Islam in Capetown
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This statement rings true when we take a glance at the establishment of Islam in Cape Town. This description aptly describes the pollination of Islam at the most southernmost part of Africa. The Cape of Good Hope was blessed with the great hope of Islam through the agency of the Imperialists Dutch under their multinational, Dutch East India Company. With the coming of this Company to South Africa to act as a mere refreshment station or half way house saw the seeds of Islam being planted which was to become a tree with strong firm fibrous roots firmly embedded in the soil of Africa never to be uprooted nor displaced. A true wonder of the workings of the Divine Destiny.
In 6 April 1652, the first Muslims set foot in Cape Town brought on the ship of Jan Van Riebeeck, the Colonialist.
From that moment Muslims has become part of the landscape of South Africa and Islam became the religion of choice for the indigenous first people of South Africa and the enslave communities seeking freedom and liberation.
The aim of the Imperalists who wished to silence the voices of Islam in the Archipelago through exile found that those voices echoed in the land of the exile until it resonated throughout the four corners of South Africa by the Mercy of Allah. The official policy or Plaaceten stated that the Maardyckers or house slaves was that they will be able to practise their religion of Islam but “not in public nor to promote Islam” much as it was in the early days of the 7th Century Arabian Peninsula. Through patience and perseverance, the first Muslim community was established under a Mystic, a theologian, the Princely figure, Sheikh Yusuf of Maccasar who was captured and exiled to Cape Town from Indonesian Archipelago in 1694. The community comprised of freed slaves, runaway slaves, exiled compatriots. A community which embodied the spirit of Islam albeit far from the City of Cape Town.
Photo by Zephyrance Lou