa against British pseudo-liberalism, discrimination and oppression.
Hence, we will shed light on the following in this chapter:
• what it was like being an Asian, and a Muslim in the Transvaal;
• Muslim reaction to the outbreak of the South African War (1899-1902);
• the hypocrisy of British liberalism in post-South African War period;
• the implementation of oppressive legislation;
• Hadje Ozeer Ally’ and his Islamic Hamidia Society’s link to the Ottoman Empire (Uthmaniyyah Khalifah);
• why Britain tried to down-play the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Abdul Hamid II ‘s Pan-Islamism in South Africa;
• how the pilgrimage to Mecca became linked to both “sanitary “ concerns (i.e the prevalence and spread of cholera epidemic and the Bubonic plague) and “security” concerns (that is, the protection of Britain’s colonial Muslim subjects from the “scourge” of Pan-Islamism);
• how immigration laws affected “Malay” and “Indian” Muslims;
• factors contributing to the establishment of the Hamidia Islamic Society;
• why the latter was not an Ahmadi-inspired and controlled organization;
• how Hadje Ozeer Ally and M.K Gandhi minimized criticisms by the “Transvaal “Indian” community;
• the reasons for M. K.Gandhi being influenced by Islam, and the pivotal role played by Hadje Ozeer Ally in the struggle against British injustice.
Thus, our task will be not only to understand Hadje Ozeer Ally, Hamidia Islamic Society and Muslim resistance between 1893 and 1907, but also will to comprehend the context, nationally and internationally, within which they operated. For example, the formation of the Hamidia Islamic Society, cannot be fully comprehended, in one sense, without an understanding of the effects of the South African War (1899-1902) on society; neither can the first mass meeting convened by the Hamidia Islamic Society, without understanding Britain’s foreign policy towards the Sunni Islamic Ottoman Empire, and its policy towards Muslim Turks in South Africa.
Key words: H.O.Ally; Hamidia Islamic Society; Abdul Hamid II, Pan-Islamism; pseudo-British liberalism; urban segregation; Restrictive Immigration Laws; disenfranchisement; British hegemony; religious discrimination; South African War (1899-1902); passive resistance campaigns; resistance; defence of Islamic identity,and ethnic classification.
In this chapter we will attempt to demonstrate that post-Apartheid regimes under Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki rejected slave heritage based on ethnicity, and as a tool for mobilizing and defining “Coloureds” along narrow cultural lines. On the contrary, the slave narrow had to be “Africanized”, “decolonized”, inclusive, feed into a national identity and unity that transcended race and ethnicity. Hence, the government’s silence on the UNESCO Slave Route Project, and the 400 years of the VOC commemoration celebrations of 2002.
However, renewed interest in heritage did not necessarily mean the reawakening of ethnic consciousness, for: deploying slavery was an attempt to find a positive place for the “coloured community” within African discourse and identity which have been linked closely to notions of “authenticity”, “resistance” and “moral authority” . Also, slavery featured in public debate on the “Coloured” identity, in order to bring to the fore issues the Coloured community grappled with but which have thus far been marginalized and silenced. And finally, the invocation of a new slave narrative was bent on eradicating the iniquities of past interpretation of the “world the slaves made”.
Moreover, re-imagining slave heritage and the heritage of slavery in the post-colony, by officialdom, led, ironically, to the re-emergence of new forms of racism, ethnicity, and post-Apartheid tribalism, that manifested itself in, promoting the nebulous rainbow nation concept “One nation, many cultures”; the formation of the “Native Club” (Black Broerder Bond), the apartheid museum and the privatization of the Voortrekker Museum.
Key words: African discourse and identity; post-Apartheid tribalism; “Native Club”; Apartheid museum; privatization; nation-building; African Renaissance.
1996- 2008.
ABSTRACT
NPP victory, the failure of Kleurling Weerstand Beweeging Vir die Voortuitgand van Bruinmense (Johannesburg), Coloured Forum(Cape Town), the essentially white-Democratic Party (DP), and the essentially-black African National Congress (ANC), to energize Coloureds into mainstream post-Apartheid, led to the formation of the December 1st Movement (Cape Town) in 1996, by “Coloured” workers, trade unionists, academics and the youth—most of whom, were actively aligned to the anti-apartheid United Democratic Front (UDF) and Mass Democratic Movement (MDM) of the 1980s.
The December 1st.Movement (Cape Town) was also unaligned to any political party. As a broad social movement, its essential aim was inclusion of “Coloureds” into the process of social and political transformation. The centrality of slave experience and the history of the “Coloured” people—then ignored by the ruling and existing political parties—served as mental frameworks for: (i) the establishment of memory, healing, research, and lobby centres;(ii) engaging with debates on “colouredness”and the “Coloured” identity within an ANC-dominated political milieu, and (iii)for making contact with the global African diaspora, and consequently, ending the political and social marginalization of “Coloureds”.Healing divisions, restoring pride, contesting the “Colored” identity, nation-building, and furnishing a ‘text’ for the “Coloured” underclasses, were, therefore, to be the logical outcome of the formation of the December 1st Movement (Cape Town). However, the movement was criticized by both the ANC and the NNP for its seeming emphasis on ethnicity, and consequently, received little corporate funding, and thus, temporarily withered away. On 1st December 2006 and 2008, it assumed a different form when thousands of people, led by a brass band, decided to, “own the night”, by marching through the streets of Cape Town in order to re-enact the 1838 emancipation march, and to acknowledge and commemorate the role played by slaves in the development of Metropolitan Cape Town. Henceforth, marches through the streets of Cape Town, and the “Slave Walk”, became a regular occurrence, although the December 1st Movement (Cape Town) itself, became defunct.
Key words : Slavery, Emancipation Day, Post-Apartheid, Identity, December 1st Movement, Social Movement, Re-enactment of Slave March, Commemoration, Slave Tree (Spin Street), “Coloureds”, Transformation, Memory.
An analysis of Reverend Dr. J. M. Arnold’s mission to
Muslims in colonial Cape Town, 1875-1881.
ABSTRACT
In this article we will analysis how Christian missionary-inspired discourse, prevalent in the books and pamphlets penned by Reverend Dr. J. M. Arnold, was conspicuously bent on refuting Islam as a divinely–ordained faith.
His vast experience and undertakings in Islamic lands in the Middle-East and the Far East , influenced much of his eventual understanding of Islam, and his adoption of a missionary strategy towards Muslims at the Cape Colony, namely :
(1) using “kind words”, and “Loving” Counsel, based on clearly articulated, meticulously researched theological arguments originally presented in his books on Christian relationship to Islam (1859 and 1874), and bent on creating division, religious intolerance and mutually exclusive debates between Christian and Muslim underclasses in nineteenth-century colonial Cape Town;
(2) propaganda biographies written supposedly by “a Malay”, to show up the supposed dissatisfaction local Muslims had with the follies of Islamic doctrine, discourage white conversion to Islam, and reveal the humanness, “immorality and “falseness” of the Prophet Muḥammed, and finally,
(3) by way of an essentially European-dominated, Christian brotherhood or confraternity , placed under British “protection”, but financially independent of foreign funding; and bent on instilling English mannerism, inculcating the right to be “civilized” ,and eventually, affiliation to the Anglican Church.
We will also show that Reverend Dr. J.M.Arnold’s seven year (1875-1881) stint in colonial Cape Town, ultimately proved abortive, as much of Muslim sentiment towards conversion to Christianity remained “bigoted and uncompromising”. Their responses ranged from damning the crucifix to removal of their children , especially boys, the pillars of their future community, removed from Christian Mission Yet, Christian missionaries were invited into their mosques, rooms were rented by Muslims to them for the execution of their missionary work, Reverend Dr. J. M. Arnold on was praised by the Muslim community on his death in 1881, for his ever courteous, ever kind, and simple eloquence, as opposed to his high–flown theological arguments that caused much bitterness and distrust amongst Muslims in colonial Cape Town.
And lastly, while his seminal work on Islam, was revised and reprinted several times, it was both praised criticized by an orientalist/or Christian missionary reviewer, in the white liberal press in Cape Town, The Cape Argus. Ironically, readers were urged not to overlook the, “modes of missionary enterprise”, as outlined in “Ch.6 Hints for Missionary labour” , because adherents of non-Christians, in general and Islam in particular, were regarded as outside the possibility of salvation !
Key Words:
Christian missionaries; propaganda; Christian brotherhood or Confraternity; Mission schools; Liberal Press; Orientalist; British “Protection”; Prophet Muḥammed; The Holy Qur’an; Khalifah; Muslim Community; Nineteenth-century Colonial Cape Town.
A discussion between Yasien Mohamed and Ebrahim Salie.
20 December 2023, The Good Neighbour Café, Newlands, Cape Town, South Africa.
ABSTRACT
Both Yasien Mohamed and Ebrahim Salie argue that the Zionist State of Israel may differ from the Apartheid State of South Africa in brutality. However, according to the international legal definition of Apartheid, both States have committed the crime of Apartheid, as in both States members of a particular nation or ethnic group face severe, pervasive, persistent, and institutionalized discrimination and repression by another group that seeks to preserve its power and privileges.
(1) elements of Charles Davidson Bell’s selected colonial art work that created “peculiar characterization” of underclass identities and “native types”, reinforced distorted images , and influenced perceptions of those who laid eyes on the former and the latter;
(2) his “settler” interpretation of South African history;
(3) Charles Bell, the bottle and the Pipe and the depiction of the Khoisan , in particular, his depiction of violence among the “Hottentots” as the by-product of smoking and alcohol consumption in the post-emancipation period;
(4) his idealized versions of “Malays” of Cape Town, and
(5) commentary on European depiction of Cape Malays in colonial art in 19th-century Cape Town by Gabeba Baderoon and Ebrahim Salie.
Formation, course, and effects, including a response to Michael Laffan, University of Princeton.
Abstract
In this subsection we will attempt to show that granting land to Malays, granting them freedom, and improving the lot of the enslaved; filling the "defence gap" caused by the disbandment of the Hottentot Corps in 1782 in exchange for enlistment in a newly-formed Javanese Corps (1804); and replacing Lascars with Javanese and Malay troops in Colombo were not the "root cause" of the formation of the Javanese artillery in November 1804; Similarly, the granting of a cemetery in 1805 by the Batavian Republic was not a concession for their enlistment in the Javanese Corps, let alone an expression of goodwill extended to the Muslims. And finally, the right to build a mosque granted by the British government was not because of the "bravery and courage" displayed during the Battle of Blaauberg in 1806.
Using both primary and secondary sources I will demonstrate that in the early nineteenth century, the new government, formed two Javanese Corps in order to exert its monopoly over Muslims and direct their loyalty towards the defence against an external enemy—given the renewed outbreak of war between France and Britain in May 1803, aggravated by the sending of Janssens’ best battalion, the 23rd battalion of infantry, to Java in February 1804 accompanied by his belief that the Burghers would be very reluctant to leave their farms and houses without protection for a longer period — with corporal punishment and long detention instituted to avoid desertion.
Muslim defence of the Cape against a potential Hottentot invasion allowed Batavia to gain confidence in their ability to defend the Cape against foreign intrusion. As a result, they were given weapons to hang on the walls of their clandestinely built prayer rooms (langguar) in order to ward off a future Hottentot attack on the city of British colonial Cape Town. Consequently, the possibility of Muslim-KhoiSan solidarity was dampened in British colonial Cape Town, but the formation of two Javanese Corps by the Batavian government remained unavoidable.
As part of its defence strategy and to create greater loyalty to the Batavian Government, the Hottentot Corps was re-established in 1803, as the Corps Vrye Hottentotten ("Corps of Free Hottentots"), although, admittedly, by 1805, it became evident that the ruling government struggled with the Khoi, as the Corps appeared to offer little to make them wish to leave their families. Thus, the Javanese Corps was not formed because of the "power vacuum" created by the absence of a Hottentot Corps during the rule of the Batavian government!
Moreover, the Batavian Republic’s reliance on freed Malays at the Cape of Good Hope for defence purposes, was part of its defence strategy to rely on cheap eastern soldiers who used traditional weapons, like swords and lances, to ward off their enemies, and who were well suited for hit-and-run actions and functioned without formal drill. Consequently, VOC soldiers were successful when they fought alongside large Indonesian armies. Therefore, it was not, as Laffan maintains, the employment of "Javanese" or "Malay" troops by military authorities of the Batavian Republic stationed at the castle in Colombo that encouraged Batavian authorities at the Cape of Good Hope to follow suit per se.
However, Batavian authorities gave Muslims permission to congregate every Friday (Ar. Jumu’ah) to celebrate their Sabbath and a gifted dagger that symbolized heroism, their combat skill and pride, refinement, art, and beauty; served as a marker of social solidarity that transcended ethnicity; and was linked to rites of passage. The newly issued Kerkbode, made the public practice of the Muslim sabbath possible, but it was also notable for its high level of state interference and regulation in religious matters. Muslims, therefore, needed approval from the ruling authorities in order to practice Islam.
But be that as it may, permission to celebrate their Sabbath Day and the granting of a gifted dagger, were more likely to have motivated them to agree to be enlisted in the Javanese/Malay Corps and swear allegiance to the Batavian government.
Thus, the use of Islamic prayers and supplications, as an integral part of the oath of allegiance, implied that Islam was an integral part of defending “liberal” rule that gave vent to the practise of Islam
Hence, there was no promise of land allocation for the construction of a long-desired mosque, nor was there any promise of absolute freedom of religious expression in exchange for Muslim defence of the Cape Colony against a foreign invasion. However, the granting of a Muslim cemetery (Javaansche begraaftplaats); )in 1805 was a result of a request made by the Javanese priests of Cape Town and not, as Shell has pointed out, a concession for Muslim enlistment in the Javanese Corps.
Key Words:
Javanese Artillery Corps; gifted dagger (kris); Imam ‘Abdullah bib-Qadi Abdus-salam; Battle of Blaauwberg (1806); Muslim prayers; Oath of Allegiance; Batavian Republic; General Janssens; General De Mist; Kerk Orde;Sabbath Day (Jumu’ah); Javaansche begraaftplaats; prayer rooms (langguar) and Corps Vrye Hottentotten. Major Kuchler
By
Ebrahim Salie, (VOC historian)
ABSTRACT
Rebellious Aristocrats, court noblemen and regents, charismatic Muslim scholars and religious scribes, and returning hajjis from Mecca, contested Asian thrones, ridiculed and shamed indigenous rulers, threatened social stability and challenged Dutch hegemony in colonial Indonesia.
Therefore, the Dutch created a network of exile sites throughout their empire that enabled them to choose specific places of banishment according to the High Government’s perception of the dangers of particular prisoners: the greater the crime or perceived threat to indigenous rulers who had formal diplomatic relations by way of signed contracts with the Dutch, the farther away the site of banishment.
A link developed between “siri”—a feeling of humiliation and shame experienced by indigenous rulers if the rules of their customs (adat) were broken, which usually led to restoring justice—and allowing VOC authorities to banish Indonesian aristocrats to one of their five convict islands. The linking of "siri" and banishment was how Makasarese viewed "restorative justice”: justice not based on vengeance but on restoration of family unity, honour, pride, power, prestige, and respect
Consequently, in 1680, Karaeng Crain Lambungi , a young Macassar aristocrat from Gowa and a son of Karaeng Lengkese, and Prince Daeng Mangale the brother of Karaeng Bisei (Muḥammed Ali), Sultan of Gowa, who arrived in the company of two high officials and three servants, were part of an entourage of thirty Macassar nobles that had arrived at the Cape, fourteen years before Shaykh Yusūf al-Maqassārī and his 49 followers were banished from Ceylon to Dutch South Africa in 1694.
Karaeng Crain Lambungi and Prince Daeng Mangale, as ring leaders, were sentenced by the HERE XVII and Governor-General Maetsuyker into “perpetual banishment”.
Under instruction from VOC authorities in Batavia, Commander/Governor of the Cape, Simon van der Stel’s (1679-1699) attitude towards Indonesian exiles banished to Cabo de Goede Hoop was contradictory, in a sense that, on one hand he allowed them many “privileges” not granted to slaves and convicts, such as : exempting royal exiles from labouring at the Public Works; granting them freedom to bury their dead according to their "own customs and traditions”; giving them a monthly stipend of 6 to 12 Rix dollars in order to sustain themselves, and occasionally, the right to retail their wares—therefore, freedom of movement in order to sustain themselves as the stipend received, inadequately sustained them; and allowing them the freedom to marry according to Muslim rights and to practice their faith privately, although banning public propagation of “non-Calvinist faiths.
On the other hand, he treated them with disdain by regarding them as, “treacherous”; “revengeful”; “rascals”; prone “to escape abroad foreign, enemy ships and “very dangerous if desperate”. They were, therefore, placed under constant surveillance; chained in pairs, separated, and confined to various outposts, such as Rustenburg and Robben Island so as to minimize their influence on an essentially Asian slave population, and, given the smallness of the garrison stationed in Dutch Colonial Cape Town.
However, allowing Muslim exiles to bury their dead according to their own eastern customs and traditions led to the establishment of a “Macquesars kerckhof” (Macassar cemetery) near the sand dunes on the road to Green Point (“de Waterkant”), above Somerset Road, in close proximity to the cemeteries of the Dutch Reformed Church, the VOC military, the burial vaults of the Chinese (“Chinasche graven”) found on the lower slump of Signal Hill, and the gallows (Gallows Hill), that was initially used exclusively by Indonesian Muslim noblemen, in the 1680s and 17th-century.
Later, the cemetery was used by most Muslims, who included the Indonesian penal exiles (“Banditen”) who were sentence by the HERE XVII in Batavia to be locked up in the Chavonnes Battery, chained in couples, and to labour all day in the Company Garden, for resisting the Dutch hegemony. Differently said: free Muslims who were buried in the Macassar Cemetery were, “bannelingen”; “banditen”; or “Vrije Zwarten” whether they were from the South Celebes or not.
Burials, therefore, in accordance with Muslim customs and traditions, clearly indicated that VOC authorities forfeited their sovereignty over the Muslim dead and allowed Muslims to carve their own distinct Islamic identity in an essentially Protestant colonial Cape Town. Thus, the existence of a Macassar cemetery acted as a site of “post-humous” continued resistance by eastern exiles to VOC hegemony. At the same time, their use of funerary inscriptions in Arabic and in mixed Arabic/Malay, can give us insight into the relationships between those two languages among Cape Muslims. And finally, being buried on the hilltop reflected the link between their aristocratic and erudite (in Islamic learning) status and their earthly “divinity”.
And lastly, the discovery of extensive, unmarked burials between Somerset Road and the old shoreline of Table Bay throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, clearly indicates that Muslims, among others, also buried their dead in Cobern Street and Prestwich Street burial grounds, and that their ritual activities involved in disposing of the dead, reflect social structure and organization, negotiations and maintenance of power, exchange between living members of a community, and ideological beliefs and practices. For example: “side-lying” burials—more likely to be Muslim interments—show disparity on their positioning of the graves. For example, some burials show the eyes of the deceased facing Mecca in the East, while others, show the eyes of the deceased facing Signal Hill—a site of sanctity where, among others, Islamic saints, scholars, and noblemen, are buried
Heritage, as defined in post-Apartheid South Africa, furnishes us with a language through which we can discuss contested issues of culture, identity and citizenship. Hence, we find, in post- Apartheid South Africa, sites of identity conflict, and contesting modes of remembering and representing slavery.
Thus, in this chapter we will explore how the kramats—that occupy an interesting border territory between the spiritual and the historical —at Oudekraal ,like at St. Cyprians, Simon’s Town etc, mark out miraculous sacred spaces, and “sites of impossibility” where it is claimed the laws of nature are suspended to symbolize the particularity of the sites—bodies do not decay, raging veld fires are averted and animals behave strangely—in the prosaic post-Apartheid modern city, and how they introduce into the post-colony evaluation of heritage, alternative conceptions of space and notions of temporality. We will also explore what happens when these sacred spaces are subjected to the demands of private property and municipal regulation, and the consequent contestations emanating from this collision of diverse conceptual and experiential modalities.
The kramats, which are marked in various ways ranging from draping with simple cloths to impressive buildings erected in the 20th-century , to many Muslims, are not interesting shrines that constitute exotic and picturesque elements in Cape Town’s natural landscape that require an interpretation. Instead, they are sacred spaces held in “veneration” (i.e objects of veneration), premised on legend, prayer, ritual and periodic visitations (ziyarah); cultural and historical sites, markers of essential identity, where the supernatural, the “Malay” traditions, and the colonial history of slavery coalesce, public and private spaces caught up in wider narratives of history and heritage-making in post-apartheid South Africa—and therefore, at
once tangible, assimilated into the register of heritage sites, and mapped into the heritage economy of Metropolitan post-Apartheid Cape Town.
Furthermore, the kramats, as subjects of contestation over different interpretations and legal practices vis-à-vis ownership, dispossession and entitle-
-ment, became the material loci for assessing both a public space for Islam in the city of Cape Town, and for personal claims to a long history grounded at the Cape.
And lastly, in post-Apartheid Cape Town, like many modern cities, wh-
-at is becoming most perceptible is the rapid disappearance of stories and legends—that is, the “de-narrativising” of public spaces, accompanied by the erasure of the “roughness” of historical texture by bland new developments. Thus, making sites heritage status, in one sense, does furnish them protection against being demolished by “concerned” developers. Ironically, by assimilating them into the register of heritage sites, and by assimilating them into the tourist economy, inevitably reduce their unique character as “sequestrated spaces of unstable and excessive meaning”. Paradoxically, kramats, because of the density of local legends associated with them, resist being “de-narrativise”, as they mark the “accretions of time” and hold open a space for the meshing of history, legend, culture and the supernatural , in the present.
Hence, in this chapter we will:
(i) outline the background to the Oudekraal issue—how it came to be a contested site;
(ii) show “how out-of-work, dagga-smoking hippies” protests culminated into a legal showdown between Kasper(aka Kassie) Wiehahn—owner of the Oudekraal Estate—and his envisaged R750 million luxury residential development on the slopes of the Twelve Apostles, and grassroots religio-
-us, cultural and environmental interest groups; and (iii)analyze the commencement of grassroots resistance to prevent Oudekraal development of Portion 7, between 1996 and 2009—more specifically, how and why the Muslim Judicial Council(MJC),The Islamic Council of South Africa,The Islamic Unity Convention and People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD) ,joined forces with the green lobby to form the Environment and Mazaar Action Committee (EMAC).
at the Cape of Good Hope,1658-1838.
PART I
ABSTRACT
Part I: The VOC Period: 1658-1795.
In this part, we will attempt to analyze the following key questions:
• To what extent were KhoiSan lured by Shaykh Yūsuf Al-Maqassari and by local Muslims to be converted to Islam?
• Were the holy shrines of eastern political exiles and religious priests who died in VOC Cabo de Goede Hoop, used as rallying points, as alleged by journalist Shafiq Morton?
• Was there a Khoisan Muslim community in Macassar?
• Was the KhoiSan influenced, in any way, by South-east Asian immigration to Southern Africa at least by the third century, and how?
• Did Boer expansion and dispossession of KhoiSan land facilitate integration into a “foreign” faith (Christianity and Islam), and to what extent?
• How did the KhoiSan react to “foreign” faiths like Christianity and possibly Islam?
• What was the nature of KhoiSan—slave relations? i.e the extent of co-habitation, cultural borrowing; solidarity—the basis for white fear of a KhoiSan-Slave rebellion against VOC hegemony; factors discouraging solidarity—for example the role played by KhoiSan enlistment in the VOC militia as informers and trackers, etc
• What was the likelihood of the small and clandestine Muslim community in Cape Town, being influenced by the Khoisan prophet Jan Paerl’s 1788 message to rise up against and end VOC hegemony in South Africa, by way of restoring KhoiSan political and economic autonomy?
Between 1997 and 2001, a land dispute occurred between St.Cyprian’s School , an Anglican, essentially white , middle-class school in Oranjezicht, and the Muslim community, after being dragged into the dispute by a disgruntled white neighbour, the Stolzmanns.
To the MJC, the school’s development on the disputed area, adjacent to the shrine of their Muslim saint Seyyid ‘Abdul Malik, had to cease with immediate effect. The area, the Muslim Judicial Council (MJC] believed was part of dispossessed land, which had been expropriated during the onslaught of colonial rule .Thus, it believed that, given the entrenchment of white privileges by previous colonial white rules,, Muslim graves in “The Woods” were, therefore, ‘surreptitiously removed”, and the accompanying titles deeds unacknowledged. It also considered “The Woods” that was historically part of the Nooitgedacht Estate, to be an integral part of the ‘Slave Walk” or “The Slave Route” and the wash houses (“Wasplaas”) above Deer Park. Its quest was, therefore, “in search of the “deliberately lost documents” that allegedly disappeared mysteriously from the Western Cape Archives, in Roeland Street, Cape Town. Consequently, it (i.e the MJC), invoked its “right to repossess” its ancestral space. It, therefore, viewed the disputed area as a Muslim sacred space, and the burial grounds of the family and the disciples of Seyyid ‘Abdul Malik. Hence, it desired the construction of a Garden of Remembrance to honour its dead on the disputed area, instead. Unfortunately, its struggle was from the beginning uphill, as it encountered many obstacles, that ultimately disadvantaged its quest, namely : political divisions within its organization; being dragged into the dispute, it was ill-prepared from the start; being publicly criticized by Muslims as defenders of “grave veneration”, and lastly, failing to furnish physical, historical and archival evidence to support its claims.
The St.Cyprian’s School Board, on the other hand, held the whip hand from the be-ginning, despite it feeling intimidated by Muslim “intransigence, aggression and pro-tests” at the gates of the disputed area of development, aggravated by the spate of PAGAD bombings in and around Cape Town, bent on wiping out the “enemies of Islam”. Reasons being: in 1998, it succeeded in gaining a High Court approval to purchase the unregistered state land on its property by way of prescriptive rights. Furthermore, it insisted on the superiority of scientifically verified evidence—such as burial cairns, human skeletal remains on the excavated areas—as opposed to reliance on oral tradition, folklore and “supernatural evidence”—although the National Heritage Council Act, no.11,1999,4(c) gave thorough appraisal of oral evidence as authentic proofs. And finally, it succeeded in finding no historical and oral evidence of Muslim contact with any grave sites in “The Woods”.
And lastly, the Stolzmans—who lodged complaints against development on the dis-puted area on St.Cyprian’s School—were poorly supported by the residents of Oranjezicht, as many of their previous pro-test actions were not always bent on defending and preserving culture and heritage. The Stolzmans, therefore, turned to the Muslim community for assistance in their battle to defend, and preserve the heritage, history and spirituality of “The Woods”.
The battle with development on St. Cyprian’s School property was lost, but the quest by the Muslim community to defend and preserve its heritage intensified: a Muslim Heritage Council (MHC) , and a Muslim Heritage Centre (MHC), were set up under the auspices of the MJC in 2009,and currently Bo-Kaap residents are vehemently resisting gentrification, high-rise developments and the utter disregard for the heritage and culture of the area.
Key words:
St.Cyprian’s School Board (SCSB); Muslim Judicial Council (MJC);Cape Mazaar So-ciety; land expropriation; Oranjezicht; Shrine (Kramat) of Seyyid ‘Abdul Malik;“ The Woods”; The Stolzmans; Prescriptive Rights; National Heritage Council Act (1999); Garden of Remembrance; Oral evidence; “Slave Walk”; heritage; and The Final Ac-cord (2000).
(i) reasons for the topic;
(ii) who were banished and how were they banished;
(iii) why pro-Dutch indigenous rulers agreed to banishment
by Dutch courts;
(iv) methods employed by VOC authorities in Dutch South
Africa, particularly the Commander and Governor
Simon Van der Stel, to diminish the influence of political
and religious exiles banished to VOC Cabo de Goede
Hoop and,
(iv) a critical outline of events, 1680-1689.
Since 1860, indentured, immigrant, and colonial-born "Indians" became part of an international narrative of what constituted the Indian nation, as well as "Indian" subjectivity. "Indianness" was invoked as follows: corresponding with the "mother country," which kept the idea of "home" alive; cultural and religious performances brought from India that were discussed, enacted, and defended in order to forge a common cultural ethos and identity; forging links with political leaders in India who championed their struggle against oppression in British South Africa; and attempts were made to construct an idea of "comradeship" and "collectivism" amongst Indian South Africans by drawing increasingly on notions of India’s ancient cultural heritage and a distinct Indian identity in order to build an alternative political platform.
These above-mentioned attempts at invoking a sense of "Indianness" allowed them to draw on the discourse of an ancient religious and social tradition that helped challenge their low status and, simultaneously, assisted in focusing their attention on the nationalist struggle in India.
Consequently, attempts at invoking a sense of "Indianness" were accompanied by the British government’s draconian legislation and sanitary measures that were used to promote Anglo-Saxon ideas on "class and civilization," "scientific racism, and "social Darwinism," all of which played no small role in the establishment of Hadje Ojeer Ally’s Sunni-dominated, pro-Pan Islamism, Hamidia Islamic Society, and the commencement of the first passive resistance campaign in South Africa against British pseudo-liberalism, discrimination, and oppression.
The strategy had now shifted from the "politics of petitioning" to the "politics of satyagraha," with prayer, fasting, spiritual purity, non-violence, and providential guidance as its essential constituents. A "common struggle narrative" was now invoked by Muslims, Hindus, Christians, and Parsis bent upon the destruction of a "common evil."
As previously stated, invoking "Indianness" did not only include ethnic mobilization but also the discussion, enactment, and defence of religion, in particular Islam. This new modus operandi, among others, facilitated the meshing of Hindu and Islamic scriptures by Mahatma Gandhi. Thus, the Qur'an and the Sufi tradition, the Ramayana, and the Bhaki tradition, as he understood them, conveyed images and symbols that made sense in the immediate context of "Indian" suffering in British South Africa.
Therefore, more significantly, the Hamidia Islamic Society furnished the initial infrastructure and financing for passive resistance in South Africa, with Hadje Ojeer Ally playing a pivotal role therein. In some ways, the former (Hamidia Islamic Society) was made up of the most opulent and powerful Transvaal merchants with actual experience in participation politics. Their constitutional, reformist protests were, therefore, not only bent on protecting their commercial interests but also the religion of Islam, as Muslims had not only been ostracized on the basis of colour and country but also excluded on the basis of their religion.
H.O. Ally's Hamidia Islamic Society, especially under the leadership of Iman Bawazeer, not only continued the passive resistance struggle but also initiated the first organized Islamic resistance to British imperialism in the former Transvaal Boer Republic by, amongst others, fighting for the right of Muslim passive resistance prisoners to pray and to fast, particularly during the month of Ramadan, 1908–1909.
Unlike Surendra Bhana (1975), Bala Pillay (1976), Maureen Swan (1985), and Goolam Vahed (2005), in this Congress paper, the first attempt will be made, by using primary unprinted and printed sources, to show how the Holy Qur'an and, among others, H.O.Ally and Imam Abdul Kadir Bawazeer, as members of a Muslim organization (HIS), served as the backbone of the first passive resistance campaign against British injustice against "Indians" and Islam at the southern tip of Africa in the early twentieth century. I will also critically analyze the role played by H. O. Ally since the establishment of his Hamidia Islamic Society (HIS) in 1906 up until the struggle for the rights of Muslim passive resistance in 1909.
Thus, this Congress paper will also include Imam Abdul Kadir Bawazeer, especially his role as a devout Muslim and as a successor of H. O. Ally as chairperson of the Hamidia Islamic Society in 1908 in immensely contributing to promoting Islamic culture, Muslim-Hindu unity, and passive resistance campaigns in 1908 against British oppression (immigration laws and anti-Muslim regulations and ill-treatment).
Key words:
Hamidia Islamic Society, Hadje Ojeer Ally; Imam Abdul Kadir Bawazeer (alias Imam Saheb); Moulvi Syed Ahmad Mukhtiar; Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance of 1906;“Politics of petitioning”; Passive resistance (“politics of satyagraha”); Muslim identity; “Righteous War”; Ramadan fiasco 1909;Police brutality; The Conciliation Committee; and Islamic law (Shari’ah).
Since 1860, indentured, immigrant, and colonial-born "Indians" became part of an international narrative of what constituted the Indian nation, as well as "Indian" subjectivity. "Indianness" was invoked as follows: corresponding with the "mother country," which kept the idea of "home" alive; cultural and religious performances brought from India that were discussed, enacted, and defended in order to forge a common cultural ethos and identity; forging links with political leaders in India who championed their struggle against oppression in British South Africa; and attempts were made to construct an idea of "comradeship" and "collectivism" amongst Indian South Africans by drawing increasingly on notions of India’s ancient cultural heritage and a distinct Indian identity in order to build an alternative political platform.
These above-mentioned attempts at invoking a sense of "Indianness" allowed them to draw on the discourse of an ancient religious and social tradition that helped challenge their low status and, simultaneously, assisted in focusing their attention on the nationalist struggle in India.
Consequently, attempts at invoking a sense of "Indianness" were accompanied by the British government’s draconian legislation and sanitary measures that were used to promote Anglo-Saxon ideas on "class and civilization," "scientific racism, and "social Darwinism," all of which played no small role in the establishment of Hadje Ojeer Ally’s Sunni-dominated, pro-Pan Islamism, Hamidia Islamic Society, and the commencement of the first passive resistance campaign in South Africa against British pseudo-liberalism, discrimination, and oppression.
The strategy had now shifted from the "politics of petitioning" to the "politics of satyagraha," with prayer, fasting, spiritual purity, non-violence, and providential guidance as its essential constituents. A "common struggle narrative" was now invoked by Muslims, Hindus, Christians, and Parsis bent upon the destruction of a "common evil."
As previously stated, invoking "Indianness" did not only include ethnic mobilization but also the discussion, enactment, and defence of religion, in particular Islam. This new modus operandi, among others, facilitated the meshing of Hindu and Islamic scriptures by Mahatma Gandhi. Thus, the Qur'an and the Sufi tradition, the Ramayana, and the Bhaki tradition, as he understood them, conveyed images and symbols that made sense in the immediate context of "Indian" suffering in British South Africa.
Therefore, more significantly, the Hamidia Islamic Society furnished the initial infrastructure and financing for passive resistance in South Africa, with Hadje Ojeer Ally playing a pivotal role therein. In some ways, the former (Hamidia Islamic Society) was made up of the most opulent and powerful Transvaal merchants with actual experience in participation politics. Their constitutional, reformist protests were, therefore, not only bent on protecting their commercial interests but also the religion of Islam, as Muslims had not only been ostracized on the basis of colour and country but also excluded on the basis of their religion.
H.O. Ally's Hamidia Islamic Society, especially under the leadership of Iman Bawazeer, not only continued the passive resistance struggle but also initiated the first organized Islamic resistance to British imperialism in the former Transvaal Boer Republic by, amongst others, fighting for the right of Muslim passive resistance prisoners to pray and to fast, particularly during the month of Ramadan, 1908–1909.
Unlike Surendra Bhana (1975), Bala Pillay (1976), Maureen Swan (1985), and Goolam Vahed (2005), in this Congress paper, the first attempt will be made, by using primary unprinted and printed sources, to show how the Holy Qur'an and, among others, H.O.Ally and Imam Abdul Kadir Bawazeer, as members of a Muslim organization (HIS), served as the backbone of the first passive resistance campaign against British injustice against "Indians" and Islam at the southern tip of Africa in the early twentieth century. I will also critically analyze the role played by H. O. Ally since the establishment of his Hamidia Islamic Society (HIS) in 1906 up until the struggle for the rights of Muslim passive resistance in 1909.
Thus, this Congress paper will also include Imam Abdul Kadir Bawazeer, especially his role as a devout Muslim and as a successor of H. O. Ally as chairperson of the Hamidia Islamic Society in 1908 in immensely contributing to promoting Islamic culture, Muslim-Hindu unity, and passive resistance campaigns in 1908 against British oppression (immigration laws and anti-Muslim regulations and ill-treatment).
Key words:
Hamidia Islamic Society, Hadje Ojeer Ally; Imam Abdul Kadir Bawazeer (alias Imam Saheb); Moulvi Syed Ahmad Mukhtiar; Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance of 1906;“Politics of petitioning”; Passive resistance (“politics of satyagraha”); Muslim identity; “Righteous War”; Ramadan fiasco 1909;Police brutality; The Conciliation Committee; and Islamic law (Shari’ah).