South Africa: Muslims celebrate 200 years of freedom

By: Mohamed Ali

CAPE TOWN, South Africa: Muslims in South African celebrated last week their freedom given to them 200 years ago to practice their faith.

Although the first political prisoners - and Muslims - were brought to South Africa by the Dutch in 1681, it was only in 1804 that they were allowed to observe their faith.

For the first time on Friday, the 10 mosques of the BoKaap in Cape Town linked together through a human prayer chain which was broadcast live around the world by Al-Jazeera.

The Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool who is also Muslim attended the ceremony.

On Saturday 20,000 Muslim children retraced the steps of Imam Abdullah ibn Kadi Abdus Salaam who was known as Tuan Guru (Mister Teacher) and who is seen as the most significant of the early Muslim teachers at the Cape.

Government representatives from Indonesia and the Comoros attended the ceremonies.

A prince from Tidore in the Trinate islands, Tuan Guru, resisted Dutch rule of his home and, in his late 60s, was brought as a political prisoner to South Africa on April 6 1780 and held for 13 years on Robben Island and then in the Cape Town Castle.

The Dutch had been using Robben Island as a prison for political prisoners from Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia since 1681; those not held on the island were forced into slavery. The Dutch showed their contempt for Islam by feeding the prisoners the same mixture of seal and penguin meat they fed their pigs.

In 1969, a kramat was erected on Robben Island over the grave of Sayed Adurohman Moturu, the Prince of Madura, who died there in 1754. A political refugee who ministered to Malaysian slaves before being banished to the island, it was said he could materialize through closed doors to slaves who needed his help.

The shrine became a place of homage for political prisoners leaving the island from the 1960s to the 1990s. They would bow to it before they left the Island. To commemorate that history, Muslims attended a ceremony held by Cape Town's mayor on the Grand Parade Saturday.

The chairperson of the BoKaap mosques, and of the Palm Tree mosque (built in 1777), said that before religious freedom, Muslims had to celebrate their religion on the first floor of the Palm Tree mosque in secrecy.

Abdul Bassier, a coordinator of the BoKaap BiCentennial Commission pointed out, however, that it was not just Islam that was suppressed by the dour Dutch governors, but all forms of religion except Calvinism. In 1804 the British allowed religious freedom, which is today enshrined in South Africa's constitution.

He said the celebrations were the first time in 10 years that Muslims had commemorated an important historical event in South Africa. The last was to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the arrival of the first Muslim communities in the Cape under Sheikh Yusuf.

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