Adli Yacubi is a wordsmith of remembrance — blending story, design, and sacred memory. Rooted in Cape Town’s rich heritage and decades of media experience, his work spans poetry, layout, radio, and research.
He authored Punching Above Its Weight: The Story of the Call of Islam, and now curates scrolls of mercy, resistance, and everyday barakah.
Through the voices of Rabbānī and Rafiq al-Bunduqia, he tells stories where light remembers.
Koesister Mentality: Sweet Spice, Survival, and Sunday Mornings
More Than a Doughnut
The koesister is not just fried dough dipped in syrup. It is a Cape Muslim archive you can taste: slavery and spice-routes folded into flour, patience stitched into the rise, mercy poured as syrup, and community dusted on like coconut. On Sundays in Cape Town, this is how memory is served warm.
From Chains to Sweetness: Where it Comes From
Enslaved and exiled people from Indonesia, Bengal, India, Madagascar and Mozambique brought spice grammars — cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, aniseed — into the Cape. In cramped kitchens they kneaded survival into foodways that became Cape cuisine.
The koesister was one such vessel: a creole of technique and faith, born in constraint, perfected in community.
Koesister vs Koeksister — why the “e” matters The Cape Malay koesister is a spiced, oval fritter simmered in syrup and rolled in coconut. The Afrikaner koeksister is a plaited, crisp fry dunked into cold syrup. They share a Dutch “koek” root but took divergent paths: one scented with aniseed and Sunday barakah; the other with braids and brittle sweetness.
Grinding the Memory
When I was a child, I would sit on my bum on the stoep, mortar and pestle between my legs, grinding cinnamon, cardamom, aniseed, and dried naartjie peel. The air filled with perfume, and I knew without knowing that these were not only flavours — they were history.
Spices that had crossed oceans with enslaved women were now ground by a child’s hands on a Cape Town stoep, ready to become part of Sunday morning koesisters. Every crack of the pestle was a knock on the door of memory, every whiff of naartjie a reminder that we carry the Indian Ocean in our kitchens.
Sundays in Primrose Park
I remember sugaring koesisters outside our front door in Primrose Park. Neighbours would stand in line on Sunday mornings, bowls in hand. My Tietie, Gadija — Dija, may Allah have mercy on her — made a koesister that was simple, fragrant, and always in demand.
She would wrap the dough in blankets to rise, then fry and dip until sticky, coating each with coconut. People didn’t come only for the sweet; they came for what the sweet held: blessing, neighbourliness, and survival in sugared form.
Two Recipes, One Lineage
Tietie Dija’s Koesisters
1 kg cake flour
2 large eggs
1 tsp fine salt
2 tsp each cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, aniseed
1 pkt yeast
½ cup oil
1 ½ cups lukewarm water (not more than 2 cups)
Method: Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl. Add eggs and oil, mixing with both hands until crumbly. Add water and knead into a ball. Cover with a bread packet and wrap in a blanket. Leave to rise for 2–3 hours. Fry, syrup, and serve with coconut.
10 g instant yeast, 1 cup sugar, 2 cups hot water, 2 tbsp butter, ±2 cups milk
Oil for deep frying
Method: Melt butter and sugar in hot water, add milk to make 1 litre. Mix with flour, spices, and yeast to form a soft dough. Let rise until doubled. Shape into balls, then oblongs. Fry until golden. Dip into syrup (sugar, water, cardamom, cinnamon), and sprinkle with coconut. Optionally slit and fill with glazed coconut.
The Art of Sugaring a Koesister
People often miss the essence of the koesister. This is not the crisp, cold-dipped koeksister. Astaghfirullāh, you don’t just fry and dunk.
In a nice biggish pot you cook:
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
(Optional, but beloved: cardamom, cinnamon, and even a touch of honey for barakah and shine).
Watch the pot until it starts to get sticky. You test it with a spoon: lift the syrup and see how the drips slow down. That’s the sign.
Now — and this is the secret — you add in the dry fried koesisters to the pot. Stir them gently, let them continue cooking together, prod with your spoon until they soften and drink the syrup. Keep a cup of water ready when it gets too sticky. But use it sparingly. Only then do you take them out, roll them in coconut, and place them in the bowl.
That’s when you have a koesister: softened by syrup, crowned with coconut, ready to be shared.
The Barakat of the Koesister
The koesister is not confined to Sundays. It turns up wherever barakah gathers:
At the Gadat (dhikr circle): trays of koesisters pass between voices chanting the Divine Names, sweetness sealing the remembrance.
At weddings: slipped into barakat parcels — alongside nuts and sweetmeats — a reminder that joy is for sharing.
In Ramadan: laid on iftar tables, syrup echoing the mercy of breaking fast.
At Labarang (Eid): no celebration is complete without sticky fingers and coconut laughter.
Every Sunday morning: queues outside homes in District Six, Bo-Kaap, Athlone, Primrose Park.
In all these settings, the koesister is a seal of blessing: a sweet amen after prayer, a sugared handshake of belonging.
Symbolism: What the Steps Teach
The yeast: intention, a spark that lifts everything.
The rise (under blankets): hidden work, dignity rising even in silence.
The oil: trial by heat — sabr through fire.
The syrup: mercy, binding the cracks and soaking to the core.
The coconut: hospitality, a dusting that says this is for sharing.
The Sunday bowl: community, where every vessel is filled, no one excluded.
This is why elders said: Life is like a koesister — not so lekker if eaten raw, but sweet when endured, fried, and dipped in mercy.
Koesister Mentality: Sweetness After Struggle
To eat a koesister is to eat history — slavery, spice routes, resilience, survival. To make one is to carry that tradition forward.
Koesister Mentality is more than humour or heritage: it is the ethic of rising, enduring, softening with mercy, and sharing abundance. Sweetness after struggle, but never without memory.
Once, “koesister mentality” meant narrow thinking. But I steal it back, and sugar it differently: for me, koesister mentality is resilience after rising, sweetness after struggle, and barakat in every bite.
Every Rabiʿ al-Awwal, Cape Town breathes differently. The air is heavy with sandalwood smoke, the sny of rampies, the melody of the Riwayat al-Barzanji. Children once practised their lagu at home, correcting one another — because to sing the Prophet ﷺ was to sing him beautifully. Even cutting lemon leaves became dhikr.
This is Cape devotion: love woven into scent, sound, and preparation. It was never by chance. Preparation itself was worship.
The Beauty of Riwāyah
The Arabic word riwāyah (رِوَايَة) means narration. But in the Cape it became more: the sung retelling of the Prophet’s ﷺ life.
Imām Jaʿfar al-Barzanji (d. 1763), Chief Mufti of Madinah and a Kurd from Barzan, composed ʿIqd al-Jawāhir (The Necklace of Jewels). Written in rhythmic prose and poetry, it tells the noble birth and qualities of the Prophet ﷺ. From Madinah it travelled to East Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Cape, where it became the heartbeat of Mawlud gatherings — always with sandalwood burning, rampies cut, and voices rising in lagu.
How beautiful is thy face, Shining brighter than the sun. This night is lit by your light — A night of joy, a day of pride. The givers of glad tidings cried out: “The Chosen One, the Beloved, has come — rejoice!“
From Barzan to Jerusalem to the Cape
The same Kurdish soil that gave us Barzanji also gave us Ṣalāḥuddīn al-Ayyūbī (Saladin) — the liberator of Jerusalem in 1187. One carried the pen of devotion, the other the sword of justice.
🌿 The Cape inherited both: singing the riwāyah with love, and resisting injustice with courage. Devotion is never only ritual — it is also justice.
Mawlud and the Question of Evidence
Every year, voices say: “Mawlud is bidʿah. It is ḥarām.” But as Shaykh Allie Khalfe reminds us, declaring something ḥarām requires qatʿī (decisive) proof in both chain (thubūt) and meaning (dalālah). No such text exists.
Instead, the Qur’an itself honours prophetic birthdays:
“Peace be upon him the day he was born” (Q 19:15) — Yaḥyā.
“Peace be upon me the day I was born” (Q 19:33) — ʿĪsā.
The Prophet ﷺ also endorsed gratitude for sacred days. When the Jews fasted to commemorate Musa’s deliverance, he said: “We have more right to Musa than you” — and he fasted (Bukhārī, Muslim).
If deliverance is worthy of commemoration, how much more the birth of Muhammad ﷺ, mercy to the worlds (Q 21:107).
Graves, Memory, and Reverence
Some argue: “Level the graves.” They quote hadith forbidding plastering or building on tombs. But the Qur’an records that when the People of the Cave were discovered, those who prevailed said: “We will surely build a masjid over them”(Q 18:21).
Our sacred sites confirm this:
The Hijr Ismāʿīl beside the Kaʿbah contains the graves of Hājar and Ismāʿīl.
Masjid Nabawī encloses the Prophet ﷺ, Abū Bakr, and ʿUmar.
The Cape’s kramats — Tuang Yusuf, Tuang Guru, Tuang Mahmud — stand as circles of remembrance.
These are not shirk but reverence, places of memory and duʿāʾ. To erase them is to erase ourselves.
Activism as Sunnah
The Prophet ﷺ left us more than rituals. He left us justice. The Constitution of Madinah established a civic community across religions and tribes.
That spirit carried into the Cape’s struggle against apartheid. In the Call of Islam, the Muslim Youth Movement, and the National Muslim Conference at UWC (1992), activists remembered the Prophet ﷺ not only with salawāt but with action — defending equality, insisting on women’s inclusion, placing youth at the centre. To live his Sunnah is to resist injustice.
The Everyday Sunnah
And yet, his legacy is also small, intimate. To say “Ahlan wa sahlan” at the door is prophetic. To put on the kettle and share food is prophetic. To dress with dignity, to smile, to eat together — these are echoes of the Prophet ﷺ at the table.
That was my final note on Radio 786: Mawlud is not just once a year, but lives in every act of welcome, in every gathering, in the rhythm of our homes.
Gadija’s Reflection
At the close of our conversation, Gadija Ahjum reminded listeners that these traditions are not nostalgia but a living inheritance. They still speak to Cape Town today — in song, in struggle, in everyday acts of kindness. Her words were a benediction: that we must hold on to these echoes, because they remind us who we are, and whose love runs in our veins.
Closing: In Our Veins, In Our Graves
The Prophet ﷺ is not only in our books. He is in our veins — in sandalwood tasbihs from Makkah, in rampies leaves cut by children, in songs sung through the night. And he is in our graves — in the kramats that guard our Cape, in the Hijr Ismāʿīl, in Masjid Nabawī itself.
This is the beauty of riwāyah: history retold in the key of love, memory carried on the breath, the Prophet ﷺ remembered not only in books, but in song.
And then comes the moment every Cape gathering knows. The reciter enters the salawāt, and we rise. To stand in qiyām is to welcome the Beloved ﷺ into the room. Voices swell, hearts open, and it feels as though his light enters the gathering like fragrance. This is not metaphor — it is inheritance. In standing, we join generations before us, declaring with our bodies and our voices: the Prophet ﷺ lives in our veins, and in our graves.
🔗 Related Blogs & Reflections
🌿 The Prophet in Our Veins — Cape Mawlud traditions, sandalwood, inheritance: Read here
🧭 Tourist in My City — walking Cape Town’s sacred geography: Camissa, Slave Lodge, Bo-Kaap, Tana Baru: Read here
🕊️ A Family Dhikr Between Birth and Remembrance — names, dreams, duʿāʾ across generations: Read here
🌊 Get Rooted, Walk Through the Sea — faith at life’s thresholds: Read here
🕌 Streams of Ink and Streams of Light — reflections on adab, ink, and the mosque as living memory: Read here
Planting knowledge, remembrance, and companionship in the soil of hearts
It began not with my own notes, but with a gift. A reflection carried to me from a dars (lesson) of Shaykh Allie Khalfe — may Allah preserve him — through the words of his student, Masooda. What reached me was not information but suḥba (companionship in transmission). It felt as if a branch had been placed in my hand, living and fragrant.
The dars turned on Imam Sharani’s text. At its close, the author prayed for the one who writes, the one who conveys, and the one who listens — sketching in that duʿāʾ (supplication) the hidden architecture of ijāzah (authorisation). Knowledge is never solitary. It requires scribe, voice, and ear.
When the names of the ʿulamāʾ (scholars) in the sanad (chain of transmission) were recited, it was like witnesses at a nikāh (marriage contract): a chain of trust sealed with al-Fātiḥa (the Opening chapter of the Qur’an) and ṣalawāt (prayers upon the Prophet ﷺ). Not formality, but a bond.
And then, a detail that stills me: the Shaykh reminded that the index finger carries a vein to the heart. The same finger that cradles the pen. Writing, then, is not merely ink — it is the heart made visible.
This is adab as-suḥba — the courtesy of companionship. Sometimes a verse must be allowed to enter and sit in the heart until it ripens into fruit. Its meaning multiplies.
A Good Word, A Good Tree
The Qur’an says: “A good word is like a good tree whose root is firmly fixed, and whose branches reach the heavens. It gives its fruit at all times, by the permission of its Lord.” (Ibrāhīm 14:24–25).
Masooda spoke of how the verse itself visited her — once even on a screen in Ramadan, tugging her heart like a breeze that compelled her to sit and drink from it. She returned to it again and again, until its shade and fruit became part of her.
This is the work of suḥba, dhikr (remembrance), and ʿilm (knowledge) braided together: soil, water, sun. Good words are nourishment, shelter, and fruit. They live beyond their first moment, feeding others long after.
Oceans Without Shore
“If all the trees on earth were pens, and the ocean were ink, refilled by seven more oceans, still the Words of Allah would not be exhausted.” (Luqmān 31:27).
The tree becomes pen, the ocean becomes ink — and still it is not enough. Knowledge is boundless, and our writing, reading, and speaking are only drops.
Ijāzah is like a rope stretched across generations, so we are not stranded with only our nafs (ego-self) in shallow waters. The sanad becomes a coastline, teacher to student, name to name, heart to heart. Waves advance, pens move, yet the ink of Allah’s words runs deeper than we can fathom.
Bonsai, Hidden Garments, Generational Love
Not all transmission is vast like oceans or towering like trees. Some is slow and deliberate, like a bonsai — carefully pruned, shaped across years, carrying endurance in its smallness. Generational love can be like this: cut back, tended carefully, yet still alive.
Charity is like a hidden garment — a warmth felt but not displayed. And the link to Allah is direct, unmediated, suḥbawith the Real.
Because we began in a garden, we will return to it. To remain a child in the garden — curious, open, growing — is the secret of maturity.
The Farm with a Heart
The land itself was described as a body. One farm to another, the same anatomy: if the brain is sound, the farm is sound. And deeper still, the heart of the farm. It was as though I was hearing the ḥadīth: “Verily, in the body there is a piece of flesh; if it is sound, the whole body is sound. If it is corrupted, the whole body is corrupted. Verily, it is the heart.”
The farm is a mirror of us, and we are mirrors of the farm. Soil, water, mind, heart — they rise and fall together.
And another secret: beautiful people are hidden from the world, like seeds in soil waiting to rise. Their signs are etched into the land, into quiet generosity, into living Qur’an carried in silence. Who would have thought that on the first colonial farm one might hear Qur’an spoken back by the soil, the wind, the hidden awliyāʾ (friends of God)?
Hidden people, hidden farms, hidden saints — Allah scatters them where we least expect.
Fire and Blossom
Here the Cape flora speaks:
Protea waiting, the fire opens her heart wide, ash becomes blossom.
So too is the heart. Fire opens what is hidden; patience reveals what is promised.
Dhikr as Greater
All of this — sanad, suḥba, ʿilm, trees, oceans, farms, blossoms — is gathered by one thread: dhikr.
“Wa la dhikrullāhi akbar” — “And the remembrance of Allah is greater, without a doubt.” (ʿAnkabūt 29:45).
Greater than what? Greater than the fire that tests the protea, greater than the nafs that bends the farm, greater than even the words we speak when they are empty of Him. Dhikr transforms knowledge into light, suḥba into companionship, trees into nourishment, oceans into signs without end.
And yet dhikr is even wider than many of us think. It is not only on the tongue, in recitation or chanting. It is also in the body: in breath, in muscle, in tendon, in presence, in stillness. It is kindness, humility, love, and community — whether Muslim, Christian, or Buddhist — meeting each other in harmony and poise.
This too is dhikr. Treasures we must preserve with care, if we wish to remain bridges to safety.
Because we began in a garden, we will return to it. The good word remains a good tree. The ocean remains ink that cannot be exhausted. And remembrance — dhikrullāh — is greater than them all.
Postscript
There are words from the poet Shabbir Banoobhai that linger here — like water poured into an empty cup, still teaching us what thirst means:
wisdom in a jug an empty cup you said pour till it’s full
i tried and tried finally sighed and said it’s empty still
These lines feel like the secret of suhba itself: to never be satisfied with one sip, to know the thirst itself is part of the gift.
Acknowledgement
With gratitude to Shaykh Allie Khalfe, whose dars planted these roots, and to his student Masooda Fadal, who shared these reflections and passed on their fragrance.
Glossary of Terms
Ṣuḥba (صُحبة) — Companionship; keeping company with teachers, friends, or the Divine. In Sufi tradition: the courtesy of companionship (adab as-suḥba).
Sanad (سند) — A chain of transmission linking teachers and students across generations.
Ijāzah (إجازة) — Authorisation or license to transmit a text or knowledge, usually granted by a teacher to a student.
ʿUlamāʾ (علماء) — Scholars of Islam; those learned in the sciences of religion.
Nikāh (نكاح) — Marriage contract.
Al-Fātiḥa (الفاتحة) — “The Opening,” the first chapter of the Qur’an, often recited in prayer and blessings.
Ṣalawāt (صلوات) — Prayers and blessings upon the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.
Dhikr (ذكر) — Remembrance of Allah; includes recitation, prayer, and also presence, breath, stillness, and actions of kindness.
Nafs (نفس) — The self or ego; the inner self that inclines to desire, distraction, or pride.
Awliyāʾ (أولياء) — “Friends of God”; saints, those close to Allah through devotion and purity of heart.
The Prophet in Our Veins: On the Scent, Sound, and Song of Cape Devotion
Introduction: Rabi al-Awwal and the Living Presence
Rabi al-Awwal has arrived — the month in which many commemorate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. But beyond the formal gatherings and public sermons, there are other ways his presence is felt.
This blog reflects on three threads of remembrance: the Prophet ﷺ as a guide in our political struggles, a source of poetic longing, and a quiet presence in our daily lives — folded into our homes, habits, and inherited silences.
I. The Constitution of Madinah and the Call of Islam: A Political Sunnah of Justice
In the 1980s, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa gave birth to many political and religious formations. Among them was the Call of Islam, a progressive Muslim organization that took inspiration from the Prophet Muhammad’s ﷺ example as a political and ethical leader.
At the heart of its formation was a sense that Islam was not simply a private affair, but a force for justice. The Prophet’s ﷺ Constitution of Madinah — a model for pluralism, shared civic belonging, and accountability — offered a living blueprint. In our reading circles and public addresses, we didn’t only study fiqh. We studied the Sunnah of justice, the Sunnah of solidarity, and the Sunnah of standing with the oppressed.
This legacy reached a milestone in the 1992 National Muslim Conference, where Muslims from diverse traditions gathered to imagine a future democratic South Africa. The Prophet’s ﷺ example was not presented as abstraction but as compass — guiding how Muslims might live in plural, equal dignity with others.
Today, the landscape is very different. There are Muslim judges, radio stations, political parties. But let us remember: these were not always guaranteed. Many of the freedoms now enjoyed were carried on the shoulders of those who took risk — and who understood the Prophet ﷺ not only as a man of prayer, but as a statesman of vision.
II. Verse as Vessel: Poetic Devotion and Madīḥ
In the lands of Africa, madīḥ — praise poetry — has always been more than art. It is invocation, love-letter, protest, and memory. In my own work, I’ve found that poetry often says what footnotes cannot.
Take for example this poem, I Inherited Longing:
I did not see you with my eyes But I knew you in my marrow. Your name moved through my mother’s breath and into the rhythm of my walk.
When they asked: “Who is your teacher?” I said: “The one whose tears I drink when I whisper salawāt.”
I did not inherit land. I inherited longing.
This is not biography. It is embodiment.
Across Cape Town and Johannesburg, poets still recite verses that draw the Prophet ﷺ close — not as distant figure, but as intimate companion. This is how many of us came to know him: not through doctrine alone, but through dhikr, dreams, rhythm, and rhyme.
III. The Prophet Among the People — Salawāt and Everyday Sunnah
If sīrah shapes our public imagination and verse stirs our hearts, then the most enduring presence of the Prophet ﷺ lies not in the pages of a book, but in the lived habits of South African Muslims. In Cape Town especially, his memory is invoked not only in grand commemorations but in the daily, quiet acts of care, courtesy, and devotion.
From the kettle always on the boil to the salawāt murmured in pre-dawn hours, the Prophet’s ﷺ legacy breathes through a tradition of service and subtlety. One sees his trace in janāzah preparations, in unspoken generosity, and in how the kitchen is cleaned before Maghrib. These are not mere habits. They are sacred echoes — practices with deep Prophetic roots.
Among the Cape’s most enduring spiritual inheritances is the Ratib al-Haddād, chanted for decades — if not centuries — in mosques and homes. This litany, associated with the Ba ʿAlawī tradition of Hadhramaut, Yemen, is recited rhythmically, often in gatherings after Maghrib or ‘Ishā’. Alongside it, a particular standing salawāt is recited with heartfelt rhythm, in the deep belief that the light and rūḥ of the Prophet ﷺ enters the space when we call upon him. This is not metaphor. It is presence.
The Cape is also home to a rare spiritual text: an Afrikaans Ratib al-Haddād written in Arabic script. In it, Kaaps-Afrikaans phrases — such as Onse Here is Groot and Help ons met die dode — appear with Qur’anic reverence. The tasbīḥ, duʿā’, and barakah of our forebears were carried in a mother tongue now often dismissed. But they knew what they were doing: encoding devotion into daily speech, transmitting Prophetic rhythm in a creole born of struggle and longing.
Perhaps most evocatively, the Riwayat al-Birzanji — a melodic storytelling of the Prophet’s ﷺ birth and life — is performed during Moulood celebrations. My sisters would sing the first Riwayah in rich melody, sometimes referred to as laaghoe, or in Arabic terms, maqāmāt. These musical modes carried not only tune but transmission, passing down a soundscape of longing across generations.
These gatherings — echoing devotional practices from South Asia, East and North Africa, and Southeast Asia — show that Cape Muslims are not an isolated outpost. We are part of a vast archipelago of Prophetic love, linked not only by history but by rhythm, breath, and remembrance.
The First Riwayah composed by Sayyid Ja’far Ibn Hasan Al-Barzanji. In Arabic and English translation.
IV. Kramats and Cape Saints: Circles of Protection
If you trace a map around Cape Town, you will find sacred sites known as kramats — shrines of saintly Muslims, many of them exiled scholars or spiritual leaders, whose presence shaped the region’s barakah.
Among the most revered is the kramat on Robben Island, believed to be the resting place of Tuang Mahmud Moturu, a 17th-century imam from Indonesia exiled by the Dutch. According to oral tradition, he carried with him the Qur’an and the example of the Prophet ﷺ. Even Nelson Mandela is said to have visited the kramat while imprisoned — a quiet act of respect for the spiritual presence that surrounded him.
These kramats, stretching from Robben Island to Constantia, Faure to Bain’s Kloof, form what many refer to as a Circle of Islam, a protective perimeter believed by many Cape Muslims to spiritually guard the city. Even today, before departing for Hajj, many families visit these shrines to offer fātiḥah, seeking barakah and requesting the intercession of these tuangs — elder scholars and saints who represent a spiritual lineage of struggle, exile, remembrance, and return.
It is no accident that these saints were also poets, teachers, and bearers of the sunnah. Their legacies weave the political with the spiritual, the literary with the lived. They stand as embodied representations of Prophetic devotion: not merely followers, but inheritors — those who carried the scent, the sound, and the story of the Beloved ﷺ into the soil of the Cape.
These shrines are not merely gravesites. They are circles of remembrance. People visit with incense and duʿā’. Children are told stories. Salawāt is recited softly in the wind. In these spaces, the Prophet’s ﷺ spirit is invoked not as metaphor, but as living memory — guiding, protecting, witnessing.
V. The Prophet at the Table
When guests arrive in Cape Muslim homes, the first word is often “Ahlan wa sahlan.” It means “Welcome,” but more than that, it means: “Come as one whose path has been made smooth.” This is the spirit of the Prophet ﷺ at the table.
Food is sacred here. When someone leaves for Hajj, families gather to recite salawāt and Qur’an. At weddings, a murmur of salawāt often follows the couple as they walk out — not choreographed, just habit. These are rhythms inherited, not invented.
One of the most fragrant practices is the rampies sny — the cutting and perfuming of rose petals and leaves in preparation for the Moulood. Elders and children sit together, scenting the petals with rosewater, folding them into small cloths, whispering praises. It is not performance. It is love.
The Prophet ﷺ is not only remembered here. He is welcomed — into the threshold, into the breath, into the heart of the home.
Conclusion: The Prophet in Our Veins
Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is with us — in scent, sound, and song. He is in our veins. Pic: Shafiq Morton
We began with the idea that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is not a distant figure. Not only in the libraries, not only in the inherited manuscripts or well-attended Mawlid halls. He walks with us still — in our struggles for justice, in our poetry of longing, and in the subtle ways we greet, grieve, and gather.
In South Africa — and especially in the Cape — this presence is not always announced from the pulpits or debated in institutions. It is poured into tea. It is stitched into janāzah cloth. It is recited in whispered salawāt and sung in melodies passed down from mother to daughter, uncle to nephew.
The Prophet’s ﷺ legacy here has always been both principled and poetic — shaped by anti-apartheid resistance as much as by spiritual yearning. And in the rampies of Moulood, the maqāmāt of the Riwayah, and the rhythm of the Afrikaans Ratib, we find not just echoes of his name, but traces of his light.
He is with us — in scent, sound, and song. He is in our veins.
PostScript
Here is a beautiful salawāt from Salat an-Nuraniyya of Ahmad al-Badawi; also called Salawat Badawi Kubra…
O Allah! Exalt, greet and bless our master and liege lord Muḥammad, the Tree of Original Light, the Sparkle of the Handful of Divine Mercy, the Best of All Humankind, the Noblest of Physical Frames, the Vessel of the Lord’s Secrets and Storehouse of the Sciences of the Elect, the Possessor of the Original Divine Grasp, Resplendent Grace, and Uppermost Rank, under whose flag line up all the prophets, so that they are from him and point to him.
Fast-Forward into the Institute, Returning to the Circles
A week with the IslamicText Institute and Azzawia’s living tradition
It was a whirlwind week — Arabic on Tuesday, fiqh on Wednesday, Kitabush Shukr on Sunday, and Mawlood practice at Azzawia to close. What began as a fast-forward plunge into the Institute ended as a return to the circles that have always held the rhythm of Cape Town’s tradition.
It began with a handshake at Azzawia. Shaykh Allie Khalfe smiled, extended his hand, and with that simple gesture drew me into a current that would carry me through a whirlwind week — Arabic, fiqh, gratitude, and finally the rhythms of Mawlood.
Where Azzawia’s circles had been steady and calm, the IslamicText Institute moved like a river already in motion. One week felt like fast-forwarding through months of learning, not skipping steps, but running to keep pace.
Tuesday Night – Kitāb al-Asāsī (Arabic)
The week began with Arabic, the Kitāb al-Asāsī.
Stepping into the Arabic class at the IslamicText Institute felt like boarding a train already in full motion. The Shaykh and the students were moving at speed, voices alternating between reading aloud, parsing grammar, and drilling vocabulary. On the board, examples unfolded in careful script: prepositions locking words into the genitive, adjectives matching their nouns in gender and case, colours shifting form depending on what they described. What for some students was revision, for others — like me — was a plunge into deep waters.
The pedagogy was exacting. Shaykh Allie did not slow the pace, but instead invited everyone to rise with it. “Read, now explain, now apply,” was the rhythm. Mistakes were corrected swiftly, but with humour; every slip was a lesson, every correction a reminder that Arabic is both precise and merciful — demanding effort, but always rewarding persistence. You could sense that this was no ordinary language class. It was training the mind to think with Qur’anic logic, to tune the tongue to sacred precision.
For me, it felt beyond capacity. Months of Arabic study had not prepared me for the quick-fire exchanges, the confident parsing, the way students moved from grammar to meaning almost effortlessly. Yet this sense of inadequacy became its own teacher: a reminder that humility is the door to knowledge. The Shaykh’s method left no space for passivity; to survive, one had to participate, stumble, rise again, and keep pace with the moving current.
And yet, beneath the intensity, a deeper truth was visible. This Arabic — this Kitāb al-Asāsī — was not an isolated discipline. It was the key, the doorway to everything else. Without it, the texts of fiqh and ʿaqīdah that followed on Wednesday would remain veiled. With it, even a little of it, the veils began to lift. As the class closed, I realised that I had not simply attended a language lesson. I had glimpsed the scaffolding of the tradition — the way Arabic itself becomes the vessel carrying law, creed, and devotion across centuries.
The experience was like being dropped onto a moving train: you find your balance by running. And the Shaykh’s clarity carried us along.
Wednesday Night – Fiqh and ʿAqīdah in Motion
If Tuesday was about catching the rhythm of Arabic grammar, Wednesday was a double immersion — first in the law of prayer (Fiqh), then in the foundations of belief (ʿAqīdah).
In the Fiqh class, we entered al-Majmūʿ of Imām al-Nawawī, studying the conditions for a valid prayer (Shurūt Ṣiḥḥat al-Ṣalāh). Shaykh Allie Khalfe reminded us that prayer is not just a series of movements, but an act that only takes its true form when certain conditions are met: purity, covering the body, facing the qiblah, the right time, and the intention. Without these, the prayer is incomplete — like trying to build a house without laying its foundation.
What struck me most was how the discussion flowed between law and purpose. Technical details (such as what invalidates purity or how to define proper covering) were paired with reminders of why these rules exist: to help us stand before Allah with clarity and humility. Even for someone familiar with the Shāfiʿī tradition, it felt fresh — like polishing something you thought was already shining.
After Fiqh came ʿAqīdah, using the poem al-Jawharah as our guide. The Shaykh paused on a verse about knowing what Allah loves and what He dislikes, and how this knowledge has two sources: Revelation (the Qur’an and hadith) and the insight of the heart. The latter, he explained, is rare and precious — not every reflection is reliable, but when guided by sincerity and remembrance, it can be a light Allah places within the heart.
The room grew quiet at this point. It was as if the text had shifted from rules to reflection, inviting us inward. One student described it as moving from the “outer map” of worship into the “inner compass” that helps us navigate love and awe of Allah.
Together, these two sessions showed me the balance of Islamic learning: law to protect the structure of worship, belief to enliven its spirit.
Sunday Morning – Kitābush Shukr (Gratitude)
The class opened with Shaykh Allie Khalfe guiding us into Bayān al-Tamyīz — the explanation of distinguishing between what Allah the Exalted loves and what He dislikes.
As Imam al-Ghazālī reminds us, gratitude (shukr) is not merely a feeling but an act: to use Allah’s blessings in obedience to Him. Ingratitude (kufr al-niʿmah) is its opposite — using those same blessings in disobedience.
The Shaykh highlighted that distinguishing between Allah’s love and dislike has two sources:
Revelation — the Qur’an and the Prophetic Sunnah.
Insight of the Heart — reflection with the “eye of the heart,” rare and difficult, yet precious when granted.
A fellow student captured it beautifully:
“The meaning of gratitude is to use the blessings that Allah the Exalted has bestowed upon us in obedience to Him; and the meaning of ingratitude is the opposite… Revelation is the foundation, but the inner sight is what polishes the heart.”
In this way, Shaykh Allie urged us to see shukr not as abstract, but as practice — prayer, fasting, feeding the needy, speaking truth — until life itself becomes an act of thanks.
Sunday Evening – Mawlood Practice at Azzawia
As the sun lowered that same Sunday, I stepped back into Azzawia — not for fiqh or grammar, but for song.
The Mawlood practice was alive:
A conductor guiding the voices — “higher here, lower there, let me show you.”
Laughter and corrections, Afrikaaps mixing with Arabic across the room.
Pages of the Barzanji Mawlood open, voices rising and falling, the rhythm of devotion rehearsed until it became natural.
Behind the practice, in conversation, plans unfolded: flowers and rose water, daljies and samoosas, volunteers preparing. The anticipation of the Mawlood itself, still weeks away, hovered in the air.
It felt like the body of the community rehearsing, tuning itself — men and women, Afrikaans and English, sacred text and local voice, all weaving into one.
Closing Reflection – Learning at Speed, Returning to Circles
By the week’s end, I had been swept into three modes of learning — the sharp sprint of Arabic grammar, the layered dialogue of fiqh, the contemplative unfolding of gratitude, and the embodied devotion of Mawlood practice.
The Institute was fast-forward — a current already in motion. Azzawia remained steady — circles rooted in the soil. Together, they are not opposites, but complements.
I left with my notes still warm in my hands, the echo of recitation still in my ears. Learning at speed. Remembering at depth.
And in both places — gratitude.
🤲 Dua at the End
اللَّهُمَّ اجعل هذا العلم نورًا في قلوبنا، وعملاً صالحًا في حياتنا، وذُخرًا لنا يوم نلقاك. O Allah, make this knowledge a light in our hearts, a righteous action in our lives, and a provision for us on the Day we meet You.
🔗 Cross-link
👉 For a deeper sense of Azzawia’s slower rhythm, see my earlier reflection: In the Circles of Azzawia.
From Sunday’s Kitāb al-Shukr to Monday’s Minhāj al-Ṭālibīn, tracing the chains of Shāfiʿī knowledge, the whispered wisdom of teachers, and a daily breeze of remembrance.
Azzawia Masjid, Walmer Estate – a cornerstone of Cape Town’s Shāfiʿī scholarship and spiritual tradition.
Sunday Morning – Chains of Knowledge, Wings of Mercy
Last Friday, Al Ameen, my swaer, took me to Al Azawia Mosque in Walmer Estate. I had only wanted to greet Shaykh Achmad Hendricks, who was delivering the Jumuʿah khuṭbah. But in the front ṣaff, I also took hands with Shaykh Allie Khalfe.
He smiled and said, “Adli, I’m glad you are here in Cape Town. Come to my dars this Sunday morning.”
I went.
The gathering was in the old style — a teacher seated, a text in Arabic before him, the words flowing into English explanation. Shaykh Allie was reading from Imām al-Ghazālī’s Kitāb al-Shukr (Book of Gratitude). Before the lesson began, Rashaad recited the Qaṣīda al-Burda Sharīf with the beat of the duff — a reminder that knowledge, in our tradition, is not only in the mind but in the heart, the breath, the rhythm.
The room carried the scent of chains of transmission — ustādh to ustādh, back to the author, to the early masters, to the Messenger ﷺ. We were given a chart in Arabic, thirty or so key uṣūl al-fiqh terms, the kind that open doors into the Qurʾān’s architecture. A gift in itself.
Shaykh Allie moved between concepts — ʿilm, tafakkur, ḥāl; gratitude as both unveiling and action; the way arrogance blinds and mercy gives wings; Allah’s command in the Qur’an for Mūsā عليه السلام to speak kindly even to Pharaoh; and how every act, every vessel, every design is part of tawḥīd.
He reminded us that knowledge is not a library of abstractions but an ʿamal — a living response. That Bismillah should precede everything, and that the chains we hold are not shackles but the silsilah — the unbroken links of teachers and students — which, when pulled, draw the heart closer to Allah.
At the end, he placed in my hands a book: A Journey Through Time with Al-Shāfiʿī, Muhammad bin Idris, Volume 2. Another link in the chain, another door to open.
I left with the sense that gratitude itself is a journey — from the first Bismillah to the final Alhamdulillah — and that Cape Town, for all its winds, still holds corners where the old way of learning is alive, unbroken, and quietly shining.
Two pillars of Cape Town’s Shāfiʿī tradition — Shaykh Achmad Hendricks (left) and Shaykh Allie Khalfe (right). Between them flows an unbroken silsilah: the study circles, the Qur’anic sciences, the breath of dhikr, and the living manners of the tradition. Under their guidance, the old way of learning — text in hand, hearts attentive — remains alive in Cape Town.
Monday Night – Two Hours on an Introduction
On Monday night, 11 August 2025, I returned to Azzawia Mosque — this time for the weekly dars with Shaykh Achmad Hendricks.
The WhatsApp invitation from Rashaad Samaai had been simple:
Shaykh Ahmad is currently teaching the Minhāj al-Ṭālibīn of Imām al-Nawawī and the Risālah of Imām al-Qushayrī.
My madhhab is Shāfiʿī — as is the majority of Cape Muslims — so to sit in a reading of Imām al-Nawawī’s masterpiece felt like stepping into my own inheritance.
Shaykh Achmad spent two hours on just the introduction — pausing on its closing lines:
Finally, in cases where there is divergence of opinion among authorities I shall give an impartial exposition of the two opposing theories, the two sides from which one may consider the question in dispute, and the two methods of reasoning adopted in order to solve it; and then I will also, where there is occasion for it, quote separately the decisions of our imam al-Shāfiʿī, and note the relative value of the different appreciations.
From that, a whole world opened: the discipline of fairness, the patience to hold two views in one’s hands, and the humility to weigh them without arrogance.
It took me back to a scene years ago in the Haram at Makkah. A teacher had just finished lecturing his students. When he rose, they swarmed him like bees — those nearest whispering their questions, the teacher answering in whispers too. Everyone leaned in to catch the words. Then, when he departed, they rushed into the market to buy the books he had mentioned.
That is knowledge — not the cold storage of facts, but the living pursuit: sitting, listening, writing, memorising. The kind that makes the heart lean forward. The kind that, even in an age of instant answers, still requires the slow, deliberate turning of a page.
A Gift for the Road – Daily Adhkār
As we stepped out into the cool Cape Town night, Rashaad Samaai pressed a page into my hand.
“It’s from Shaykh Achmad,” he said.
On it was a short litany to be read three times daily — Names of Allah drawn from the Qur’an and the hearts of the early saints:
Bismi Allāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm, Yā Allāh In the Name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful. O Allah.
Yā Wāḥid, Yā Aḥad — O The One, O The Unique Yā Wājid, Yā Jawwād — O The All-Perceiving, O The Most Generous
Infikhnee bi-nafkhati khayr — blow into me a breeze of goodness
Innaka ʿalā kulli shay’in Qadīr — Indeed, Allah has Power over all things.
A simple gift, but in it, a whole ocean — remembrance for the tongue, stillness for the heart, and a daily returning to the Source.
The green dome of Azzawia Masjid rises like a lantern against the stone face of Table Mountain, a reminder that Cape Town’s spiritual horizon is as enduring as its natural one. From here, the call to prayer has travelled across decades of wind and history, mingling with the clouds that crown the mountain. Under this dome, chains of knowledge are kept alive — voices of teachers, pages of sacred texts, and the quiet remembrance of Allah, all anchored in the heart of the city. [Pic: Shafiq Morton]
Closing line: And so the circles of Azzawia turn — each dars a link, each link a step — until the seeker finds that the journey was not only to the masjid on the hill, but deeper into the heart of the chain itself.
✨ A Door Opens: The Story Behind Rabbānī Creative Studio
There are doors we walk through without noticing, and then there are doors that change the way we see. Rabbānī Creative Studio was one of those doors.
It began as sketches and fragments, growing into a space that felt less like a business and more like a miḥrāb — not just a niche in the wall, but a place to face what matters most. Every design, every word, is a way of turning toward beauty, memory, and meaning.
What We Create
Rabbānī Creative Studio combines the art of storytelling with the craft of design — bringing together history, heritage, and heart in every project. Our work ranges from intimate, single-page scrolls to full-length publications, always rooted in thoughtful aesthetics and cultural resonance.
Above: Four recent editions of NWASA Update (Issues 7–10), designed and produced by Rabbānī Creative Studio — from layout to print-ready publication.
1. Magazines & Periodicals
Full-layout design, editorial support, and branding for publications. Example: Four complete editions of NWASA Update (Issues 7–10), from concept to print-ready files.
2. Commemorative Scrolls & Posters
Custom-designed scrolls and posters for milestones — Hajj, weddings, anniversaries, and memorials — blending text, imagery, and heritage motifs.
3. Books & Anthologies
Cover design, interior layout, and thematic visual concepts for poetry collections, historical works, and memoirs.
4. Heritage & Cultural Projects
Visual storytelling and identity work for community heritage initiatives, exhibitions, and cultural campaigns.
5. Branding & Identity
Logos, seals, and visual systems inspired by classical design traditions, adapted for modern digital and print needs.
Our Way of Working
We work slowly when needed, urgently when called for — always with care. Our style blends modern design with heritage textures, drawing on Cape memory, Islamic art, and global traditions.
“What began as sketches and fragments grew into a space that felt less like a business and more like a miḥrāb — a place to face what matters most.”
An Ongoing Invitation
Rabbānī Creative Studio is now a home for creative work that carries a pulse — spiritual, cultural, and human.
It’s for those who believe beauty can be an act of care. It’s for those who want words to live not just on the screen but in the heart.
And it’s an open door.
You’re welcome to step inside.
The Door Is Open
If you would like to:
Commission a unique design
Collaborate on a heritage project
Preserve your story in words and images
… then step inside. Let’s create something that lasts.
The Boy Who Waved Back: Remembering Riefaat Hattas of Manenberg
Young activists of the Call of Islam, Manenberg, 1980s. Riefaat Hattas, second from top right, stands among friends and comrades — a generation brimming with laughter, courage, and purpose. [Pic: Yunus Mohamed]
Manenberg: Where Struggle Learned to Laugh
There’s a photograph from another time — a car crowded with boys and brothers, some perched atop, some packed inside, all lit by the unmistakable fire of youth. Manenberg, 1980s: a borrowed car, a shared cause, a city holding its breath.
Among them is Riefaat Hattas — eyes forward, a quiet anchor in the rising tide.
Those who lived through the 1980s on the Cape Flats will remember: Cars that carried more than passengers — they carried dreams, sometimes fugitives. Boys who became men before their time. Smiles that defied a brutal state.
It was here, at Silverstream, in schoolyards dusted with chalk and hope, that Riefaat found his voice. A student leader, a Call of Islam activist, he joined a movement that dared to speak justice in the language of faith.
A Life Shaped by Struggle
Riefaat Hattas was born in 1968 and grew up in Manenberg, places shaped by apartheid’s sharp edges and the stubborn dignity of ordinary families. He matriculated at Silverstream Secondary in 1986, a year that would change his life and the country.
That year, he led a student march — Casspirs ringed the school, hundreds of unarmed students brutalized by the SADF. He was only 18 — but already a leader, a UDF and ANC supporter, mentored by Celeste Naidoo and MK underground structures.
In November 1985, during a march to honour detainees and the fallen, Riefaat was arrested under the Terrorism Act. Tortured at Manenberg station, interrogated, violated, broken down — then sent to Victor Verster Prison.
“The National Party should take responsibility for destroying and ruining our lives.” — Riefaat Hattas, TRC Hearings, 1997
Testimony and Trauma
Riefaat’s scars ran deep, but he spoke them aloud at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission:
“We aged ten to fifteen years in a matter of months… We never realized the kind of psychological stress and trauma we have been subjected to… I’m messed up because of what I went through during my high school days.”
He admitted the cost: Nervous wreck, unable to finish school in a normal way. Many friends became casualties — some went into hiding, some fled, others fell into drugs or gangs. Riefaat himself needed weekly counseling to manage the trauma that never left.
“Money can put something meaningful into my life. I have been tortured, I have nightmares, I could pay for counselling.”
Action Without Fear
Those who knew him say he was action-oriented, never content to sit on the sidelines. He became known for his directness, for “not being afraid.” He worked as a professional assistant officer for the City of Cape Town, always serving — quietly, sometimes with a smile that held both pain and possibility.
Riefaat Hattas, looking out from an embassy window, kufiyyah on, defiant and unbroken. This scene — recreated in tribute — echoes the iconic image of a young comrade who refused to disappear, even when others scattered.
Another time, he famously waved from the window of the American embassy during a similar protest. That photo is still an icon: the boy who refused to disappear.
Legacy: The Freedoms We Now Inherit
The freedoms Cape Town’s Muslims (and South Africans in general) enjoy today — to gather, to pray, to march, to speak — were won by Riefaat’s generation at terrible cost.
“We never knew how big our contribution would become, how our struggle would free so many others.” So said a comrade at his janazah, echoing Ebrahim Rasool’s words.
“He was one who stood out for justice as a witness to Allah. Riefaat carried the scars of torture and never broke — he stood in the embassy window, waving, so we would know not to run. The freedom we have today was won by his courage and the courage of his generation. Let us not pray perfunctorily; let us remember what was paid for us.”
Stories now echo from one generation to the next. Medat Adams’ young son hears the “old days” — torture, detentions, the moppies that kept hope alive when hope seemed like madness. Riefaat was a storyteller, a writer of comic skits for the nag troop, a keeper of laughter in the midst of struggle.
Riefaat: Lightness in the Struggle
At rallies and mass meetings, Riefaat was always the one looking for a piece of cardboard — anything, just to make salaah on, wherever he found himself.
During the matric exam boycotts, a group of them hid out at a teacher’s house. When the teacher came out, he called, “I can see you, Achmat!” — because Achmat was so tall, he couldn’t hide behind a bush.
After court appearances, Riefaat would lead the hungry crew straight into a janazah house along Thornton Road — knowing there would always be food, and never standing on ceremony.
Once, passing Pollsmoor Prison, he hung out the car window and led everyone in shouting, “Viva Mandela!” At the drive-in later that night, seeing white kids lugging their mattress home, he yelled out, “Sê ve jou ma — jy’t ’n comrade gesien!” [Tell your mom that you saw a comrade!]
He had a gift for turning every moment — even hunger, boredom, or fear — into a kind of resistance and joy.
#masekin — Ma se Kind, My Mother’s Child
Not just the humble, not just the poor — but every child of the Cape, every struggler, every brother, every sister carried in the memory of mothers who gave more than they had, who called each of us masekin — my mother’s child, so no one would feel alone.
For Riefaat, it was the truth of his life: He belonged to the people, and the people belonged to him.
Legacy: Freedom, Memory, and Sacred Song
But Riefaat was also a keeper of remembrance.
Who can forget the play, 333 Years of Islam in South Africa? He wasn’t just a participant — he was central, guiding the theatre piece, leading voices through the opening invocation. He would start the Ratibul Haddad, and his voice — deep, insistent — would call out “Qul huwallahu ahad…” until the whole circle answered. He loved the Gadat, cherished the sacred rhythms that stitched community and soul together.
These weren’t performances; they were living acts of ibadah, of memory, of survival. Riefaat made sure that in our struggle, we didn’t forget our dhikr, our poetry, our song.
It’s no wonder he led the Gadat like he was born to it — his Hattas (Attas) blood remembering the names that sailed from Hadhramaut to the Cape. Barakah doesn’t always skip a generation; sometimes it lands on the tongue of a child who never forgot.
[The Attas (Al-Attas) family are a Hadhrami lineage whose spiritual traditions—like the Ratibul Attas and the Gadat—helped shape Cape Muslim remembrance.]
Riefaat Hattas, years after the struggle. Still carrying the light, the smile, and the steadfastness that defined his youth. A witness to history — and a reminder that joy is its own act of resistance.
Legacy at Work: Community Builder in the City
After the struggle, Riefaat entered the City of Cape Town at the most basic level in the electricity department — but he never stopped building. According to Farouk Robertson (Communications, City of Cape Town), Riefaat steadily worked his way up to become central in community education for the City’s energy cluster. He was a true driver of interdepartmental, community-facing initiatives: creative, innovative, and never afraid to challenge technocrats to see things from the community’s point of view. He didn’t just serve; he inspired — often sharing new approaches and championing programs that brought real, active engagement into the City’s work.
Even in the workspace, he was a man of progressive action.
(Thanks to Farouk Robertson, via Shamile Manie, for these memories.)
Closing Prayer
May Allah gather Riefaat among the steadfast. May his wounds be healed in the gardens of peace. May we remember him — in our freedoms, in our laughter, in every act of justice — as the one who waved back when the world turned away.
Tramakasi — Our Thanks
This tribute would not have been possible without the memories, love, and testimony of those who knew Riefaat best. With deep gratitude to Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool, Shamile Manie, Salih Davids, Medat Adams, Dawood Hattas, Zieyaat Hattas, and the rest of his dear family — for their witness, their courage, and their generosity in holding Riefaat’s story with both pain and pride.
May Allah bless you all. Tramakasi. Shukran. Thank you.
References & Further Reading
Oral Tribute: Ebrahim Rasool. “Janazah Tribute for Riefaat Hattas.” Delivered at Riefaat Hattas’s janazah, July 2025. (Notes and excerpts via Shamile Manie and Adli Yacubi’s transcription.)
TRC Testimony: Hattas, Riefaat. Testimony at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Children’s Hearing, Athlone, Cape Town, 22 May 1997. (As quoted in: SAPA, “TRC hears emotional testimony at children’s hearing,” 22 May 1997.)
Activist Testimony & Reparations: “Govt ‘spits in face of apartheid victims’.” Mail & Guardian, 5 October 2000. (Quoting Riefaat Hattas on the cost of struggle and reparations.)
Facebook Tributes & Community Memory: Jason Patrick Hanslo, “#masekin: Riefaat Hattas,” Facebook, 5 May 2022.
Personal Correspondence and Memories: Shamile Manie, WhatsApp messages to Adli Yacubi, July 2025. Salih Davids, “My Brother in Islam, Riefaat” (tribute poem), July 2025. Ebrahim Rasool, Janazah Tribute, July 2025.
Photographs: Yunus Mohamed, “Call of Islam, Manenberg, 1980s.”
Published Blog Draft: Adli Yacubi, “The Boy Who Waved Back: Remembering Riefaat Hattas of Manenberg,” unpublished manuscript and blog, July 2025.
Sh. Seraj Hendricks speaking on Al-Fātiḥah at Janet St. Mosque in Florida, Johannesburg. 3 Nov. 2013 [Pic: Muavia Gallie]
Surah Al-Fātiḥah, the Opening Chapter of the Quran, holds profound significance in Islamic practice. It serves as a fundamental prayer for guidance and mercy, recited in every unit of Muslim ritual prayer (ṣalāh). Known as the Mother of the Book, Al-Fātiḥa is essential for the validity of prayers, underscoring its central role in worship and belief. This is why it is also referred to as the Seven Oft-Repeated Verses.
When I recite Al-Fātiḥah during my ritual prayers, I strive to focus meditatively on these seven verses. I recall an enlightening moment at a mosque in Johannesburg, Florida, where the late Shaykh Seraj Hendricks (may Allah’s mercy be upon him) shared a profound framework of the Quran. Drawing upon Al-Ghazali’s Mishkāt al-Anwār (The Niche of Lights), Sh. Seraj explained the duality of what is distant and what is near in the Quran.
In Al-Fātiḥah, the first four verses describe Allah in the third person:
In the Name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Compassionate;
Lord of all the worlds;
The Entirely Merciful, the Especially Compassionate;
Sovereign of the Day of Judgment.
These verses portray Allah The Sublime as transcendent and distant, beyond the cosmos. In contrast, the last three verses shift to a direct, intimate tone, addressing Allah in the first person:
You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help;
Guide us on the Straight Path;
The path of those You have blessed, not of those who have incurred Your wrath or gone astray.
This shift emphasises Allah’s closeness, inviting a direct connection between the worshipper and the Divine.
This interplay of distance and nearness is a recurring theme in the Quran. Across 222 verses, references to the heavens and the earth metaphorically depict this duality. Heavens often symbolise the vast, cosmic, or intellectual realm, while earth signifies human, emotional, and spiritual proximity. In another sense, the heavens represent the mind—distant and analytical—while the earth represents the heart, intimately connected to spirituality.
Sh. Seraj also emphasised that these verses subtly address humanity’s role as vicegerents or stewards of God—khilāfatullah—and also as subordinated of God—ʿabdullah—in the universe and on earth. As Allah’s representatives, we are called to balance confidence with humility, leadership with servitude, and authority with submission in worship. This dual responsibility reminds us to rule with justice and compassion, always grounded in our devotion to and reliance on the Divine.
Focusing on Al-Fātiḥah: A Personal Practice
With this understanding, I now recite Al-Fātiḥah with a mindful dedication to different aspects of my being. Each verse resonates with a part of my body, mind, or soul:
Bismillāhir Raḥmānir Raḥīm (In the Name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Compassionate)—dedicated to the right hemisphere of my brain, the seat of creativity and emotion.
Al-Ḥamdu li-Llāhi Rabbi l-ʿĀlamīn (Praise be to Allah, Lord of all the worlds)—dedicated to my frontal lobe, responsible for reasoning and judgment.
Ar-Raḥmānir Raḥīm (The Entirely Merciful, the Especially Compassionate)—dedicated to the left hemisphere, where logic and analytical thinking reside.
Māliki Yawmid-Dīn (Sovereign of the Day of Judgment)—dedicated to the cerebellum, which governs balance and coordination.
For the remaining verses, I turn to my heart:
Iyyāka Naʿbudu wa-Iyyāka Nastaʿīn (You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help)—dedicated to the heart’s ventricles.
Ihdinaṣ-Ṣirāṭal-Mustaqīm (Guide us on the Straight Path)—dedicated to the central core of the heart.
Ṣirāṭalladhīna Anʿamta ʿAlayhim Ghayri l-Maghḍūbi ʿAlayhim wa-Laḍ-Ḍāllīn (The path of those You have blessed, not those who incurred Your wrath or went astray)—dedicated to the atria of the heart.
As I complete the recitation, I feel that Al-Fātiḥah integrates into my being—mind, body, and soul—lifting me spiritually. Allah Most High affirms this closeness in the Quran, “Indeed, We created humanity and fully know what their souls whisper to them, and We are closer to them than their jugular vein.” (Surah Qaf, 50:16).
The Power of Words in Recitation and Reflection
The act of reciting sacred words, like those of Al-Fātiḥah, carries profound significance. When we call out these words, we are not merely speaking; we are engaging in an act of connection, both with the Divine and with our innermost selves. Recitation transforms the abstract into the tangible, turning thoughts into vibrations that resonate in the air and within our being. In this way, the spoken word becomes a bridge between the physical and the spiritual.
Equally important is the focus we bring to these words. In conversation, our attention to what we speak and how we speak reflects our intent and sincerity. This principle applies even more deeply in prayer, where concentration imbues our words with clarity and purpose. To recite mindlessly is to miss the essence of the act; to recite with focus is to align the body, mind, and soul in devotion.
Contemplating or meditating on certain words allows their meanings to unfold in layers. Words like ar–raḥmān (Entirely Merciful) or ṣirāṭal-mustaqīm (Straight Path) are not static; they expand and deepen with reflection. This process not only enhances our understanding but also transforms our recitation into an ongoing dialogue with the Divine. Contemplation invites us to live these words, allowing them to shape our actions and our being.
By calling out, focusing, and meditating on sacred words, we move beyond rote recitation into the realm of lived experience. This is where the power of Al-Fātiḥah truly lies—not just in its recitation, but in how it becomes a compass for our thoughts, a guide for our actions, and a sanctuary for our hearts.
Al-Fātiḥah is a map and a mirror — a guide that walks with us. Whether spoken aloud, whispered in prayer, or traced silently in our hearts, its light enters every cell that listens.
May our steps be straight. May our breath be mindful. May the One who is near, draw nearer still.
Ameen.
📚 You may also like…
🔸 Hy Lyk Soos ’n Wolf A spiritual meditation on instinct, loyalty, and the sound of the heart behind the howl. Some names we inherit. Others we grow into.
🔸 Tamat: A Sacred Completion, A Living Beginning A reflection on the weaving of remembrance and the sacred knot at the end of a Qur’an khatm — where endings become invocations for return.
To experience this reflection through voice, image, and sacred sound — watch the short video: 👉 Between Distance and Closeness (A meditative recitation of Al-Fātiḥah with visual symbolism and breath)
🌿 Final Note
Al-Fātiḥah is not only recited — it is walked, embodied, and remembered. May each verse carry you closer to the One who is closer than your jugular vein.
🟤 A Word That Wounds and Wakes Us: Rethinking “Coloured” in the Age of Memory
By Adli Yacubi
“The name ‘Coloured’ was forcefully given to us.” — Glen Snyman, Sunday Times, 20 July 2025
Last Sunday’s front page posed a question still burning through our national psyche: “Coloured: A term to ban or build around?”
In bold red and black, the Sunday Times article (20 July 2025) captured a moment of deep fracture — and opportunity. It spotlighted the voices of two public figures, Glen Snyman and Fadiel Adams, whose opposing stances on the term “Coloured” reflect long-simmering tensions within post-apartheid identity politics.
And yet, beyond the noise, a different current is rising. One that calls not for renaming or romanticising, but for remembering.
❌ Criminalise or 🔁 Reclaim?
Glen Snyman, founder of People Against Race Classification (PARC), argues that “Coloured” is not merely outdated — it is damaging, like the K-word:
“It disguises the true identity of the first inhabitants of South Africa. The government still refuses to recognise the Khoikhoi and San people on official forms after 30 years of democracy.”
Snyman’s activism led to national debates in parliament and institutions like the Western Cape Blood Service adding the “prefer not to say” option to racial forms. But his call for criminalising the term has stirred legal and ethical challenges — and provoked a backlash from those who feel erased by the erasure.
On the other end stands Fadiel Adams, leader of the National Coloured Congress, who says:
“We are decolonising the term and reclaiming our power.”
Adams believes in building around the identity — anchoring it in lived pain, community resilience, and political recognition. But critics say this collapses our histories into apartheid boxes, reinforcing labels that were never ours to begin with.
🪶 What’s In a Name?
Into this fire, Patric Tariq Mellet, historian and author of The Camissa Embrace, offers clarity beyond polemics:
“Goringhaicona was never a name people used for themselves. It was a derogatory Dutch term meaning outcast or scavenger. Autshumao’s people were known as the /Kamisons — water traders. They were a sub-group of the Cochoqua. The term Camissa remembers them not as fragments, but as a river of convergence.”
Mellet’s contribution is not merely semantic — it’s genealogical. It reveals that terms like “Coloured” and even “Brown” are colourist overlays that flatten our multiple ancestries: San, Khoe, Xhosa, enslaved African, Indian, Javanese, and European.
His critique of both Snyman and Adams is incisive:
“Both men reflect valid concerns — but both are caught in Apartheid’s trap. One criminalises. The other romanticises. Neither steps fully into the radical work of remembering, beyond state classification.”
🧬 Memory as Resistance
To stand in this in-between space — neither erasing the term nor enshrining it — is to do the work of memory. To say: we were misnamed, but we are not unnamed. We are more than what apartheid called us. And we are not only what the census categories offer us.
This blog, like others before it, is not a position paper. It is a growing reflection rooted in questions I’ve been asking for years: — What do we mean when we say “I am Coloured”? — Who gets to say so? — And what happens when our ancestors whisper different names?
We are not “non-white.” We are not “Other.” We are not “Coloured” in the way the law intended. And we are not simply “Brown,” either.
We are Camissa. We are from the river. We are still flowing.
📝 Postscript
We acknowledge the work of Patric Tariq Mellet, whose scholarship challenges colonial erasure. Through his writing, Camissa is no longer hidden — it is remembered as a place of sweet waters, of creolised identity, of sacred convergence.
His reminder to not confuse / reclaim / romanticise pejorative colonial terms (such as “Goringhaicona”) is especially important — and will be reflected in our future revisions.
We also draw from Stuart Hall, who wrote that nations are “narrated into being.” To say “I am from Camissa” is to resist imposed categories and to speak from the riverbed of relation — to narrate the nation otherwise.
The story of who we are is still being written. Let it not be in the language of our conquerors — but in the voice of our rivers, mountains, mothers and names.
💧 The Colour of God
صِبْغَةَ ٱللَّهِ ۖ وَمَنْ أَحْسَنُ مِنَ ٱللَّهِ صِبْغَةًۭ ۖ وَنَحْنُ لَهُۥ عَـٰبِدُونَ “This is the colour of Allah. And who is better than Allah in colouring? And we are His worshippers.” (Qur’an 2:138)
Not the colours of empire. Not the names imposed by maps or ministries. But the silver sap beneath the bark. The scent of rain on root. This is the ṣibghah of God. The sacred dye of those who remember.
The Mother Tongue of Tasbih: Afrikaans, Islam, and the Echoes of Resistance
An Interlude of Love, Argument, and Memory
We were driving down a quiet stretch of road — just Sadia and I, the Karoo light pouring in through the windscreen, dust swirling around like old questions. She had grown up in Worcester, her Afrikaans carefully folded by teachers and ‘ustaads’, wrapped in the formal tones of schoolbooks and sermons — so different from the swing and slang I had grown up with in the Cape. I, on the other hand, had grown up with a different register: kombuis-Afrikaans, spoken in kitchens and mosques, spiced with Quranic rhythm and Kaapse mischief.
Somewhere between the mountains and memory, we argued.
“That’s not real Afrikaans,” she said, teasing. “You make up words.”
“And who decided what’s real?” I asked. “The Broederbond? The DRC? The state that tried to baptize us in its accent?”
She laughed — but the question lingered.
This is not just a story of a couple’s linguistic banter. It is the story of a language born in exile, nurtured in slavery, softened by Qur’an, and carried through generations of prayer, protest, and poetry. This is a story of Afrikaans — not as the language of the oppressor, but as the tasbih of the oppressed.
1. Afrikaans: Not a White Invention
Let’s begin here: Afrikaans was not born in Stellenbosch.
Its roots run through Cape Malay kitchens, slave quarters, mosque courtyards, and prayer gatherings beneath candlelight. It was whispered by Javanese mothers exiled from Batavia, recited by Wolof imams from Senegambia, taught by Hadrami scribes, and softened by the Khoena tongues of this land — long before colonial grammarians arrived to cage it in rules..
The historian Achmat Davids was among the first to challenge the myth that Afrikaans was solely a “white man’s language.” His pioneering research, later extended by Hein Willemse and others, traced Afrikaans’ earliest written form to the Muslim community of the Cape — not in Latin script, but in Arabic-Afrikaans, or what was sometimes called Ajami Afrikaans.
One of the oldest surviving texts in Afrikaans is a du’a (supplication) manual written in Arabic script by enslaved Muslims. Another is the 1869 Bayān al-Dīn, a complete Islamic catechism in Afrikaans, used for madrassah instruction. These works prove something scholars of empire often resist: that enslaved and colonised peoples were not passive recipients of a language. They reshaped it. They sanctified it. They infused it with rhythm, resistance, and remembrance.
Afrikaans was not merely a colonial bastard tongue. It was — and remains — a mother tongue for many, especially when that mother stood stirring boeber while reciting Qul Huwa Allahu Ahad under her breath.
2. Creole? Or Camissa?
I’ve always had difficulty with the word creole.
Not because I reject mixedness — quite the opposite. I honour our intertwined bloodlines, the sacred chaos of diaspora, the rivers that met and mingled here at the Cape. But because the term creole, as used by certain linguists, often carries a quiet violence: it frames our language as a compromise, a simplified system born of broken tongues. It reduces what is sacred into something stitched from scraps. As if kombuis-Afrikaans was the language of people who couldn’t speak properly — not of people who chose to pray differently.
And too often, creole becomes a coded term for “coloured.” A linguistic way of saying not-white, not-black, not-arabic, not-european — just other.
I prefer another term: Camissa. As Patric Tariq Mellet reminds us, Camissa was the name of the river that once flowed through the Cape Flats, long before the Dutch buried it under stone. It was also the name of the Goringhaicona clan who traded with the world before colonial maps erased them. To speak Camissa-Afrikaans is to remember we are not defined by brokenness — but by confluence.
So no, what we speak is not a creole. It is the tasbih of the kitchen, the dhikr of the dockyard, the language of longing. What they call kombuis, we call home.
3. The Language of Tasbih
In our home, Afrikaans was not the language of textbooks or term reports. It was the language of tasbīḥ — of remembrance, rhythm, and breath.
Thursday nights, just after maghrib, the living room would dim into stillness. A cloth was spread. The Rātib al-Ḥaddād would begin. First a whisper: Qul huwa Allāhu Aḥad… Then a swelling chorus — women’s voices, children’s murmurs, old men with trembling hands.
We called it the Gadat. It was recited in Arabic, but held together by Afrikaans: the instructions, the rhythm, the murmured cues. “Ouens, netjies!” “Hou die beat mooi!” “Moenie vinnig ry nie — luister na die kalmte.”
Sometimes, someone would break from the dhikr to hush a restless child. “Shhh, dis nou Allāh se tyd, my kind.” That now — that insistence that this moment of prayer was sacred and immediate — still echoes in my chest.
And when it was done, a sweetness returned: koesisters passed hand to hand, boeber ladled with care, stories resumed in Kaaps lilt. The tasbīḥ was complete — not just in recitation, but in the return to one another.
…
In his later years, my father told me how the elders taught Qur’an in Afrikaans before Arabic letters could be properly mastered. Children would chant: “Alif duwa detis, Alif duwa bowa, Alif duwa dappan, An In Oen.” It was a phonetic bridge — an echo of how Javanese, Malay, and Arab teachers preserved tajwīd in a tongue the children already knew.
This wasn’t a lack of Arabic. It was a path to it.
And it wasn’t unique.
In Senegal, Wolof Muslims chant dhikr in their own rhythms. In Indonesia, pegon script preserves the Qur’an in Javanese hearts. At the Cape, Afrikaans — even in its kitchen form — became the vessel through which the Names of God entered the ears of children.
Afrikaans was never just a tool of survival. It was a tool of transmission.
Of tawḥīd in a tongue our mothers understood.
4. Jawap: The Command to Recite
In the old madrassah, silence was not golden — it was a gap in the chain of transmission. A break in the rhythm. A forgetting.
And so, when your voice faltered or your memory stalled, the mu’allim would lean forward — not with cruelty, but with urgency — and say:
“Jawap, my kind!”
Not shout. Not plead. But command. Recite. Respond. Step back into the rhythm.
Because in the Cape, jawap was never just “answer.” It was a summons — to speak, to return, to carry what you’ve been given.
The word comes from the Arabic ج و ب — jawāb, meaning “reply,” and ijābah, the act of answering a call. But in Afrikaaps, jawap widened its reach. It meant:
Recite the ayah.
Step into the beat.
Don’t let the tasbīḥ fall silent.
You could hear it outside the masjid too — In a kitchen when someone moved too slow:
“Jawap nou! Die kos gaan brand!” In a playful quarrel between siblings: “Ek wag vir jou jawap, dan sal jy sien!”
But the root remained sacred.
To jawap was to not let the memory die. It was to pull the verse from the chest, even if the chest was tight. It was to let the breath carry the Names of God, even when the tongue stumbled.
…
Some nights, I’d sit with my father as he corrected a cousin’s recitation. He never raised his voice. Just waited for the right moment and said, gently but firmly:
“Jawap, my klong! Djy ken die beat. Ma’ moenie vergiet’ie.”
That sentence lives in me.
And I wonder now if that’s what the Qur’an itself asks of us:
Fa-ijībū li… So respond to Me… (Qur’an 2:186)
Not just with belief, but with voice. Not only with intellect, but with breath.
To live is to jawap. To remember is to jawap. To teach, to protest, to praise — is to jawap.
And maybe that’s why the Gadat still echoes through the Cape — Not because we’ve mastered every rule of tajwīd, But because someone once told us:
“Don’t keep quiet. Jawap.”
A salomie is how we hold history — wrapped in warmth, passed from hand to hand. To live is to jawap. To resist is to remember what we’re made of.
5. Echoes of Resistance: A Language That Refused to Die
To speak Afrikaaps was once considered vulgar. Uneducated. Low. The language of skollies, meidens, and kitchen girls. The official line was clear: proper speech belonged to white mouths and white pulpits.
But at the Cape — in Salt River, Bo-Kaap, Parkwood, Belhar, and Bonteheuwel — our people spoke tasbīḥ in their own tongue.
And that was resistance.
They recited Qur’an with Kaapse inflections. They sang dhikr in alleyways, under washing lines, between the Sunday curry and the Monday washing. They wrote duʿāʾ in Arabic script — with Afrikaans vowels — because the state’s education system wouldn’t teach them Arabic, and the imām couldn’t write Latin.
This wasn’t survival. It was sovereignty.
When the tongue of the oppressor tried to rename us, we jawapped back with remembrance. When they broke our schools, we turned kitchens into classrooms. When they mocked our accent, we sharpened it into poetry.
And in that echo, you can still hear the names of the early reciters: Tuan Guru teaching on Robben Island. Imam Saban writing Bayān al-Dīn for the children of slaves. Ouma Gatie sitting in her chair, reciting Yā Sīn in Afrikaans until her teeth ached — and her soul rose light.
Even Apartheid’s Bible — the 1933 Afrikaans translation — couldn’t erase the sound of tasbīḥ in our streets. Because we had our own Book, our own rhythm. Our mothers wrapped Qur’an verses in the same cloth they wrapped around your lunch tin: tight, warm, enough.
…
To remember in Afrikaans — to teach La ilāha illā Allāh with a Cape tongue — is not just a cultural artefact.
It is a form of sabr. Of jihād. Of wilfully remembering what empire tried to make us forget.
And so even now, when I hear a child reciting in Afrikaaps, I don’t correct the accent.
I listen for the memory in the melody. Because sometimes, the resistance is not in the grammar — It’s in the breath.
Theatre as Tasbīḥ: Walking Through 333 Years
In 1986, the Call of Islam commemorated 333 years of Islam in South Africa — not with a speech, but with a play.
“A Walk Through 333 Years” was a theatrical act of remembrance: combining Qur’anic recitation, storytelling, song, and dramatic re-enactment of Muslim life from enslavement to resistance.
Directed by a community professional, informed by the late Achmat Davids’ research, and carried by a cast of ordinary believers, the play jawapped our history with full breath. It wasn’t just performance — it was pedagogy.
The production travelled across the country and left audiences moved in ways no pamphlet or sermon could match.
Like tasbīḥ in the kitchen or dhikr in the alleyway, this was language at work — resisting, remembering, reclaiming.
Because sometimes, the resistance is not just in the grammar.
It’s in the gathering. It’s in the jawap. It’s in the walk through our own years — together.
6. Tongue, Tasbīḥ, and the Right to Return
So what is a language?
A dictionary will tell you it’s a system. A grammar. A structure of rules.
But we — the people of kombuise and kramats, of ratibs and roti — we know different.
We know that a language is also a holding. A way to wrap memory is like a salomie wrapped in a roti — not for perfection, but to preserve warmth.
We know that Afrikaans is not only the language of the jailer — it is also the jawap of the jailed. It is the rhythm of the Qur’an under colonial roofs. It is the sound of mothers whispering Bismillah while brushing a child’s hair. It is the beat of “Moenie vergiet’ie” — not as a threat, but as a prayer.
If they ask us who we are, we might say: We are the children of those who answered with breath when the world tried to silence them.
We are the ones who recited even when we could not read. Who made dhikr in a tongue they said was impure. Who kept the memory of revelation alive — in kitchens, classrooms, corners of mosques, and hearts that stammered but never surrendered.
…
And so, if anyone asks:
What kind of Afrikaans is this?
Tell them gently:
This is not the Afrikaans of the oppressor. This is the mother tongue of tasbīḥ. The language of jawap. The rhythm of remembrance. This is the tongue that taught us to speak back to the silence — and return to God with our own breath, in our own way.
Because what they called kombuis, we called home.
📚 Footnotes & References:
Achmat Davids, The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims from 1815 to 1915: A Socio-Linguistic Study, UCT PhD Thesis, 1987. Foundational in establishing the role of Arabic-Afrikaans and Cape Muslim literacy practices.
Hein Willemse, editor and scholar of Afrikaans literary traditions, particularly around marginalised and non-standard variants. Relevant essays include: “Language, Race and Power in South Africa.”
Patric Tariq Mellet, The Lie of 1652: A Decolonised History of Land, and various writings on Camissa identity and language reclamation.
Adli Jacobs, Punching Above Its Weight: The Story of the Call of Islam, Function Books, 2024, p. 84. Documents the Call of Islam’s 1986 theatrical production “A Walk Through 333 Years”, co-developed with historian Achmat Davids. This performance combined Qur’anic recitation, song, and drama to embody the memory of Islam’s journey from slavery to resistance in South Africa.
Qur’anic verse cited: Qur’an 2:186 — “So respond to Me (fa-ijībū li) and believe in Me, that they may be rightly guided.”
Oral traditions and family sayings (e.g. “Jawap, my klong. Jy ken die beat.”) Attributed to the author’s father, part of Cape Muslim living heritage.
Arabic-Afrikaans manuscripts (e.g. Bayān al-Dīn, Ratib al-Ḥaddād in Arabic-Afrikaans): Refer to holdings in the National Library of South Africa, Clarke Estate Mosques, and private Cape Muslim collections.
Laagu vs Tajwīd debates and Thursday night Gadat gatherings: Drawn from oral sources and lived practice in Cape Town’s Muslim communities. May cite the influence of Shaykh Seraj Hendricks, Imam Taha Gamieldien, and Imam Abdullah Haron’s legacy of fusing dhikr with defiance.
🪶 Related Articles in This Series:
The Forgotten Tongue of Remembrance A reflection on Arabic-Afrikaans, the erased voices of dhikr, and the linguistic tenderness that survived colonial erasure.
Tamat: A Sacred Completion, A Living Beginning Explores the Cape Muslim tamat ceremony as both rite of passage and living echo of West African, Javanese, and Arab pedagogical traditions.
(Passed down through the mothers. Told now in your hands.)
My mother told me this story. She said her own mother heard it from her mother. So now, I pass it to you — like a seed in the wind — so that you, too, might send it down the line.
If you look toward our mountain — Table Mountain — you’ll see the cloth of cloud spread across its top like a table set for guests. To the right: the lion, his back forming Signal Hill, his mane rising into Lion’s Head. To the left: Devil’s Peak, brooding. The lion and the devil seated at the same table. What a sight for any ship entering Table Bay!
But this story is older than the ships. Older than the settlers who named those peaks. Older even than the first Khoi and San who walked these lands.
Long, long ago — perhaps 22,000 years or more — the people lived far inland. The land was green. Rivers ran deep. Wild animals moved in herds like shadows. The earth was generous.
But then the rains lessened. The land grew hotter, harder. Some clans became violent. The world was shifting.
And so it was that a man named Gubi — a fire-maker, a spark of a man — took his young son, Nori, and journeyed south along the Atlantic edge. Not fleeing. Seeking.
Their goods were wrapped in leather. Their bows slung across their backs. They followed the cold sea winds, walking toward a dream of sanctuary.
One night, as their fire danced in the dunes, hyenas came snarling through the dark — hunting porcupines. Gubi rose with fire in hand, casting its light wide, pushing the predators back into the night.
From the shadows came a porcupine. But this was no ordinary porcupine. She was old — a sage — her quills silver with wisdom. She stepped forward and spoke in a voice like rustling leaves:
“You have shown courage and care. For this, I give you a pouch.”
Inside: a handful of shimmering seeds — soft, silver-tipped, unlike anything they had seen.
She said: “As you walk, look for the place where the sea makes clouds. When you find it, plant these. If they grow, you’ll know: this is your place.”
And so they walked on.
And when they reached the foot of the mountain — flat, cloud-veiled, vast — Gubi and Nori felt the truth of it in their bones.
They planted the seeds.
And by dawn, the Silver Trees had begun to rise — shimmering, breathing, alive.
Not just plants. A blessing.
And that is how the Silver Tree — found only here — came to live beneath Table Mountain. Not brought by botanists. Not named by settlers. But gifted by a porcupine, Planted by Gubi and Nori, Rooted in fire, story, and seed.
And when the rains came, those Silver Trees drank from the river that flowed down the mountain — the one they called Camissa — the place of sweet waters, rushing underground, murmuring toward the sea.
Even now, that river runs — quietly — beneath the city that forgot it. But the mountain remembers.
It remembers its own name.
Not Table. But Hoerikwaggo — the Mountain of the Sea. To its right, the curled-back hill they once called The Sleeping Lion — its back arched into what settlers would name Signal Hill, its mane rising into Lion’s Head. To the left, the shadowed one — once called Windmaker’s Watch, now called Devil’s Peak.
The land is older than its names. And stories, like rivers, find their way back.
Epilogue
Some stories are planted, not written. They take root in silence. They grow in the shade of memory.
This is one of those.
Passed from mother to daughter, from father to son, from fire-circle to ear, from silence to word.
The Silver Tree still stands. The mountain still watches. And somewhere, Gubi and Nori are still walking — between cloud and coast, between the land’s longing and the sky’s answer.
So tell this story again.
When the mountain is misted, when the wind shifts, when the child beside you asks, “Where did we come from?” Tell them…
“Let me tell you the story of Gubi and Nori — the spark and the seeker — and the tree that shimmered with yes.”
Postscript
This story is told in honour of those who remind us that memory is a form of resistance.
We acknowledge Patric Tariq Mellet, whose book The Camissa Embrace reclaims the deep currents beneath colonial erasure. Through his work, Camissa is no longer hidden — it is remembered as a place of sweet waters, of creolised identity, of sacred convergence.
We also draw from Stuart Hall, particularly The Fateful Triangle: Race, Ethnicity, Nation, which reminds us that nations are not simply born — they are narrated into being. To say I am from Camissa is to resist imposed categories and to speak from the riverbed of relation — to narrate the nation otherwise.
This reflection flows alongside the companion essay:
I wrote this story in honour of a voice passed through many generations — from my mother, to her mother, and beyond. It weaves ancestral memory with imagination, drawing from the wisdom of our lands, our rivers, and our people.
Gubi and Nori may be characters in legend, but they carry something real: the spirit of all those who walked before names, who travelled with seeds, and who listened deeply to the mountain’s silence.
I offer this story as a small act of remembering — a quiet prayer that memory may once again run like water beneath the city.
– Adli Yacubi Writer. Listener. Wordsmith of the Sweet Waters.
The Ratib al-Haddad: A Symphony of Spiritual Resilience
Introduction
In the centuries-old Cape Muslim tradition, the Rātib al-Ḥaddād stands as a spiritual symphony. Its composer, Imam ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlawī al-Ḥaddād, drew upon a Qur’anic verse known as the Verse that Faces Outward at the Rawdah of the Prophet ﷺ, giving it a protective resonance. This rhythmic litany unfolds like movements of a musical masterpiece, each moment drawing the heart closer to Divine presence. Inspired by Imam al-Haddad’s mission to guide believers through fear and trial, the Ratib remains a living masterpiece of faith.
Movement I: The Prelude of Protection
O you who fear, gather at the gate of forgiveness; Bismillah like a banner above your heart, Ayatul Kursi as your armour, verses of Baqarah as your shield. In this dawn of remembrance, let salawat fall on your lips like rain upon a thirsty earth, and trust flow through your veins until your soul is clothed in light. This is the first movement: a prayer of protection woven from the very breath of Revelation.
Movement II: The Rhythms of Remembrance
Subḥānallāh, transcendence like the sky’s endless horizon; Alḥamdulillāh, gratitude flowing through every breath; Allahu Akbar, awe striking the heart; Lā ilāha illallāh, unity beyond all boundaries. These dhikr, recitations, rise and fall like ocean waves, polishing the mirror of the heart until it shines with trust and surrender.
Movement III: The Pulse of Tawhid
Al Maʿbūd, meaning The Worshipped One, calls the believer to recite Lā ilāha illallāh fifty times, each repetition chiseling away fear and confirming pure oneness. It circles the heart like a crown of certainty. The three Quls stand as guardians, their verses sealing every crack against doubt. This movement is a fortress of tawhid, where the soul forgets every other reliance and trusts only Allah.
Movement IV: The Prayerful Crescendo
Duas rise like incense, interlaced with Al-Fātiḥa, each plea a petition for healing, protection, mercy, and light. The tongue becomes a river of hope, carrying the soul to a calm shore. Here the believer surrenders every burden, resting in the assurance that Allah is the One who hears and responds.
Closing Invocations
Al-Fātiḥa on the soul of our master, our beloved, our intercessor, the Messenger of Allah, Muhammad ibn Abdillah, his family, his Companions, his wives, and all his noble household.
Al-Fātiḥa on the soul of our master al-Muhajir Ahmad ibn Isa and his descendants.
Al-Fātiḥa on the soul of our great teacher, the jurist al-Muqaddam Muhammad ibn Ali Ba Alawi and his lineage.
Al-Fātiḥa on the souls of our noble Sufi masters wherever they may be, east or west, that Allah may raise their ranks.
Al-Fātiḥa on the soul of the compiler of the Ratib, the Axis of Guidance, Abdullah ibn Alawi al-Haddad and his family line.
Al-Fātiḥa on the souls of all the pious servants of Allah, our parents, our teachers, those who have rights upon us, and the believers who have passed away in this land.
Cape Ritual Practice
In South Africa, especially in the Cape, families often recite the Ratib al-Haddad after a loved one passes away, beginning from the first night and continuing for seven nights, then gathering on the fortieth day, the hundredth day, and each year on the anniversary of the passing. The Ratib is also recited at birthdays, during Mawlud celebrations, generally every Thursday night, sometimes Sunday mornings, a week before weddings, at engagements (known as lambary), and at naming ceremonies (doekmal or doopmal). This tradition anchors the community in remembrance and prayers for all occasions of joy, transition, and remembrance.
About Dhikr
The term dhikr refers to remembering, remembrance, or reciting and chanting the names of Allah, specific prayers, or Qur’anic verses. It is a rhythmic practice that roots the soul in the Divine, and is central to the Ratib al-Haddad tradition.
Individual or Group Practice
The Ratib al-Haddad can be recited alone or in a group, with equal blessing. Allah says in the Qur’an: “And men and women who remember Allah often — for (all of) them Allah has prepared forgiveness and a great reward” (Quran 33:35). The Prophet ﷺ said: “People will not sit in an assembly in which they remember Allah without the angels surrounding them, mercy covering them, and Allah mentioning them among those who are with Him.”
Foundations
The Ratib al-Haddad stands upon the firmest pillars of faith, a radiant string of pearls drawn from the Qur’an and Sunnah. It opens with the best Surah — Sūrat al-Fātiḥah, flows into the greatest verse — Āyat al-Kursī, affirms the Shahādah — the finest declaration of oneness, and continues with the enduring praises of al-Bāqiyāt al-Ṣāliḥāt. It includes the daily istighfār of the Prophet ﷺ, abundant ṣalawāt upon the Beloved ﷺ, and concludes with the dhikr by which Imām al-Bukhārī sealed his Ṣaḥīḥ.
Composed in sacred sequence by Imām ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlawī al-Ḥaddād — a noble grandson of the Messenger ﷺ — this Ratib is not merely a litany, but a luminous map of remembrance. It is a symphony of Qur’anic light and Prophetic rhythm, preserved across centuries as a living trust.
And its resonance reached far beyond Ḥaḍramawt: both the Wird al-Laṭīf and the Ratib al-Ḥaddād were introduced and supported within the Harams of Makkah and Madinah under the patronage of Sultan Muḥammad IV of the Ottoman Empire (r. 1648–1687). This formal recognition affirms the Ratib’s deep-rooted legitimacy — not as invention, but as a distillation of the best of revelation, transmitted and treasured by the global Ummah.
Ijāzah: A Living Trust of the Ratib
For those who wish to benefit from the Ratib al-Haddad, we carry with us a sacred ijāzah — a scholarly and spiritual transmission — conveyed through four chains (asanīd) that reach back to the Composer of the Ratib, Imām ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAlawī al-Ḥaddād**, may Allah sanctify his soul.
Shaykh Jamiel Abrahams writes:
“Ijāzah for those who wish to benefit from the four asānid to the Composer of the Ratib… Say: Qabilnā al-Ijāzah — ‘We have accepted the scholarly permission to recite the Ratib of Imām al-Ḥaddād.’”
“We say Composer, not Author — for the adhkār are drawn from the finest pearls of the Qur’an and the most radiant lights of the Prophetic Sunnah.”
This ijāzah is not just scholarly — it is a living trust passed down through centuries of remembrance. To receive it is to stand in the river of continuity, with the awliyāʾ and scholars who preserved this path of dhikr through love, hardship, and sincerity.
And as for those who label such remembrance a bidʿah…
رَغِمَ أَنْفُ مَن صَرَّحَ بِأَنَّهَا بِدْعَةٌ “May the nose be rubbed in dust of the one who declares it an innovation.”
Let the river flow. Let the remembrance remain. And let every breath that utters His Name be a proof of mercy, not division.
My Personal Ijazah
This symphony carries my own transmission: an ijāzah granted by Zaid ibn Umar to me, Adli ibn Ibrahim, written in his own hand, linking me to the chain of Imam al-Haddad. That blessing lives within every note of this symphonic meditation, reminding me of the trust, humility, and sacred responsibility that this heritage confers. This ijazah is more than a note: it is a living chain, a breath carried from master to student across centuries, reaching back to Imam al-Haddad and forward into my heart. It binds me to the rhythm of this Ratib as if to a heartbeat, reminding me to hold it with care, reverence, and gratitude, so its protection and blessing might continue to resonate for future generations.
Historical Echoes
The Ratib was recited by enslaved Muslims at the Cape as a shield of hope and protection during times of oppression, helping them hold fast to faith. Generations later, it became a spiritual companion for many who resisted apartheid, its verses reminding them of divine justice, courage, and unity against all forms of tyranny. It is said that in the darkest nights of slavery at the Cape, the Ratib became a quiet liberation, whispered in hidden corners. Its rhythms reminded believers they were still seen by Allah, still dignified. During the anti-apartheid struggle, activists turned to these same verses, finding courage and calm as they faced injustice, with the Ratib a spiritual sword against oppression and despair.
Conclusion
From Yemen to the Cape, from ancient gatherings to modern hearts, the Ratib al-Haddad remains a living breath of resilience and unity. Its movements still guide communities to remember Allah, to stand together in hope, and to place trust in Divine mercy across the centuries. Like a living river, its currents still flow, nourishing communities with remembrance and calling them to a higher trust in Allah’s mercy. Imam al-Haddad, inspired by the symbolism of the Verse that Faces Outward, wove its spiritual meanings into the Ratib, transforming it into a shield that echoed both the Prophetic sanctuary and the everyday lives of worshippers from Yemen to the Cape.
May its verses guard every heart, and may its blessings gather our children and their children into the same ocean of divine love, until the final day.
The word Tamat has been spoken in Cape Muslim homes for generations — a word so small, yet carrying the weight of centuries of memory. It is more than a graduation. It is a celebration of sound, of presence, of a child who has taken the Qur’an into their tongue and heart, and who now steps forward to carry it into the world.
Our grandparents knew this word from Hadramaut, where the Tamat was a festival of joy and responsibility. When a child completed their Qur’an recitation, they were gathered into a seven-day procession of voices, prayers, and sweets — with flags raised high, neighbours cheering, and the whole community celebrating the future. It was never just about memorising verses, but about honouring the discipline of correct recitation, Tajweed, manners, and knowledge that could anchor a whole community.
These children wore the banus, a beautifully embroidered cloth, reserved just for Tamat days. Banners would shimmer with Surah al-Fatihah and Ayatul Kursi waving above their heads, as if to shield and guide them on their new journey. Their teachers, the elders, and even passing strangers would bless them — because everyone understood: this child will serve, protect, and live the Qur’an (based on Sheikh Jamiel Abrahams, 2025).
When Tamat Reached the Cape
When Hadrami scholars and teachers arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, they brought this deep tradition with them, adapting it to new winds and new stones. In places like District Six, Bo-Kaap, and beyond, the Tamat found fresh soil.
Cape children would gather in the masjids, reciting the final chapters they had laboured over line by line, vowel by vowel. Then they would step out, dressed in their sorbaan and medora, and walk proudly along the cobbled streets. Their path sometimes led them all the way to the Company Gardens, deep in the colonial centre of Cape Town — an act of courage and pride that seemed to say, “This Qur’an walks with us too.”
In those moments, they were not just finishing a book. They were claiming a legacy.
The Meaning of Sorbaan and Medora
The garments of Tamat still speak.
For the boys, the sorbaan is a turban, but far more — a Khirqah al-Taḥkīm, a sign of trust. It wraps the head with a promise: you are now a guardian of Qur’an, carrying its mercy and its responsibility.
For the girls, the medora — circular, beautifully embroidered in gold or silver threads — holds the same dignity. It says: Your voice, too, is worthy. Your recitation is precise. Your role is essential.
In both, there is no sense of “fashion” — only inheritance.
A Tapestry of Cape Heritage
What makes Tamat so powerful is how it weaves into a far bigger story. It stands alongside the handwritten kitāb manuscripts passed down through Cape families, and the huffādh who still recite on local radio during Muharram (VOC Khatam broadcast, 2025). It echoes in the walls of the Auwal Mosque, where Tuan Guru — himself a prisoner and Qur’an teacher — copied out the entire Qur’an from memory in chains, so that his community would not lose its light.
It whispers through the kramats encircling Cape Town, the shrines of saints and scholars who carried Islam through exile, and who insisted that education was the best shield against forgetting who we are. Many of these traditions, as documented in works like Al-Istizādah min Akhbār as-Sādah compiled by Ali bin Muhsin al-Saqqaf, travelled with Hadrami scholars to the Cape and found new expression in the garments, recitations, and community gatherings of local Cape Muslim life.
It even rests quietly in the Tana Baru cemetery, where generations of those who lived the Qur’an are buried, their tombstones telling silent stories of resilience.
Beyond Memorisation
One of the most powerful aspects of Tamat, especially in the Cape tradition, is that it was never simply about memorising words.
Children were trained in correct pronunciation, rhythm, and understanding. They were questioned on the essential knowledge of their faith, from acts of worship to everyday etiquette, and the rights and responsibilities of being a Muslim in society.
Their teachers, elders, and neighbours stood witness that these children had become competent not only in their individual acts of worship (furoodh ayniyyah) but also in their ability to serve the community (furoodh kifayah): to lead prayer, to help wash and bury the deceased, to read du‘ā for the sick, to keep society upright.
In this way, Tamat was never a personal achievement alone, but a communal guarantee of resilience.
Echoes in Bosmont
Though times have changed, the spirit of Tamat still lives on. Take, for example, the Bosmont madrassa in the 1970s, where 15 young boys and girls graduated after years of Qur’anic training. Their ceremony was called Gatmeid Koran — a name with the same spirit as Tamat.
Six boys and nine girls, only twelve to fourteen years old, stood before thousands of family members and neighbours, reciting what they had carried line by line, vowel by vowel. The hall was so full that people pressed against the windows to watch.
It was more than a prize-giving. It was a moment of pride, of hope, of handing the Qur’an over to the next guardians of its sound and meaning.
Imams and teachers from all over — including Durban, Cape Town, and the Transvaal — came to witness these children take their place in the living chain of knowledge. There was even a colourful procession through the streets, a tradition of honour that stretched all the way back to Hadramaut.
They were not just students. They were being trusted to live the Qur’an: to hold its discipline, to guard its standards of moral character, to shine it into their communities.
(Source: newspaper clipping shared by Sheikh Jamiel Abrahams, c. 1970s)
A Living Beginning: Our Echoes, Our Hope
In every child who ties the sorbaan or drapes the medora, there lives a promise. A promise that the Qur’an will not only be memorised, but lived — that its rhythms will shape how we speak, how we act, how we serve.
From the echo of Hadramaut’s processions, to the cobbled streets of District Six, to the crowded halls of Bosmont where children stood reciting before thousands — Tamat has remained a celebration of beginnings, not endings.
These ceremonies remind us that we are never alone. We stand in a line of teachers, elders, and ancestors who trusted the Qur’an to transform us, generation after generation.
As long as there is a child willing to steady their breath, to learn its melody, to carry its mercy into the world, then our communities will never be without light.
That is the heartbeat of Tamat. That is why it will always matter. And that is why it must continue.
A Closing Du‘ā
O Allah, accept from these children what they have learned, strengthen their tongues in Your remembrance, open their hearts to Your wisdom, and grant them the courage to carry Your Book with mercy and justice. Make them lanterns for their families, protectors for their neighbours, and guides toward goodness. And let every letter they have recited be light on their path in this world and the next. Ameen.
References woven into the narrative:
Sheikh Jamiel Abrahams, Tamat, Its Origins and Objectives (2025)
VOC Radio Cape Town annual Khatam broadcast (2025)
Tuan Guru’s Qur’an manuscripts at Auwal Mosque (Wikipedia)
Hājar: The Black Mother Whose Faith Turned the Heart of Hajj
With deep gratitude to all who preserve these sacred stories.
Introduction
Hājar — a Black African woman, enslaved and then displaced — was chosen by Allah to become the mother of Ismāʿīl, and to have her house absorbed into the sacred geometry of the Kaʿbah itself.
Not a prophet. Not a queen. Not a caliph. But a mother. A servant. A Black woman.
The House of Allah bows toward her grave.
Ali Shariati called her the “Unknown Soldier” of Islam. But Allah made her known forever — through Zamzam, through Safa and Marwa, through the sacred enclosure known as Ḥijr Ismāʿīl. You cannot perform Hajj without acknowledging her. That is not just history. That is revolution.
When I look across the ummah today — from Cape Town to Cairo, Timbuktu to Jakarta — I see faces of every shade, hearts carrying a message revealed for all people, for all time. Yet too often, I also see shadows of forgetfulness, places where racism still stalks our communities.
Hājar’s story stands to remind us: Allah honours whom He wills.
1️⃣ Introduction to Hājar’s Background
Hājar was an African woman, described in traditional sources as a servant of Sarah, married to Ibrahim (a.s), and the mother of Ismāʿīl. She was displaced, left alone with her child in a barren valley with no shelter or food, yet her faith did not break.
When Ibrahim prepared to leave, she asked him only one question: “Has Allah commanded you to do this?” He said yes. And she replied: “Then He will not abandon us.”
In those words, you hear an entire revolution of trust.
2️⃣ The Test in the Valley
Ibrahim (a.s) left them in that desolate place, answering Allah’s command. Hājar stood alone, with her child crying from thirst, under a burning sun. The Qur’an echoes Ibrahim’s prayer for them in Surah Ibrahim (14:37):
“Our Lord, I have settled some of my descendants in an uncultivated valley near Your sacred House, our Lord, that they may establish prayer…”
While Ibrahim placed his trust in Allah and walked away, Hājar held the child close and placed her trust in Allah while staying put.
3️⃣ The Sa‘y of Hājar
The baby, Ismāʿīl, cried in hunger. Hājar’s heart broke, but she did not surrender to despair. She ran to Safa, looking for water. Then to Marwa. Then back again. Seven times she ran between those hills, searching, hoping, refusing to quit.
This was not a ritual yet — this was a desperate mother in motion, placing faith in her feet as well as her heart.
Allah loved that moment so much that He turned it into an act of worship until the end of time. The Prophet ﷺ established the sa‘y as a pillar of both Hajj and ʿUmrah, hardwiring Hājar’s courage into the fabric of Islamic devotion.
4️⃣ Zamzam: The Well of Mercy
After her seventh run, the angel of Allah appeared, striking the earth where Ismāʿīl’s heels had kicked, and water gushed forth. Hājar rushed to gather it, crying “Zamzam, Zamzam” — gather, gather.
What an image: A mother shaping the flow of a spring that would sustain a civilization.
Even today, millions drink Zamzam, quenching their thirst from the miracle granted to her trust.
5️⃣ Zamzam and the Birth of Quraysh
From Zamzam, life returned to that valley. Birds gathered, signaling water, and desert tribes came to settle there with Hājar’s permission. From these settlements, a community grew, and over centuries, the Quraysh tribe took shape — the tribe that would eventually protect the Kaʿbah and see the birth of the Prophet ﷺ himself.
Allah reminds Quraysh of these blessings in Surah Quraysh:
“Let them worship the Lord of this House, Who has fed them against hunger and made them secure against fear.” (Qur’an 106:3–4)
The security and provision mentioned here trace directly back to Hājar’s courage, the water of Zamzam, and the revival of Makkah as a place of blessing.
She was not only the mother of Ismāʿīl. She was the grandmother of the Quraysh, the one whose faith made their existence possible.
6️⃣ The Kaʿbah and the Ḥijr Ismāʿīl
Years later, when Ismāʿīl (a.s) and Ibrahim (a.s) rebuilt the Kaʿbah, Hājar was still there to witness it. When she passed away, Allah honoured her so greatly that her grave was placed within the semi-circular enclosure next to the Kaʿbah — the Ḥijr Ismāʿīl.
Even today, every Muslim who bows toward the Kaʿbah bows toward the grave of a Black mother, a woman whose heart trusted Allah completely.
If the Kaʿbah is the heart of the Muslim world, then Hājar is the pulse that keeps it beating.
7️⃣ The Symbolism of Hājar
Hājar is not just a historical figure — she is a living ritual. Every sa‘y repeats her running. Every sip of Zamzam repeats her hope. Every glance at the Kaʿbah remembers the woman whose grave lies in its shade.
The Prophet ﷺ hardwired her courage into the pillars of worship, so no pilgrim can ever complete Hajj or ʿUmrah without walking in her footsteps.
Ali Shariati called her the “Unknown Soldier” of Islam. But Allah made her known forever.
He made her sa‘y eternal. He made her water a source of life. He made her grave a sign of dignity.
For every woman who has been dismissed, for every person who has been enslaved, for every soul who has been left alone in the desert of despair — Hājar is the proof that Allah sees you, Allah remembers you, and Allah can make your struggle immortal.
8️⃣ Modern Resonance
In our time, the stories of Black women are still pushed to the margins. Hājar corrects that. She was a Black woman, a servant, alone — yet Allah made her footsteps a sacred pillar, her water a miracle, her grave a sanctuary.
Every year, millions repeat her ritual, even if they do not say her name. Millions face the Kaʿbah, even if they do not know who rests in its courtyard.
Hājar shows us that Allah honours faith wherever He finds it, and that He can transform even the most overlooked among us into the authors of history.
If she was enough to carry the future of Islam on her shoulders, then every Black woman is enough.
And still, we must ask — as reader Khaliq Dollie so piercingly put it:
“How can anyone who has performed Hajj have even the slightest amount of racism or be sexist — unless, of course, they only perform the ritualistic aspects without comprehending?”
This is more than a question. It is a reckoning.
How can one run where a Black woman ran, drink from her well, bow toward her grave — and still carry arrogance in the heart?
Unless the ritual never reached the bloodstream. Unless the heart never opened to her story.
Hājar does not just invite motion; she demands meaning. Not just performance, but transformation. Not just remembrance, but repentance.
As the Qur’an reminds us:
“It is neither their flesh nor their blood that reaches Allah, but it is your taqwā that reaches Him.” — Surah al-Ḥajj, 22:37
True Hajj begins where ego ends — in humility, in honour, in justice.
To walk her path is to honour every Hājar still unnamed — every woman, every Black body, every soul left in the desert with nothing but trust.
9️⃣ Conclusion
Pilgrims still run between Safa and Marwa. Children still drink from Zamzam. Believers still circle the Kaʿbah.
All of these acts, day after day, year after year, remain living proof of a woman’s courage — a woman whom the world tried to forget.
Hājar did not hold a royal title. She did not lead an army. She was not a prophet. She was a mother. A servant. A displaced Black woman. Yet Allah made her story the foundation of the sanctuary itself, built the House of God around her grave, and made her sa‘y part of every pilgrimage until the end of time.
That is not just history. That is revolution.
May every step we take between Safa and Marwa remind us of her strength. May every sip of Zamzam honour her trust. And may every glance toward the Kaʿbah remember the mother who gave it life.
🌿 A Dua
O Allah, as You accepted Hājar’s faith, accept our faith. As You answered her cry for water, answer our cries for hope. As You made her story immortal, make our footsteps sincere and worthy of Your mercy. Let her memory heal the hearts still wounded by racism, and honour every mother who stands alone with trust in You. Āmīn.
A Reflection Inspired by a Reader: A friend reminded me that Hājar’s courage speaks also to hidden forms of abandonment: how we sometimes feel unseen, even by ourselves. Her words — “Allah will not abandon us” — are an anchor not just for surviving the desert, but for surviving the storms within. May we never abandon our own hearts, nor each other.
As the Qur’an reminds us:
“And those firmly rooted in knowledge say, ‘We believe in it; all of it is from our Lord.’” (Qur’an 3:7)
Another Reflection Inspired by Masooda Fadal: She reminded me that Ibrahim (a.s), when leaving his father’s community, said: “I am turning to my Lord. He will feed me and clothe me. He suffices me.”
Alongside him, in the same family, Hājar carried that same radical trust, saying: “Allah will not abandon us.”
There is a deep yet silent beauty in their inner shared knowing — a spiritual inheritance that flowed between father and mother and reached their child, becoming a collective, rasikh rooted faith.
Masooda also reflected that Hājar’s story amplifies the message of gender and race: that women equally embody the path of submission. While Ibrahim is often seen as the template of pure tawakkul, Hājar mirrored it so beautifully, showing that Allah honoured her Black, feminine courage with the same divine legacy.
This teaches us that abandonment is not only physical; it can be subtle, hidden, even within ourselves. Hājar’s faith is an antidote to all those layers — reminding us never to abandon our own hearts, nor each other.
Comment Prompt
Who in your family or community reminds you of Hājar? Share their story — let us honour these mothers of faith together.
Africans in Early Islam: A Celebration of Courage, Dignity, and Faith
With deep gratitude to Shaykh Allie Khalfe for preserving these gems of our tradition.
Introduction
Hājar — a Black African woman, enslaved and then displaced — was chosen by Allah to become the mother of Ismāʿīl, and to have her house absorbed into the sacred geometry of the Kaʿbah itself.
Not a prophet. Not a king. Not a caliph. But a mother. A servant. A Black woman.
The House of Allah bows toward her grave.
Ali Shariati called her the “Unknown Soldier” of Islam. But Allah made her known forever — through Zamzam, through Safa and Marwa, through the sacred enclosure known as Ḥijr Ismāʿīl. You cannot perform Hajj without acknowledging her. That is not just history. That is revolution.
When I look across the ummah today — from Cape Town to Cairo, Timbuktu to Jakarta — I see faces of every shade, hearts carrying a message revealed for all people, for all time. Yet too often, I also see shadows of forgetfulness, places where racism still stalks our communities.
The Prophet ﷺ said:
“People are as equal as the teeth of a comb.” (Musnad Ahmad)
This was no empty slogan. It was a living reality, made manifest by the men and women of Africa who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him in Islam’s earliest, most dangerous days.
Sumayyah, Bilāl, Najāshi, Barakah — they were not guests on Islam’s stage. They helped build it. Their stories remind us that equality is not an optional virtue, but the beating heart of faith itself.
Sumayyah bint Khayyat: The First Martyr
Sumayyah bint Khayyat, an Abyssinian woman, was among the first to embrace the oneness of Allah. Enslaved, tortured, with no protector but her Lord, she refused to renounce La ilaha illa Allah.
She was murdered for her faith, torn apart by her captors, becoming the first martyr of Islam.
“Indeed those who say, ‘Our Lord is Allah,’ and remain steadfast — the angels will descend upon them saying, ‘Do not fear and do not grieve; receive good news of Paradise.’” (Qur’an 41:30)
Sumayyah may have known little of ritual law, but she knew Allah. That was enough.
Bilāl ibn Rabāh: The Voice of Equality
Bilāl, a Black man born into slavery, was tortured for proclaiming Ahad, Ahad — One, One.
Freed by the Prophet ﷺ, he was honoured with the role of Mu’adhin, the first to call believers to prayer. His voice rose from the roof of the Ka‘bah itself, defying every social hierarchy of Quraysh:
“God is Greatest…”
An African once enslaved stood atop the most sacred site of Arabia, reminding the world that dignity belongs to those who stand before Allah with sincerity.
Years later, after the Prophet ﷺ passed away, Bilāl could no longer bear to give the adhan in Madinah. His heart was heavy with grief, and he left for Syria, continuing to serve Islam. But when he returned years later, the companions pleaded with him to call the adhan one final time. His voice cracked with emotion as he recited the words, and the entire city of Madinah wept, remembering the days of the Messenger ﷺ. That final adhan became a testament — Bilāl’s voice did not only summon people to prayer, it summoned them to an Islam that had shattered the chains of slavery, of racism, of tribal pride. It was a voice that rose from a place of deep pain, but reached into the hearts of all believers for centuries to come.
“The noblest of you in God’s sight is the most righteous.” (Qur’an 49:13)
(This reflection was enriched thanks to a powerful post shared by Isaac Borole — may Allah reward all those who help us remember our shared heritage.)
Ashamā al-Najāshi: The Just King
The Prophet ﷺ told his companions to flee to Abyssinia, where they would find a just king who does not wrong anyone. His name was Ashamā ibn Abjar, the Negus.
When Quraysh envoys arrived to demand the Muslims be returned, he refused them. Listening to Sūrah Maryam, he wept and said:
“This and what Jesus brought come from the same source.” (Seerah of Ibn Ishaq)
He became a secret Muslim, protected the believers, and was later prayed for by the Prophet ﷺ at his death.
Africa was Islam’s refuge — and its protector.
ʿAtā ibn Abī Rabāh: The Scholar Who Broke Barriers
ʿAtā, a dark-skinned, physically disabled man, rose to become the Mufti of Makkah. His knowledge was so respected that even the sons of the Prophet’s companions deferred to him.
“When ʿAtā speaks, no one disagrees.”
He proved that intellect, piety, and brilliance are never bound by skin colour or social class.
“Do not mock one another, for perhaps they are better than you.” (Qur’an 49:11)
The Joy of Arfidah: Celebration in the Mosque
On Eid, a group of Abyssinians danced with tambourines in the Prophet’s ﷺ mosque. Abu Bakr tried to hush them, but the Prophet ﷺ smiled and intervened:
“Leave them alone, O Abu Bakr, for the Jews know that our religion is spacious.” (Sahih Muslim)
Their culture, their song, their rhythm — it was welcome in Islam’s holiest house.
Sayyidah Fatimah: Learning from Ethiopia
Fatimah (r.a) saw Christian Ethiopian women buried in fully enclosed wooden biers, preserving their modesty. She asked for the same after her death, showing that Islam could learn from the best practices of Africa rather than claiming self-sufficiency.
Musa and Luqman: Prophets and Sages
Musa (a.s), the most-mentioned Prophet in the Qur’an, was described as dark-skinned, noble, and strong.
“O Musa, I have chosen you above all people.” (Qur’an 7:144)
Luqman the Wise, whose name is immortalized in a Surah, was similarly described as of African heritage, a sage whose wisdom guided generations.
Umm Ayman Barakah: The Prophet’s Second Mother
Barakah bint Thaʿlabah, known as Umm Ayman, was the Abyssinian woman who first held the newborn Prophet ﷺ. She fed him, comforted him, and never left his side.
Whenever she visited him, he would spread his cloak for her to sit on, saying:
“She is my mother after my mother.” (Ibn Saʿd, Tabaqat)
When she made hijrah on foot to Madinah, the Prophet ﷺ welcomed her with tears of love.
Reflection
These names are not side-notes in history. They are the heart of our story.
In an age when racism still poisons hearts, their legacy stands as a lamp, illuminating the Qur’anic truth:
“No Arab is superior to a non-Arab, nor a white to a black, except by taqwa.” (Musnad Ahmad)
May these stories humble us, awaken us, and remind us that the measure of a human being is never skin or wealth, but God-consciousness.
A Dua
O Allah, as You honoured Hājar through her sacrifice, Sumayyah through her courage, Bilāl through his call, and Barakah through her love — honour us by making us people of justice. As You sheltered the believers through Najāshi, shelter the oppressed today. O Allah, free our hearts from arrogance and racism, and unite us upon Your light. Āmīn.
Call to Action
✨ Teach your children these names. ✨ Tell these stories from the minbar. ✨ Challenge racism in your heart and in your community. ✨ Honour these giants in your duas.
They Got Me Too — A Lesson on the WhatsApp Hackers
One morning, before I’d even had my coffee, I answered a call. The voice was calm, respectful, and seemed familiar with my work. He spoke about the Call of Islam, saying there would be a WhatsApp discussion later that evening, and they’d like me to share my insights.
I asked him to send me more details. He agreed, then casually added: “For our meeting tonight, please repeat the numbers I just sent you?”
Half-awake, I read out the six-digit number — my WhatsApp verification code — without a second thought. Moments later, I was locked out of my account.
Of course, I felt embarrassed. But as my friend Laury Silvers reminded me: this was cleverly done. It was a classic social engineering scam: using politeness, personal references, and urgency to break through your defences when you’re least prepared.
This is happening to many of us.
Respected voices in our communities are being systematically targeted:
Rev Frank Chikane
Ambassador Mohammed Dangor
Former Premier Ebrahim Rasool
And now, me
This is not random. It is sinister, because these criminals know your contacts trust you. That trust is their weapon.
👉 My advice, from bitter experience:
✅ Never share your 6-digit WhatsApp verification code with anyone ✅ Pause before reacting to an urgent call or text ✅ Always verify directly — through a trusted phone call, video chat, or in person ✅ Warn your network if your account is hijacked — I immediately sent an SMS to all my contacts saying: “My WhatsApp has been hacked. Don’t accept any requests.” ✅ Reinstall WhatsApp and enable two-step security, as my friend Shafiq Morton wisely reminded me: “It puts hackers off.”
These scams are designed to catch good people off guard. If it happened to me, it can happen to you.
Let’s protect each other — by talking about it, and by staying alert.
Zohran Mamdani: Lessons from a Cape Town Childhood, a New York Campaign, and a New Politics
On a windy June morning in Johannesburg, I opened my social media feed and was stunned to see the name “Zohran Mamdani” trending across platforms. Not because I didn’t know the name — but because I did, even if distantly. In the early 1990s, Zohran was a child in Cape Town, attending Saturday morning madrasa classes at the Claremont Main Road Mosque, a place deeply associated with the progressive Islamic movement of the time. His father, Professor Mahmood Mamdani, was already a towering intellectual figure in the post-apartheid ferment. I had been working at the National Language Project (NLP) then, and many of us — including colleagues like Gerda de Klerk — were connected to those circles of progressive faith, education, and social justice. Our paths may well have crossed with young Zohran, though it feels remarkable to see this child of that moment now emerge as the Democratic front-runner for mayor of New York City.
As news of Zohran’s decisive victory spread — defeating establishment heavyweight Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary — friends from various corners of the globe began connecting the dots. A remarkable arc had come full circle: from Cape Town’s progressive mosques and language movements to the heart of one of the most complex urban political landscapes in the world.
From Claremont to Queens: A Political Formation
Zohran Mamdani’s victory didn’t emerge out of nowhere. It was cultivated in spaces that taught young people not to separate faith from justice, identity from compassion. The Claremont Main Road Mosque (CMRM), where Zohran received early Islamic education, has long been known as a place of inclusive, activist theology — led in those years by figures like Imam Dr. Rashied Omar and strongly shaped by South Africa’s anti-apartheid Islamic ethos.
The family home was no less intellectually fertile. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, was not just a visiting scholar — as political analyst Steven Friedman rightly corrected on my Facebook post — but a full professor who directed a research institute at the University of Cape Town. Mahmood’s own writing — from Citizen and Subject to Neither Settler Nor Native — shaped global debates on colonialism, identity, and resistance (Scroll.in, 2025). His mother, Mira Nair, is an acclaimed filmmaker whose work explores the intersections of class, gender, memory, and post-colonial identity.
Together, this upbringing embedded in Zohran an ethos of critical clarity and pluralist compassion — two virtues that would later characterise his campaign and its stunning success.
Beyond the Soundbites: A Platform with Substance
Media coverage has often portrayed Mamdani’s win as the result of digital mastery — an “influencer politician” who went viral. But as tech journalist Taylor Lorenz argues in her sharp critique, this reading is both shallow and dismissive. “He didn’t win because of TikTok or podcasts,” she writes. “He won because he was a generational political talent backed by years of disciplined organising.”
Mamdani’s platform includes a $30/hour minimum wage by 2030, fare-free public buses, rent freezes, city-owned grocery stores, and universal childcare — funded through wealth and corporate taxes. These are not trendy slogans; they are deeply-researched, locally-grounded policy ideas forged in dialogue with tenants, cab drivers, community imams, and working-class coalitions.
Indeed, the campaign’s integrity was evident in its structure: 27,000 volunteers, small-donor funding (average donation: $35), and widespread multilingual outreach that included Arabic, Bangla, Spanish, Urdu, and Fulani speakers. In an interview with The Fatu Network, Gambian-American organiser AjiFanta Marenah noted how Mamdani met with imams and elders from West Africa at Masjid Ar Rahmah — a mosque still grieving a devastating fire. Her words were telling: “This was not just outreach. He listened.”
A Movement Rooted in Memory and Meaning
Mamdani’s win has been framed as a generational and demographic shift — and rightly so. At 33, he is poised to become the youngest mayor in NYC history. But this is not just about age. It is about political imagination.
As writer Rachel Hurley observes: “He didn’t water down his vision. He spoke clearly — about Palestine, about police brutality, about inequality.” While some accused him of being too radical, others — including thousands of voters under 35 and nearly 80% of Asian-American voters in ranked-choice simulations — saw in him the first candidate in years who actually named their pain and offered structural responses.
Importantly, he did not shy away from moral clarity. Whether affirming his support for BDS, resisting pressure to co-sign Holocaust memorial resolutions weaponized to silence Palestinian solidarity, or responding to racist attacks with unwavering calm, Mamdani refused to dilute his politics to appease critics.
In this, one senses echoes of his father’s legacy — a fierce critic of authoritarianism whether in Uganda or the United States — and his mother’s poetic instinct to preserve human dignity through narrative.
What This Means for South Africa and the Global South
In a time when centrist parties are increasingly detached from grassroots movements, Mamdani’s campaign offers not just hope but a methodology for how to bridge that divide. The lessons are not only for American Democrats, as Rebecca Kirszner Katz argues in her New York Times piece — they are relevant for South Africa too.
We, too, are grappling with the limits of post-liberation politics, the alienation of youth, and the search for a new language of ethics in the public square. Mamdani’s win reminds us that political change doesn’t only come through electoral machines. It can be built — step by step — through community relationships, principled clarity, and a refusal to play by the rules of elite consensus.
His campaign did not begin with polling data or PR consultants. It began with people — Bronx tenants, Queens families, Harlem students, mosque elders. As Felix Biederman noted, “He never dumbed things down into meaninglessness.”
Of course, Mamdani isn’t mayor yet; he still faces the general election in November. But his endorsement by former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, and their warm joint appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, offered a powerful reminder of the long tradition of Muslim–Jewish solidarity. It echoed the interfaith alliances that shaped our own struggles against apartheid here in South Africa, affirming that courage and conscience can cross boundaries.
As Robert Reich noted, Mamdani is “the corporate Democrat’s biggest nightmare” — precisely because he dares to center affordability, class solidarity, and moral clarity. Yet he is equally a supremacist’s nightmare, as Alon Mizrahi argued, because he is “a Muslim Normal”: calm, compassionate, politically lucid, refusing every easy stereotype. That double challenge — to both neoliberal machines and racialized fear — is what makes his rise so potent.
Reclaiming the Power to Dream Together
In the end, Zohran Mamdani’s rise is not just a story of one man’s success. It is the story of what becomes possible when movements — and memories — are nurtured with integrity. From Cape Town’s madrasa halls to New York’s subway stops, the values of mercy, justice, and collective dignity continue to ripple outward.
In a time of fragmentation, Mamdani’s clarity invites us to build differently. To listen deeper. To organise not just against oppression, but toward belonging. And to believe, again, that cities — and hearts — can be won with vision.
References:
Hurley, Rachel. Zohran Mamdani’s NYC Primary Win Is a Huge Lesson for Dems. RatCClips, June 25, 2025.
Lorenz, Taylor. Zohran Did Not Win Because of TikTok and Podcasts. UserMag, June 25, 2025.
Katz, Rebecca Kirszner. Democratic Leaders Tried to Crush Zohran Mamdani. They Should Have Been Taking Notes. New York Times, June 25, 2025.
Daily Maverick. Meet New York City’s Likely Next Mayor — with a South African Connection. June 25, 2025.
The Fatu Network. Introducing the Young Woman Behind Zohran Mamdani’s Shout-Out to His Gambian Uncles. June 26, 2025.
Reich, Robert. The Corporate Democrat’s Biggest Nightmare. Substack, June 26, 2025.
Mizrahi, Alon. They Don’t Hate Mamdani Because He’s a Muslim Radical. They Hate Him Because He’s a Muslim Normal. June 27, 2025.
Times of India. Zohran Mamdani: The Bronx Student Who Made Africana Studies His Political Compass. June 2025.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, featuring Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander, June 2025.
Scroll.in. Seven Books by Ugandan Scholar Mahmood Mamdani, Father of NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani. June 25, 2025.
If there is one truth I carry from writing this piece, it is that our stories are never just local, never just our own. They travel, they weave through other struggles, they bloom in places we may never see. Zohran Mamdani’s path reminds me — and perhaps reminds us all — that faith, courage, and community can plant seeds far beyond our imagining. In my own Rabbānī scrolls and design work, I have tried to hold on to that same ethic: to remember, to witness, and to keep building. May we all keep planting, keep walking, and keep creating together.
Our Father: Braima Winter — The Man Who Read the Weather and Raised Us with Words
Braima in His Red Koefiyya Not just a head covering, but a hush of dignity. A crown worn by those who build without boasting, who read clouds like verses, and raise children like minarets — quietly, steadfastly, towards the Light.
They called him Braima Baard. But he was clean-shaven. They called him Braima Winter. Because even if there was only one cloud in the sky, he’d say: “Dis winter, Gaya.”
He was our father: Ebrahim Abdul Aziz Jacobs. Born of tailors and dressmakers — his father, Abdul Aziz, worked with thread; his mother, Gadija, crafted fabric into form. From such soft-handed lineage, he turned to bricks and cement.
His mother once teased him, laughing: “Met jou sag handjies, wat soos ‘n bricklayer gan djy maak?”
But he became one. And not just any bricklayer. He built kilns. He protected cement floors. He shaped the foundations that others would walk on long after he left the site. He built a good few walls of Primrose Park masjid (called Jamiya Tus Sabr).
He guided others. Trained them. Gave them skills, and more than that, dignity.
Yet behind all of this physical work was another kind of labour — of language, of laughter, of letters. He was the spine of our family’s love of books, storytelling, and sly, gentle humour. He was reading before most could walk. As a child, already in his diapers, he was immersed in words, letters, pages. No one had to push him. It was in him.
Imam Ghazali. Ibn Battuta. Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī. Shams Tabrizi. He didn’t just read. He remembered. And retold. And spun.
He raised seven children with his hands, but never truly raised his hand at them. His discipline was the silence between sentences. His presence was the lesson.
We never feared him. We trusted him. Because the man who knew where every cloud was going — also knew how to hold a storm.
He didn’t build palaces. He built people. He built us.
And when he dressed, he often wore his red koefiyya — not the long turban of his childhood, but a shorter, neat fez with a tassel, worn by men who held pride without noise. It was the kind worn by many hadjies after the sorbaan had fallen out of fashion. It became his crown.
One Fajr morning, when I was a teenager, he woke me gently. We walked together through the streetlights of Primrose Park toward the mosque. I looked around and said, “So many Muslim houses still have their lights off. Don’t they make salah?” He chuckled softly, and said, “Perhaps they are praying while their lights are off so that they can go back to sleep. You must focus on your own salah. Other Muslims are not your concern.”
And perhaps this was the secret of his laqab… As Shaykh Jamiel Abrahams reflected:
“The secret of this Laqab… is that no Winter will pass except that he is Madhkour — remembered — even by the non-living creation. Better than making dhikr, he becomes Madhkour — mentioned and remembered — by his Rabb.”
May Allah grant us all to become Madhkour. Āmīn.
“What a lovely man. He was always saying to us, ‘Kom biesmielah,’ and happy to have us around.” — Shamiel Isaacs, Bonteheuwel (Call of Islam)
And today, as we recite stories, as we reach for bricks and books and blessings — we say: Braima Winter, we remember. And we still feel your weather. And your words. And your mercy.
Innā li-llāhi wa-ʾinnā ʾilayhi rājiʿūn Surely to Allah we belong and to that we will return. [Surah Baqarah, 2:156]
And this is how we remember him best: Laughing beside Gaya, the love of his life — as if the whole world had just whispered a joke only they could understand.
Braima and Gaya Laughing — A Crowned Moment of Mercy
In the sacred precincts of Madinah al-Munawwarah, where pilgrims send peace upon the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), few notice a quiet miracle. Above the gate to the Rawḍah — where our Prophet rests — is an engraved verse of Arabic poetry, nestled in plain sight. Most eyes pass over it, drawn instead to the Qur’anic verse below. But that upper verse is from a 40-couplet qaṣīda written by Imām ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAlawī al-Ḥaddād — a saint, scholar, and Sufi of the Bā ʿAlawī lineage of Tarīm. Only one couplet of the poem is visible to the public.
One line.
Facing outward.
Why this line? Who chose it? What does it mean that the rest of the poem lives inside, engraved on the inner walls of the chamber of the Prophet ﷺ? What does it mean to be the line that stands at the threshold?
This blog is a gentle unfolding of those questions.
Above the gate of the Prophet’s ﷺ chamber, one line of sacred poetry faces outward — a single couplet from Imām al-Ḥaddād’s 40-verse ode, chosen to stand above the Qur’anic verse.
Some verses open books. Others open doors. The chosen line stands where praise meets Revelation.
A magnificent Prophet — his noble character,
Exalted by the Most Merciful in the Master of Books.
Imām al-Ḥaddād is drawing from the Qur’anic verse:
“And truly, you are of a most noble character.” (Surah al-Qalam, 68:4)
In these lines, poetry bends in humility before Revelation. The poem is not in competition with the Qur’an. It is a witness to it. A praise that holds its breath before the Word.
Section 2: Ishārah and ʿIbārah: The Inner and Outer Signs
“Yā Fātiḥil-Abwāb — O Opener of Doors.” Some verses open books. Others open hearts.
What is visible above the gate is the ʿibārah — the outward expression. But the choice to place this verse there is also an ishārah — a subtle sign. It whispers: Look closer. Listen deeper. The rest of the poem remains inside the sacred chamber, out of sight, like the hidden knowledge that only the heart can read.
The verse that faces outward becomes a threshold, a knock upon the door. A visitor may stop to read it, but the meaning enters only when the heart listens. As Shaykh Jamiel said: “Most people see the ʿibārah, but few perceive the ishārah.”
And that is the invitation.
Section 3: The Hidden Inheritance
The inner walls of the Rawḍah: Where the full poem of Imām al-Ḥaddād is inscribed — invisible to the public, but alive in transmission.
There is a story passed down from the early life of Imām al-Ḥaddād. When he was still an infant, his mother dreamt that she was at the tomb of a great spiritual master. In the dream, the master emerged from his grave, took the baby to his breast, and gently placed his tongue into the baby’s mouth.
In the language of sacred dreams, this is no ordinary image. It means that the child inherited the master’s knowledge — not through books or teachers, but through direct spiritual transmission. Through the tongue. Through barakah.
When we recite the Ratib al-Ḥaddād, we are inheriting from that lineage. When we stand before the gate and read the outward verse, we are brushing our lips against the memory of that transmission.
Section 4: The Sultan Who Opened the Doors
It is worth noting that the spiritual legacy of Imām al-Ḥaddād extended well beyond the valleys of Ḥaḍramawt. The Wird al-Laṭīf and Ratib al-Ḥaddād — his litanies of remembrance — were introduced and supported within the Harams of Makkah and Madinah under the patronage of Sultan Mehmet IV (sometimes rendered Mehmed or Muḥammad IV) of the Ottoman Empire (r. 1648–1687). A ruler known for his reverence of Islamic and Sufi traditions, Sultan Mehmet IV’s endorsement ensured that the sacred rhythms of Tarīm would echo in the holiest sanctuaries of the Ummah. Even the architecture of prayer carries the trace of this inheritance.
🟫 Note on Naming & Recognition
A reader of this blog, Kitty Amina Rabbas, beautifully reflected on the significance of this verse’s placement — connecting her own reading ofSufi Sage of Arabiawiththe timeline of Imām al-Ḥaddād’s visit to Madinah in 1669 CE (1079 AH), during the reign of Sultan Mehmet IV.
She reminded us that, while Ottoman rulers held immense worldly power, Sultan Mehmet IV — known for his taqwā and reverence for the Prophet ﷺ — may have recognised in Imām al-Ḥaddād a spiritual authority greater than his own. That a single verse from the Imām’s poem was chosen to face outward from the Rawḍah may well be an act of humility, not mere decoration.
Section 5: What Is the Sign?
What is the sign? A call to see beyond the eye, to listen with the inner ear. Some verses open books. Others open hearts.
Not everyone notices the verse above the gate. Not everyone will be called to. But for those who do, a quiet spark may awaken in the heart. Shaykh Jamiel once described this line as a wick that does not even need fire to burn. The love, the longing, the witnessing — it ignites on its own, just by being near to the Real.
There are some verses that open books. Others open doors.
And then, some open hearts.
Epilogue: The One Who Watches
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “Indeed, in the body there is a lump of flesh. If it is sound, the whole body is sound. If it is corrupted, the whole body is corrupted. Indeed, it is the heart.”
To read the verse that faces outward is to knock gently on that heart. To remember that character is not costume, and praise is not performance. It is to walk humbly. It is to remember the One who sees in secret.
And when no one sees, know that ar-Raqīb always does.
Acknowledgement: This blog was deeply enriched by the insights and generosity of Shaykh Jamiel Abrahams, who shared the photographs, historical details, and the luminous teachings behind the scenes. His voice opened a door, and lit a candle inside.
Meta Blocked My Breath. Now It Wants to Hire My Lungs.
A Scroll of Digital Colonialism
Introduction
They flagged my keffiyeh.
They removed my scroll on Gaza.
They muted my breath — one post, one image, one word at a time.
And now… they want to hire me?
A message landed in my inbox from MetaAI, offering me a digital marketing job. A role that “aligns with my voice.”
But I remember the shadowbans. The quiet erasures. The warnings.
This is not opportunity. This is recolonisation — algorithmic, automated, and dressed in flattery.
So I responded the only way I know how:
Not with a CV.
But with a scroll.
Scroll of Digital Colonialism
“Meta blocked my breath. Now it wants to hire my lungs.”
— Rafiq al-Bunduqia
Arabic Invocation
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ مَجْرَاهَا وَمُرْسَاهَا ۚ إِنَّ رَبِّي لَغَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ Bismillāhi majrāhā wa mursāhā
In the Name of Allah, its course and its anchorage. — Surah Hūd (11:41)
The Scroll
They came cloaked in pixels and promises.
Offering “opportunity” in the same breath that once flagged your content.
Your memory of Gaza? Too “sensitive.”
Your sorbaan? “Community violation.”
Your breath of truth? “Does not meet our standards.”
Yet now they appear,
like colonisers with new dialects,
offering salaries instead of shackles.
“We reviewed your profile. We love your voice.”
My voice?
The one you throttled
with your auto-flagging
and ghost bans?
The one you parsed into metadata
but never listened to?
Ya Allah.
Even the Pharaohs had more honest chains.
Closing Duʿā
O Allah,
Anchor us in truth when platforms drift.
Guard our breath when our words are marked “violations.”
Let our remembrance go viral in unseen realms.
Make us the scrolls they cannot erase.
Make us the breeze that keeps returning. Bismillāhi majrāhā wa mursāhā.
The other day, I told my brother-in-law, Al-Ameen, how we need to promote the sorbaan again—that sacred cloth of knowledge and dignity that once crowned the heads of our teachers and storytellers. Without missing a beat, he said, “Do you want one? I’ll give you mine.”
I was taken aback. “Really? Don’t you wear it?”
He smiled. “It’s too garish for my style.”
Then he added, almost casually, “It’s from my dad. From Boeta Junain.”
And suddenly, I was no longer standing in conversation. I was nine years old again, my hand tucked in my mother’s, walking down Olifants Street in Primrose Park. We were on our way to meet my new khalifa.
My mother, Hi’ Rugaya, had decided it was time for me to learn Qur’an properly. We walked all the way down the road, right to the edge where Primrose Park brushes up against Manenberg. That place where the road thins out, where the houses change tone.
We met him at the doorway. Tall. Stern. A presence.
On the way back, she asked me gently, “So what do you think?”
I paused, looked up at her, and said with wide eyes, “Met sy grou oë en grys baard, hy lyk soos ’n wolf.” (With his gray eyes and silvery beard, he looks like a wolf.)
She laughed. But we went back the next day. And the next. And the next.
Boeta Junain became my khalifa — more than just a madrasa teacher. He taught me the Qur’an. He taught me tauhid, tahara, and how to perfect my salah. But most of all, he taught me the stories. Hundreds of them. Stories of the awliya, of lovers of God, of hidden saints, of miracles wrapped in humility.
He loved me like a son. I stayed in his madrasa well into high school. When I was seventeen, I left to study at As-Salaam Institute in Braemar, KwaZulu-Natal. There I met another teacher who helped refine my Qur’anic pronunciation. A year later, after completing matric, I came back.
And I returned to Boeta Junain.
He asked me to recite. Listened deeply. Then called his older students, saying, “Come. Let Adli help you improve your recitation.”
That day I knew what tarbiyah meant: to be raised, then trusted, then made to raise others.
Some of those students, like members of the Browns family, went on to become among South Africa’s well-known huffaadh.
And now, all these years later, his sorbaan has surfaced again—offered from father to son, and from brother to brother. A gift wrapped not only in cloth, but in memory.
Today, three of his children, Salama, Cassiem and Juleiga are now continuing this legacy teaching young children in Qur’an and Islam.
The sorbaan is not fashion. It is not costume. It is voice made visible.
It is the texture of trust. The curve of tradition.
It says: I have received. I have remembered. I will return.
When I look at it now, even in another’s hands, I see something eternal: gold thread, cotton wrap, and the quiet humility of a teacher who looked like a wolf, but raised a whole den of cubs.
Acknowledgement Tramakasi to Sh. Jamiel Abrahams, Sadia Fakier, Zaid Nordien, and Al-Ameen Marley — for helping carry this cloth of memory into the light.
Postscript If Al-Ameen does send me the photo of the original sorbaan, I will share it. But even now, the memory is vivid enough to wear.
They were reciters — young boys and girls who sat day after day, line by line, vowel by vowel, until the Qur’an moved from the page to the tongue —not by memorisation, but by presence.
And when the day came — after a year, or two — when their tongues were steady and their stops correct, the elders would nod in silence.
Then came the dressing.
A sorbaan was wrapped around the boys’ heads. A salah jas placed gently on their shoulders. And the young girls, radiant in their medoras, embroidered in silver and gold threads, gathered with equal pride — their hearts no less luminous, their recitation no less fierce in its precision.
And down the streets of District Six or Bo-Kaap they walked, feet on cobbled stone, hearts trembling with pride.
Their journey led them to the Company Gardens — a sacred procession into the colonial centre, as if to say: “This is our inheritance. This Qur’an walks with us too.”
In the Gardens, each child would recite — sometimes their final chapters, sometimes a chosen portion — with the same discipline they learned in the halaqah, their voices carried by wind and heard by trees.
It was not a graduation. It was a Tamat — a completion, a covenant with the Sound of God.
And the Sorbaan was not merely cloth. It was a Khirqah al-Taḥkīm — a mantle of responsibility. A visible reminder that this child had entered a sacred trust: to live Qur’an, to speak it clearly, to carry it with mercy.
And perhaps most beautifully — that child’s journey had not ended, it had only just begun.
Acknowledgement
Tramakasi to Sh. Jamiel Abrahams, Sadia Fakier, Zaid Nordien, and Al-Ameen Marley — for helping carry this cloth of memory into the light.
Postscript: This scroll is inspired by the memory of Boeta Junain, who told stories of the Tamat and the children’s walk to the Gardens. Our next post will honour him directly — a keeper of sacred echoes.
A tribute to Hatta: flower seller, character, Cape Town soul. The fragrance lingers…
She wasn’t just a flower seller. She was a fragrance, a rhythm, a joke that made you feel seen. Her name was Cecelia Williams—known to all as Hatta—and for over sixty years, she stood at Cape Town’s Trafalgar Place market, not just selling blooms, but lifting spirits.
Hatta was a character. A caretaker. A Cape Town original.
The Poem that Opened the Door
“Hatta of the Flower Market” She was the last blossom of a vanishing season, a woman with hands that knew petals better than poems, who crowned Adderley mornings with colour and cackle. They called her Hatta—not just a name, but a rhythm. A shrug, a laugh, a story half-told while binding roses with string. Sixty years of market sun. Of joking with tourists. Of feeding the street children. Of being “one in a million” without ever asking for a statue. Now the market hums a little quieter. But her scent, her sass, her spirit— they linger, like the last bloom in a winter vase.
This poem, first shared on my Facebook page, sparked an outpouring of memory and community. The tribute went viral, shared across timelines and group chats. And then, like the scent of jasmine carried on wind, her story grew.
The Article That Helped the City Remember
Tamlynne Thompson’s piece in TheCape Towner became a cornerstone of Hatta’s public remembrance. It offered not only a portrait of her life, but a signal that her presence had mattered—deeply.
Though the newspaper referenced a YouTube link, the funeral livestream no longer appears to be available. But memory has other ways of surfacing. While searching for traces of Hatta, I found this moving video about her best friend, Sandra Bosman—herself a flower seller of the Cape.
Through Sandra, we hear the echoes of Hatta’s laughter, her generosity, and her grit. It’s another thread in the fabric we’re weaving.
Voices from the Cape
Facebook friends poured in with blessings, memories, and emotion:
Anne Rogers:“Yet another outstanding poem – beautiful, moving words and complementary image to honour an outstanding woman who brought joy to many.”
A Note of Gratitude: To Anne Rogers—your kind words landed with warmth. In a world where noise often drowns meaning, your belief in my words is a quiet blessing. Thank you for seeing not only the poem, but the person behind it.
And to Atiyyah Khan, Marianne Thamm, Mogamat KammieKamedien, and so many others—this harvest belongs to you too.
What Does “Hatta” Mean?
A few friends asked if Hatta was an honorific. The word “hatta” can refer to the traditional Arab headscarf, the keffiyeh—often used in resistance, honour, and dignity. It also carries echoes of the Arabic verb ḥaṭṭa, meaning to reach, to attain, or to bring down gently. Maybe that’s what she did—reached people, lifted them, wrapped them in grace.
The Spirit of the Cape Lives On
You can’t really write about Cape Town without talking about talking. That unique Cape Flats cadence—Afrikaaps—where people don’t just sell fruit or flowers. They create moments.
Ask about a naartjie and you’ll hear:
“Die naartjies is so lekker, hulle willie praatie. Hulle’s te skaam van al die soetigheid!”
And Hatta? She was the high priestess of that daily liturgy.
🌹The FragranceLingers
This is not a eulogy. This is a zahrā’, a bloom. And she—Hatta—isn’t gone. She lives in our language. In our laughter. In our stories. In every bouquet given in kindness. In every street market joke. In every aunty who tells it like it is, and every uncle who listens.
May we see them. May we remember them. May we become them.
🕊️ Rest in softness, Hatta. You were the last bloom of Trafalgar Place. But your scent is forever.
This blog post is dedicated to every flower seller, fruit hawker, street child, and storyteller who holds up Cape Town with grace and grit. May we never forget them.
Somewhere between the worn edges of oral history and the crisp pages of archived journals, I began to trace the journey of my ancestor — Hadjie Gasanodien, also known as Carel Pelgrim. It is said he was the first Muslim from the Cape to perform the sacred pilgrimage of Hajj, sometime between 1834 and 1837, a period just after the abolition of slavery, when its wounds were still fresh. For years, his story lived quietly in our family’s memory, surfacing in fragments and whispered recollections — until now. I write to honour that legacy, to weave together the strands of fact, faith, and feeling that shaped a man, a pilgrimage, and a community still finding its voice in the aftermath of bondage.
Pilgrimage of Discovery
I first heard his name as a child, tucked into a conversation between my sister Yasmine and our aunts. Years later, Yasmine would take those threads and stitch them into a short family tree, dated July 2004. At the time, it felt like the last echo of a fading past. We had little else to go on. But something stirred in me after I returned from my own pilgrimage. A fever of purpose, a longing to know more. I began writing and publishing reflections under Al Hujjaj Magazine, not yet knowing that my footsteps had mirrored those of my own forebear, nearly two centuries earlier.
Echoes in Academic Footsteps
The name “Carel Pelgrim” returned to me unexpectedly through the work of a neighbour and friend of my father — the late Mogamat Hoosain Ebrahim, a community scholar from Primrose Park. He had long been documenting the Hajj stories of Cape Muslims. In his thesis, The Cape Hajj Tradition: Past and Present (2009), Ebrahim writes: “Hajji Gassonnodien, more popularly known as Carel Pilgrim, enjoys the distinction of having been the first Cape Muslim to have successfully completed the Hajj.” Although I first encountered his name in Ebrahim’s thesis, the full significance didn’t strike me until later — during conversations with the researcher Abdud-Daiyaan Petersen. It was through our exchanges that the identity of Carel Pelgrim truly crystallised. This was not just a figure in history — he was my ancestor. A man who left the Cape between 1834 and 1837 to walk the sacred path when few could even imagine such a journey.
It was through Ebrahim’s meticulous work that I began to understand the context of that time. Hajj was not simply a religious obligation; it was an act of defiance, endurance, and transcendence. For formerly enslaved Muslims in the Cape, to make the pilgrimage was to reclaim a spiritual identity that colonial systems tried to erase. And Carel Pelgrim, in going, carried more than personal faith — he carried the hopes of a generation emerging from bondage.
A Lineage Remembered
George F. Angas (1822-1886). ORIGINAL 1849 Hand Coloured Stone Lithograph. A Malay Priest Prays.
Abdud-Daiyaan Petersen’s research added an entirely new dimension to the story. In collaboration with Turkish scholar Halim Gençoğlu, he co-authored a paper titled Was Imam Gasanodien Carel Pelgrim an Ottoman Descendant?, published in the Bulletin of the National Library of South Africa in 2021. They explored the possibility that Carel Pelgrim may have had ancestral ties to the Ottoman world — a lineage once obscured by slavery and colonial re-naming. Through Petersen, I learned not only of the archival traces, but also of the living memory carried in Cape Town’s communities — stories that had waited generations to be heard.
Petersen’s careful investigations, supported by old burial notices and public records, pointed with growing clarity to the fact that Carel Pelgrim and Hadjie Gasanodien — the man known for teaching Islam and the Qur’an to children in early Cape Town — were one and the same. The fragments were falling into place. What had once been academic became intimate. What had once been folklore became family history.
The Pain Beneath the Pride
The history of Carel’s mother, Pakka, adds further complexity and depth. As documented in Echoes of Slavery: Voices from South Africa’s Past by Jackie Loos, Carel — born into slavery — was the son of Pakka, a slave woman, and Jan Gottlieb Barends, a Christian man of German descent. Their relationship was informal and illegitimate, as was often the case in that era. Carel and his brother Philip inherited their mother’s status as slaves. In 1801, a notarial protocol records their transfer to a burgher, and upon his death, their eventual manumission was stipulated in his will.
Pakka’s exact identity remains debated, though one likely candidate is Janpakka of Batavia, who ran a shop in the Waterkant in the 1820s. Death records from the time, often unreliable, do not mention Carel or Philip, but their presence in community memory is clearer than archival certainty. Pakka’s story, like that of many enslaved women, survives in fragments — yet she remains the root from which this extraordinary lineage emerged. And it is here, in the shadows of that history, that I must pause. My heart aches at the likely truth: Pakka, my great-grandmother, was not loved — she was owned. The man who fathered her children, Jan Gottlieb Barends, did not protect her. He did not free her. Instead, he allowed her and their children to be sold on to another man. Was she raped? Exploited? Discarded? The records are silent, but the silence itself screams.
This is the pain we inherit alongside the pride — the wounds interwoven with the honour. In naming Pakka, I do not just trace bloodlines. I reclaim her dignity, speak her name with reverence, and acknowledge that even in bondage, she gave rise to a lineage that would one day teach Qur’an, lead prayer, and inspire generations. Her story, though faint, demands to be held — not with shame, but with solemn truth and fierce remembrance.
A Husband’s Grief
Carel’s transformation from a slave to a respected teacher, tailor, and hajji is all the more remarkable against this background. And among the most beautiful parts of his story is his deep love and reverence for his first wife, Japoera. Though she was childless, their bond was strong — spiritually and emotionally. When she passed away in their large home in Buitengracht in early 1841, Carel composed a public obituary in the South African Commercial Advertiser. It read: “The Heavenly Father, Lord of Life and Death, was pleased on the 16th instant to call from me my beloved wife Japoera, aged 64 years, 4 months and 16 days, after a happy union of [blank space] years. All who knew her virtuous character will sympathise with my loss, of which I hereby give notice to friends and relatives, requesting to be excused the visits of condolence.” He signed it: Carel of the Cape, the first Pilgrim and Priest.
Death certificate of Hadjie Gasnodien Carel Pelgrim.
In this short but poignant notice, we see not just a man grieving his beloved, but a heart refined by faith and loss. It reminds me that while history often records what men did, it rarely shows how deeply they loved. He eventually adopted the Islamic name ‘Hassan al-Din’ — appearing in records under numerous variations such as Gasnodien and Gasanodien — yet he signed himself proudly as ‘Carel Pelgrim.’ His ability to read and write in both Arabic and European script shows a deep level of literacy and determination to bridge worlds. While some have speculated that he may have spent up to three years in Makkah — a duration not firmly evidenced — what we do know is that he returned with the ability to teach Arabic and Qur’an, and left an imprint as a man of knowledge and devotion. It’s possible that his early literacy was shaped by Cornelis van der Poel, the burgher who once held legal ownership over him and later stipulated Carel’s manumission. Whether through formal tutoring or exposure to Dutch literacy, this early learning may have paved the way for his later mastery of both Islamic and colonial languages.
The directories list Carel van de Kaap as a free tailor living in Hout Street in 1816 and as a Malay schoolmaster in 1830. His brother Philip, born in 1789 and passing in 1844, was also a tailor, but unlike Carel, Philip was not a practicing Muslim. Some of Philip’s children were baptised, and in 1838 he married their mother, Carolina Marteyn of the Cape, in the Dutch Reformed Church.
Meanwhile, Carel was charting a different course. Once free, he began to prosper. In 1817, he loaned Seymen of the Cape 600 Ridollars (a substantial currency at the Cape in the early 1800s, equivalent to several months of wages for a labourer) to enable him to free his slave daughter, Cananga. By 1822, he had purchased his own home in Matfeld Lane. Then, in October 1833, Carel and his wife made a joint will, identifying themselves as the free man Carel of the Cape, alias Gaszimoedien — formerly a tailor, now a teacher in the Arabic language — and Johanna Salomonse, alias Japoera, born at the Cape.
Japoera seems to have been an exemplary Muslim wife, and Carel held her in high esteem. He set out for Mecca soon afterwards, and her encouragement must have been crucial to the success of his pioneering journey.
When Art Becomes Revelation
That intimacy deepened when I looked again at a familiar image — one I had seen countless times in Cape Town homes, books, and exhibitions, without ever imagining a personal connection. It is a watercolour painting by George French Angas, an English artist who visited the Cape in the 1840s. The scene is gentle but profound: a bearded man seated cross-legged, surrounded by children, teaching them the Qur’an. For years, this portrait was simply referred to as a depiction of a “Malay teacher.” But now, thanks to community scholarship and genealogical evidence, we know the truth — that teacher was Hadjie Gasanodien. My ancestor.
Another portrait, also by Angas, is held at the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town. In it, Hadjie Gasanodien is more formally posed, with dignified composure. What amazes me most is his attire — a flowing Arabic coat, or abaya, layered over a long-sleeved thawb. The painting is filled with symbolic richness: incense burners still glowing in the frame, a minbar placed behind him as if ready for the next call to gather and reflect. To stand before that painting is to encounter the past as presence — not as myth or metaphor, but as family. His face, once anonymous to me, now echoes through mine. The ink of his story has always been part of my blood. Only now am I learning how to read it.
The Living Links
One of the most tender links between this legacy and the living was shared in Lawrence Green’s 1964 book, I Heard the Old Men Say. In Chapter Two, titled “The Living Links,” he introduces a woman named Gatea Jacobs — my great-grandmother and the daughter of Hadjie Gasanodien. In a touching passage, she recalls her father’s return from the pilgrimage to Mecca. She tells of the white robes he wore, the gentle way he taught, and how the community revered him not just as a teacher, but as a man who had seen the heart of Islam and brought its light home.
Yet there is something poignant here: on the death notice of Hadjie Gasanodien, Gatea was listed as his daughter — and she was just 11 years old at the time. Her recollections, as recorded by Green, must have been shaped not only by her own memory but also by the atmosphere that surrounded her father’s name: the reverence of others, the stories repeated in the family, the aura of a man who had left a sacred legacy. In this way, memory extends beyond personal recall — it becomes communal.
Her memories reach across generations with quiet dignity. She spoke not in grand declarations, but in lived detail — the scent of his clothes, the rhythm of his voice in prayer, the gatherings around him at dusk. Through her, his presence remained alive in the bones and breath of our family, long before any of us knew the fullness of his historical significance. It was always there — waiting for us to remember.
Incredibly, Gatea Jacobs lived nearly a hundred years, a living bridge between the earliest days of Islam at the Cape and our present time. In that same chapter, Lawrence Green recounts a remarkable scene: “One afternoon while she was still able to see and hear and talk to her family she called everyone round her. ‘I am too old to live any longer,’ she told them. Then she folded her hands as prescribed in the Islamic death ritual and passed away.” Her funeral drew thousands of mourners, and services were held in mosques across the Peninsula. It was a farewell not only to a beloved matriarch, but to an era.
Her final act — serene, faithful, and deliberate — echoed the strength of the lineage she carried. It is this spirit I now seek to honour, not only in rediscovering our ancestor, but in holding open the doorway for others to trace their own roots, to reclaim the sacredness of our past, and to remember that we, too, are living links.
Author’s Note Written by Adli Yacubi (pen name), descendant of Hadjie Gasanodien, also known as Carel Pelgrim. This article forms part of a continuing journey to rediscover, honour, and share the stories of Cape Muslim pioneers. May it serve as both record and remembrance.
References
Yasmine Jacobs, Jacobs Family Tree (Oral History), July 2004
Mogamat Hoosain Ebrahim, The Cape Hajj Tradition: Past and Present, 2009
Jackie Loos, Echoes of Slavery: Voices from South Africa’s Past, 2024
Habib Shaikh, “First of Cape Hajis came 3 years after abolition of slavery,” Arab News, 11 October 2013
Lawrence Green, I Heard the Old Men Say, Chapter Two: “The Living Links,” 1964
Halim Gençoğlu & Abdud-Daiyaan Petersen, “Was Imam Gasanodien Carel Pelgrim an Ottoman Descendant?”, Bulletin of the National Library of South Africa, vol. 75, no. 2, December 2021
Helen Swingler, “Piracy, slavery and a Mecca pilgrimage,” UCT News, 17 March 2021
“Portraits stoke mystery of Hajji Gasnodien,” Cape Argus, 26 February 2021
In the quiet spaces of reflection, where language becomes prayer, Unseen Table emerged. This poem is a devotional meditation — a rhythmic journey through names and attributes of the Divine. Inspired by the cadence of Qur’anic verse and the beauty of the seen and unseen, it is paired here with an Arabic calligraphy that captures its spirit visually.
“رَبِّ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ — The Lord of Everything”
Pronouncing pronouns and prepositions Lift the lamp, the light, lit by the holy Scour the sacred and the secret sources Invoking various verses of our Lord
Lord of the mighty mountains high Lord of the sweet-scented rose nearby Lord of the earth and skies that lie Lord of the day and the night gone by
Lord of the mighty oceans deep Lord of the universe in its keep Lord of the stars in endless sweep Lord of the secrets that we keep
Lord of the merciful and just Lord of the faithful and the trust Lord of the righteous and the just Lord of the true, in whom we must
Lord of the prophets and the wise Lord of the knowledge that never dies Lord of the heavens and the sunrise Lord of the earth, to that we arise
Lord of the Throne, the Tremendous and Honourable Lord of Forgiveness, Full of Mercy, ever able Lord of the Bounty, the Infinite and Stable Lord of the Sovereignty, Owner of the Unseen Table
🌙 A Final Thought
In a world thick with noise, may these verses be a quiet invocation — a return to the Sacred, to the unseen currents beneath all things. If the words moved something within you, pause… and let that be your prayer.
“In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Compassionate” — every beginning echoes the womb of creation, where mercy overcomes all.
At the beginning of every chapter of the Qur’an (except one), and at the start of every act of meaning, Muslims invoke the sacred words: bismillāhir raḥmānir raḥīm — In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Compassionate. It is not merely a formula. It is a return. A remembrance of the womb of mercy from which all existence flows.
The Love Letter of Bismillah
In Surah An-Naml, we are told the story of the Prophet Solomon (Sulayman, peace upon him) sending a letter to the Queen of Sheba. He instructs the hoopoe bird: “Go with this letter of mine and deliver it to them, then stand aside and see how they will respond.” (27:28)
When the Queen reads the letter, she declares: “O you chiefs! A truly distinguished letter has been conveyed unto me. Behold, it is from Solomon, and it says, ‘In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Compassionate. Do not be arrogant with me, but come to me, fully submitting to Allah.’” (27:29–31)
Before asserting power, before making demands, Solomon begins with mercy. Even in politics and statecraft, mercy frames the dialogue. Every relationship — between people, between nations, between heart and heart — is meant to begin in the name of mercy.
The Womb of Creation
The Arabic root ر ح م (rā ḥā mīm) — from which Raḥmān and Raḥīm are derived — is intimately connected to raḥm, the womb.
Allah reminds humanity: “O humanity! Be mindful of your Lord Who created you from a single soul, and from her He created her mate, and through both He spread countless men and women. And be mindful of Allah—in Whose Name you appeal to one another—and the wombs. Surely Allah is ever Watchful over you.” (4:1)
The womb is not just a biological vessel; it is a sign, a sacred reality. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said in a sacred narration (Hadith Qudsi): “When Allah decreed the creation, He pledged Himself by writing in His Book, which is laid down with Him: ‘My Mercy prevails over My Wrath.’” (Muslim, Bukhari, an-Nasa’i, Ibn Majah)
Mercy is the origin of all things. The womb is the first mercy a soul encounters in existence — a place of absolute protection, nourishment, and unseen care. No wonder the Prophet narrated this to his companions.
Jahima (r.a.) came to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and he said, “O Messenger of Allah, I intend to join the military expedition, and I seek your counsel.” The Prophet said, “Do you have a mother?” He said yes. The Prophet said, “Stay with her, for paradise is beneath her feet.” (Sunan al-Nasā’ī)
In another Hadith Qudsi, sacred narration, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said that Allah said: “I am Ar-Raḥmān and created the raḥm (womb) – And I named it after Me.” (Ahmad)
Pain and Mercy
“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Rumi’s words evoke not only pain but transformation. The womb is a site of life-giving pain — a space where creation ruptures comfort. It is the most literal place where light enters: the emergence of life into a world of awareness, form, love.
In verse 18:81, the Qur’an speaks of a child being taken away so another, “more virtuous and nearer in affection,” may come. Pain and replacement. Loss and mercy. Mercy is not always softness — it may come dressed in fire, thunder, or sacrifice.
No wonder Allah states, “And My Mercy encompasses everything” (Quran 7:156). This verse reinforces the idea that God’s mercy is vast and all-encompassing, extending to every aspect of existence. This verse highlights the inclusive nature of divine mercy, encouraging believers to seek forgiveness and strive for a compassionate life. It serves as a call for Muslims to practice mercy in their daily lives, fostering a community built on compassion and understanding.
Bismillah in Everyday Life
The Messenger of Allah, mercy of God and peace upon him, taught: “Any matter of importance that is not begun with ‘In the name of Allah’ will remain devoid of blessing.” (Sunan Abi Dawud, Sahih Ibn Hibban)
And regarding daily purification (wudhu), he said: “There is no valid ablution for he who did not mention Allah’s Name.” (Ahmad, Sunan compilers)
Every act, every moment, every step must be wrapped in remembrance. By invoking Bismillah, we are not just seeking blessing; we are anchoring ourselves back to the womb of mercy — to the beginning of all things — where Allah’s Compassion and Care cradle us unseen.
Closing Reflection: A Womb of Light
To begin with Bismillah is to step into the womb of mercy. A place where something is made of us. A place of constriction, gestation, and eventual emergence.
Ibn al-ʿArabī described mercy as the first veil between us and the Real. To know mercy is to be veiled, yes — but also to be protected, incubated until we are ready to face the fullness of the Divine.
And so, like the Queen of Sheba, we receive the letter. And like the hoopoe, we deliver it. And like the child, we are born through pain. And like Rumi, we remember that it is the wound — the rupture — that lets in the Light.
Call of Islam march in the 1980s. Pic: Yunus Mohamed
When I published my first book in 2014, a community in Pretoria invited me to share with them the significance and the reasons for writing Punching Above Its Weight…
Launched in 2017.
I am most grateful for this opportunity to speak to you today, at the Rasooli Centre, on my first book, Punching Above Its Weight – The Story of the Call of Islam. This is not just a story of my own youth, of how I came to be a part of such an important organisation. This is not just a biography of the Call of Islam and how the organisation as well as the broader community developed a new and fresh way to view our own Islam.
This is not just the story of how a tiny Muslim population at the tip of Africa, in concert with others, stood their ground against the mighty apartheid government and policies of dehumanising all who were deemed lesser because of the colour of their skin. It is not just the story of the resilience of a population who, despite massive exploitation and oppression, stayed true to their humanity and made space for many, including members of the white population, in the struggle against apartheid.
Written in an easy style, without complicated language, I try to tell the story of a seemingly insignificant political movement that made far-reaching contributions to the freedom struggle in South Africa. The book traces the many activities of the Call of Islam, the mass rallies, the interfaith gatherings, funeral demonstrations, culminating in the one of biggest and most significant gatherings of Muslims in SA, the National Muslim Conference in 1990.
Punching Above Its Weight is about all of these and more. Ebrahim Rasool, now the ex-SA ambassador to the US, reflects on this in the Foreword to the book:
“It is a travesty that we have waited almost 30 years for Punching Above Its Weight – The Story of the Call of Islam to be told. I am happy that Adli has now done so. It may not be a perfect rendition of the history; a complete account of every debate, campaign or incident; or a personal recall of every brave and thoughtful member. But it fulfils a need.
“In a world where some Muslims present us as backward by their example, and our opponents project us as barbaric in their propaganda, the least that this book will do is to say that in 1984, in the midst of an almighty struggle against apartheid, there emerged from a community that came to South Africa as slaves and exiles, who constituted only a small minority, yet from them the Call of Islam was born.”
So, in many ways, it was the Call of Islam, Muslims in South Africa and freedom-loving South Africans generally who all punched above their weight in a time when we thought we would never see the day when we would all be free. That was a time when Ronald Reagan’s America saw South Africa’s apartheid government as an ally in the Cold War and when the rest of the world’s nations (except a few) were slow to respond to the crimes against humanity that was taking place in South Africa. We were then where Palestine is today, under the occupation of a brutal regime.
The book is, at one level a celebration of our South African victory, but also about the lessons we must learn from this experience because of what use is a celebration for humanity if we do not try to understand how we overcame our biggest challenges. I believe, in attempting to understand how we changed our selves in the midst of struggle, we can use those insights to inform what our role should be today and make better use of our present freedoms and challenges. Because…
“Centring on the story of the Call of Islam is in many ways a lens to look at the details of the South African struggle. It means zooming in, as you would with a microscope, to observe the anti-apartheid struggle by focussing on some of its compounds and atoms that give a different insight than if one just looks at the broad strokes. And because the Call was more than just a faith-based organisation – rather, it was one engaged in political struggle – its model can be educational to many social movements, activist or non-governmental formations, and even social welfare groups, both in South Africa and beyond.”
Faried in blue, at the heart of us. Fuad, Zain, and me—his brothers. One table. One memory. One love.
Your passing caught me off guard. I had planned to fly down to Groote Schuur Hospital—to hold your hand, to hear your familiar, half-teasing greeting: “This is nothing. How long are you staying? Will you be sleeping on our couch in the lounge?” But the doctors had already sedated you. And while we weren’t watching, you let go of my hand and slipped quietly into the next realm. I said my goodbye by placing my palm on your forehead, feeling your life force dissolve.
The grief swept me away like a sudden tide. In that single, helpless moment, memories surged—those threads that bound us—flooding my chest in a merciless storm of emotion. Now, five days later, I’m still adrift, trying to gather pieces from the wreckage. Perhaps these fragments will steady me.
You shaped my life profoundly—especially during my adolescence. With Dad growing older, it was you, along with your remarkable wife Zuleiga, who guided me through those uncertain years. During summer vacations, I was your clumsy teenage apprentice—sweeping up at building sites where you were foreman and supervisor. It was my job to scrub your and Dad’s boots clean, and to wash off the cement-caked tools of the trade. You were, in those days, both stern and kind—frightening and benign.
One day, while we were building a factory, the owner’s son stormed onto the site, shouting insults at our father. Mid-rant, he suddenly found himself face-down in a wheelbarrow. You had knocked him out cold with a spade to the side of the head. You saw him for what he was: a racist, self-righteous prick—and an abusive employer. You never tolerated either. That moment stayed with me. Years later, when I joined the freedom struggle, I carried it like a compass.
Of course, I wasn’t guided by you alone. I was blessed—loved by all our siblings, their partners, and their children. But your influence stood apart. Like your name, it was unique. You were, somehow, the rare blend of our mother’s blunt honesty and our father’s quiet grace. Your language was rough, your heart soft. It took us years to understand that your sharp tongue was often the symptom of undiagnosed, untreated diabetes—the same illness that eventually claimed you.
Now that you can no longer protest, I’ll say it plainly: You were a terrible capitalist. You once ran a butchery in Mitchell’s Plain that failed—not from mismanagement, but because you kept giving the meat away. To struggling customers. To broke relatives. Later, in your construction business, you gave jobs to young family members who needed work, even when the books didn’t balance. When the business eventually closed, you had no regrets. The Qur’an speaks of such people, calling them “those who gave preference to others, even though poverty was their own lot.”
Postnote
Faried was the middle-child in our siblings—one of four brothers and three sisters. He passed away eight years ago, on the eighth day of Ramadan. He used to joke that he would be the one to bury Fuad, our eldest brother, since he was younger and expected to outlive him. But fate had other plans. We lost Fuad two years ago, and with him, another great pillar of our family.
In our grief, we found strength in remembering Faried’s resilience, his unflinching kindness, and his deep sense of duty. His life remains for us a source of comfort, a touchstone of dignity, and a lesson in selfless love.
Footnote:
May Allah have mercy on his soul, inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un, and on the souls of all our departed—those who laughed with us at one table, and now dwell in the unseen.
My mom with her granddaughter, Bilqis, on her lap. Bilqis’s cousin, Omar is standing.
I never really met my grandparents from either my mom’s side or my dad’s. I lie. I met my dad’s dad. Twice. Once in Kingsley Street in Salt River when I was about eight years old. My mom had to say to me, “This is your grandfather.”
I saw this older version of my dad in his sleeveless vest and long white underpants with three kids hanging onto him. My grandfather was short. Like my dad. And I looked at those kids stretching out his vest, my cousins who I also did not know, with envy.
The second time I saw him, I may have been twelve. He was laid out on a metal table in the lounge of the same house in Salt River, covered in white linen up to his neck. My grandfather had passed away. “Kiss your grandfather,” my mom said to me, “don’t be afraid.” I kissed him on his cold forehead and that was that.
My six other siblings were more fortunate I was. They have memories of my dad’s mom who stayed with us for a time when we lived in District Six and the older siblings have wonderful stories about my mom’s mom, Moeder (real name Zubeida), that I love listening to.
Of the two role models in my life, my dad was the more child-friendly. That’s not really accurate. Rugaya, my mom, was a woman who preferred boys over girls. She adored her four sons over her three daughters. This preference became more noticeable when the grandchildren came on the scene. Of her 27 grandkids, there are only eight boys!
My mom, God bless her soul, was also not one to disguise her displeasure or dislike for something or someone. You could often see it in her entire face no matter how hard she tried to disguise it (when she did try, which was not often). So when Sadia, my spouse, gave birth to our first born, this is how she reacted to the news when I called her in my absolute excitement.
“Mom, Sadia just gave birth!” I said.
“What is it?” she asked.
I knew exactly what she meant but said, “The child’s name will be Bilqis.”
“What type of a name is that? That’s mos an Indian name. Is that for a girl or a boy?”
“It’s a girl. Silly. My firstborn is a girl.”
“Your dad will come to the hospital,” she said and put the phone down.
My dad with Bilqis.
There is this beautiful black and white I took with my dad, Ebrahim or Breima, holding Bilqis with delight in his eyes. She sensed his warmth and smiled back. Breima was great with kids. All kids. He could sing them to sleep within seconds. A true baby whisperer. A storyteller of note and incapable of giving us a hiding. Ever.
Sometime after Bilqis’s naming ceremony or ‘doekmal’ (probably from the Afrikaans ‘doopmal’) my mom and dad came to visit us in Mountain Road in Woodstock. Not one to give my mom a break with her preference for boys, I placed Bilqis on her lap and said, “I want to take a pic of Ouma with her grandchild.” She sat with Bilqis, and about manages to make a smile.
I have no doubt that my mother loved my kids but, somehow, she was not wired to relate to other females as she was towards males. This is why most of her students (mostly female) who she taught in ritual preparation of the deceased (or toekamanie-werk) remember her as stern.
But for all her hard exterior, her students loved her. When she passed, some 500 women attended her janazah (funeral), lining the streets to give her a guard of honour as she was carried to the mosque for the funeral prayers.
When Sara-Nida, my second daughter, was born, I called my mom once more.
“Mom, Sadia has given birth to a healthy baby.” Once more I held back saying the gender.
“What is it?”
“Sara. Her name will be Sara.”
“Another girl!” she said with clear disappointment in her voice, “I’m mos already known as the grandmother of just girls…”
When Ganaan, my youngest daughter, was born, I had resigned myself to the idea that my mom was not going to change. So when Sadia became pregnant with our last, we decided to have a scan done to check the sex of the child. It was a boy! I duly informed my mom.
By the time Jauzi Hashim was born, however, my mom’s health had already taken a turn for the worst. That morning when I called her with the news, we had a heartbreaking conversation.
“Mom, Sadia gave birth!”
“Sadia gave birth?”
“Yes, it’s a boy. His name will be Jauzi.”
“Sadia can’t be due yet.”
“She was due. It’s a boy. This morning. I just saw him.”
“A boy? Whose boy?”
“My boy. Sadia just gave birth.”
“Sadia gave birth? But Sadia can’t be due yet.”
And the conversation went round and round like this for fifteen whole minutes. Her mind was beginning to fail her. She could not retain information. The best news for the granny of just girls. Her youngest son just had a son, only the second of her four sons to have this ‘honour’ and Rugaya’s memory had started to fail her.
What Sadia and I did not know is that when I initially called my mom to say that the scan had revealed that Sadia was going to give birth to a boy, she had already begun to give instructions to my sister-in-law, Zuleiga, to pack a box of baby clothes and other accessories and mail that up to us in Pretoria.
My mom passed away a month later, having never set eyes on her new grandson, the last of eight. The box of baby goodies arrived a week after that.
I am remembering all this now and thinking that all of these experiences are now inside of me. I’m a granddad for the first time. My grandson, Zahi Salman, is adorable. I too find it hard to disguise my emotions. He knows this and responds by holding onto my face when I pick him up. So when I hold him, I think to myself, “Rugaya, your granddaughter has a son. You would love him too. And he would love you no matter your stern face!”
If there is one poet that can speak to the heart of spirituality with a timeless relevance and cutting across different persuasions, then Rumi is most certainly the master. Raised on stories of his life by my dad, I have only really begun to make sense of Mevlana Jalalluddin Rumi recently.
His poem below hit such a chord with me, that I named my guitar ‘Rumi’:
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
This poster series are my interpretations of four of my favourite Rumi poems.
In 2011, on 23 January, an icon of the struggle for freedom and democracy in South Africa passed away. Johnny Issel was not just central to the formation of the United Democratic Front, he also played a critical role in the life of so many community organisations and activists from that era. I cut my teeth in media at Grassroots Publications that would not have existed if not for Johnny.
It was then a deep honour for me to be involved in the committee that organised a tribute to Johnny Issel in Johannesburg when many of his comrades and friends could not make it to the official memorial in Cape Town. My small contribution was to design posters and banners for that tribute.
In deciding how to design the banners and posters, I was inspired by the following comments Ryland Fisher made in his own tribute article:
But while he was promoting legal opposition to the apartheid regime, Issel also played a major role in popularising the ANC in the Western Cape and in South Africa while the organisation was banned.
He was the key driver behind the first public unfurling of the ANC flag at Hennie Ferrus’s funeral in Worcester, which was soon followed by more public displays of the ANC flag. At this time, one could be jailed for at least five years for possessing, let alone displaying, an ANC flag.
When the ANC was unbanned in the early 1990s, it was almost logical that Issel should be appointed as its Western Cape organiser. This time the title organiser was appropriate, because the ANC hoped to tap into his considerable experience of organising communities.
The author reflects on the process of writing the biography of SA golf champion, Sally Little…
It’s finally here after a year’s hard work. The Sally Little book launched on 4 October 2016.
David Bowie was interviewed and asked about his creative process. He said that his best works came from those moments when his toes could not feel the bottom of the pool, when he was outside his comfort zone.
When the opportunity of doing a biography of Sally Little, world champion golfer, came along, that was exactly what I felt: I was in deep waters and yet it was strangely appealing.
Just from my initial research about this sportswoman, her meteoric rise, the many tournaments she had won and still going strong despite her age, I was already beginning to develop an analogy, an outline of what her story meant and what it could mean.
Once that happened, I knew that this was a story that I wanted to capture. Here was a image that I wanted to paint. In that moment, I realised that this story would force me to draw on my all my resourcefulness in a profound way.
One of those challenges for me as an anti-apartheid political activist from the 1980s, a product of the National Party forced removals from District Six to the Cape Flats, was whether I had the ability to have enough empathy, enough skill as a writer to capture the story of someone who broke the international sports boycott that helped bring down apartheid.
But it was also about whether I would be able to see Sally as more than just a sports celebrity. Would I be able to get her to tell me about herself, the side that fans may never see, without holding back? Would I be able to get her to trust me enough to share her story with the world?
I was embarking on a journey that had a clear destination; a published book of Sally Little’s biography. I was all packed and ready. What was not clear, however, was how this journey would unfold.
But I am a huge David Bowie fan, an activist from the 80s and I love swimming in deep waters…
Because unburdening can be liberating, and sometimes you just need to travel…
An empty, capless, two litre Coke bottle was jay-rolling across a busy Goldman Street near the pedestrian crossing. I had fetched my ten year old son from the primary school down Sixth Avenue. At 2.07pm, that part of Florida, Roodepoort, can be a traffic nightmare for about another twenty minutes but the 2-litre did not care. It does not go to school and—and now that it was empty—no home to go to either.
So it skipped and hopped across the street. I thought for sure that my front tyres would crush the life out of the bottle but no. It somehow dodged our wheels and of the two-way traffic by inches. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw that it did not wait for the traffic light at the pedestrian crossing nor did it allow the traffic officer, on duty for pupils, to halt any of the cars to give a Coke right of way. If plastic bottles have a gust of wind at their back, who needs right of way?
When it hit the curb on the other side of the road, it spun a few times and continued to roll in the direction it was going. All along Goldman Street it rolled. On the concrete between the curb and the road, it looked as if it was merrily making its way towards the Goldman Shopping Complex. The way it rolled, with its ends bopping as it hit stones and debris, it looked as if it was hopping to a beat.
The car radio was on and I imagined the Coke bottle going down the street to the sound of Justin Timberlake’s My Love.
Yeah, because
I can see us holding hands
Walking on the beach,
our toes in the sand
I can see us on the countryside
Sitting on the grass,
laying side by side
But 2-litre plastic bottles don’t listen to music and don’t care much for Justin Timberlake even though they may have much in common as Pop Music is often referred to as plastic. It did not bother the bottle either that Coke often uses popular music to promote its product to consumers. It did not see the irony.
So we cannot tell what gave the Coke bottle its rhythm as it made its way towards the next intersection. As the bottle went out of sight I wondered whether plastic bottles going for a stroll really need an observer to ensure that their story will be documented?
So, anyway, as it rolled past Seventh Avenue, a guy on his bike was standing at the traffic stop with one foot on the road, waiting to make his way into Goldman. His eyes trailed the carefree Coke bottle roll along in front him. It seemed to be almost dancing. He thought to himself what an interesting metaphor for life. The emptier you are—with less worries and stress—the happier you will be. Freer. He smiled to himself.
The 2-litre did not look up or contemplate the biker because Coke bottles don’t cycle and could not be bothered by philosophical thoughts about life and what it all means. So it passed by the guy on the bike without even a nod and on it rolled…
The Coca-Cola logo was now a spinning red band when the 2-litre reached the busy traffic intersection on Eighth Avenue and Goldman. Wreckless buses, expedient mini-taxis and impatient BMWs were not going to slow down or honk at a plastic bottle who cannot understand what the red man means on pedestrian light.
I cannot say that our Coke bottle smiled when it bobbed unscathed across Eighth or that it even looked back to admire what it had accomplished. But even if I could, it was short lived because just then the bottle deflated.
Some heavy guy, dressed in rags, had stepped on the empty bottle with his worn out boot. He jumped a bit on the bottom part to ensure that there was no air left. He took off the wrapper and put both in a huge canvas bag squatting on his trolley. There were hundreds of other squashed plastic bottles, plastic wrappers and an assortment of other used junk in his treasure.
He pulled the rope on his trolley to haul it for another 10 kilometres to the recycling dump. He thought to himself: Why don’t all the bloody plastic refuse come rolling down the street like this empty 2-litre Coke bottle. Then he had another brain wave: When they pay me at the dump, I am buying myself a 2-litre just for myself. The plastic Coke bottle said nothing.
I was writing a ‘spark’ on Somewhere about how I learn new concepts, new processes or even new skills, when I realised that I actually needed to add water to this very succinct format that only allows for 250 characters. Now, happily, that spark can be my outline:
To learn something entirely new, for me, 4 things help: 1) I become single-minded about the subject. 2) I take notes as I read (mind-maps). 3) I explain the concepts to anyone that cares to listen. 4) I start to implement what I’ve learnt.
Image by Brooklyn Morgan on Unsplash
Single-mindedness
There is saying that I came across a while back when I tried my hand at Shotokan Karate. I was told: first you imitate, then you innovate. It basically means that if you don’t know something, then you learn from those who do. And you learn from them by imitating what they do, until you get it. Once you have it, then you can become quite creative in how you deploy it.
In karate—but also in ballet, gymming and other such activities—they make you do the same set routines over and over until you get it or you collapse or whichever comes first. This is not only applied to physical skills but also in learning a new language, in academics, in maths(the bloody times-table), in music, etc.
But when I say single-mindedness, I’m referring to a process where you become (ok, you induce yourself to become) passionate, besotted, obsessed, perhaps even fanatical about the subject. In other words, you drown yourself in the subject. This allows for a few things to happen:
Fanaticism sweeps away all critical thought, making it possible for you to absorb as much of the subject as possible. Ask any cult member. This is good because it allows for easier imitation or for the information to lodge in your mind.
It helps you to acquire as many bits of information, readings, insights, views on the subject matter as possible. You then become a true student of that area of knowledge. This is the actual aim of assignments, exams and dissertations.
When it comes to the innovation stage, you will have much to draw on. In fact, when you flood your attention with a single subject over a given period, the questions and applications of that information will already begin to emerge.
But to get the most out of this process, you need to have a good reading technique.
Mind-maps
I taught journalism and media studies to college students from first to fourth year. During revision week I noticed that everyone was using the highlighting method. You know the drill: read text, see something interesting, deploy highlighter in a million shades of pastel neon.
Some even had a technique: green for interesting, pink for very important and orange for things the lecturer mentioned. The idea is to go hunting through the text for the various bits, highlight it and then read the selected coloured bits in a cram session just before the exam.
Now besides ruining the text book, making it a tad difficult to sell later when the course is over, this is not going to really help in retaining information. You have only really engaged your eyesight leaving much of you other senses out of the equation. And the one sense you should not be leaving out, is that of touch.
So when I read, I take notes. On a seperate sheet of paper. Or if I am reading an eBook, I open ‘Stickies’ and type out insights, interesting points that I come across. When I write, I put done down salient points and connect them to secondary ideas. And those ideas, I then connect to other related points and so on.
If you were taking notes of this piece, for example, you might typically have my four major points and each one, in turn, would have sub-points of what the major ones are about. A third layer might be of what you make of all this nonsense. Get it?
Your mind-map can also be colourful and then you can bring out those highlighters you love so much, like this:
Why write ? When you write things down, you are making a personal association with the information you are reading. You are actually slowing down your reading, allowing your mind to engage with the information. Chances are also bigger that when you recall the information, the act of you writing will have a stronger image in your mind than just text that you read in some book.
Just an aside: I have found that when I feel sleepy during a boring meeting, doodling actually keeps me from dozing off. And I can actually remain sober throughout even if my doodles have actually nothing in common with the subject matter. Go figure! (Actually, there is a study on this!)
So now we have passion, then reading technique. But how do you own this new information?
Verbal diarrhoea!
I love movies. Whether animation, thrillers, science fiction, historical drama… It does not matter as long as it is a great story and I can see layers of meaning. Anyone who knows me will know that I can be a great spoiler of the plot. Whatever! The storyteller in me just wants to retell that plot. I want to to be the one that gets you to see the genius in the story!
So when I went to university, I would emerge from an amazing (amazing for me, ok?) psychology or African history lecture, sit down any buddy who would give me half a nod, and rave about the insights I just gleaned. I would repackage that entire one hour session and tell it as if I had come up with those ideas myself.
When it came to exams, I would generally be able to recall entire lectures of certain subjects. And yeah, it would generally be the ones that I raved about. What happened here? It’s fairly simple…
Once you are able to explain a concept in your own words, then several amazing things happen:
If you can explain a concept you have heard or read, you are beginning to make sense of it in your mind.
By retelling, you too are hearing it for a second time. Everytime you do, you are reinforcing the information.
Once you make sense and retell, you are owning the information making recall much easier.
And was it not Einstein who said:
Now do!
So once you have submerged yourself in the subject matter, reading as much as you could mindfully, and verbalised it—and by so doing, owning the information—you should implement, innovate, write about it, use it…
Over the last while I have taught myself to blog, understand social media and pushing that blog content to social networks, use my Twitter account more effectively, swimming in the waters of crowd funding and deepen my understanding of narrative and storytelling.
If you are reading this, then that last adventure on improving my online posts was not for naught and the advice I received from copyblogger actually paid off!
Everything is a story, including the person you believe you are
Ryan McGuire of Bells Design on Gratisography
It is Michel Foucault, the French philosopher, who says, “Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same.” The point he was making is that we are constantly changing as a result of a myriad of experiences that impact upon our personality in any given moment. As human beings, however, we are averse to change and freeze our identity to create a stable reference of who we are.
If you were to ask me who I am, depending on the time, my mood and what I think you might know about me, I will tell you a story. It might be about what I doing right now, where I come from, what I might have accomplished… Whatever it is, it will be a story. I would not need to think too much about the story/stories because I have told it many times to different people. Even if I were to just simply say my name, the rest of the story will play itself out in my head because I have made enough repetitions in the past; I have repeated them over and over so many times. We make a mantra with the stories that we hold.
Our entire lives, from when we are kids, we are surrounded by stories. You could say that stories pervade everything. Our very own lives, how we see others, how we see our communities, our nation, the world, are all constructed in story.
Starting the South African story with Jan van Riebeek and the arrival of the first Dutch settlers in 1652 is a choice we make when we recount the history of our nation. But even if we were to choose to start further back than the arrival of colonialism, or decide to include areas previously excluded, we must realise that the narrative of the nation is a construction. We make choices in how we frame a country or a people.
In a sense, we are also trapped within the stories we tell and retell. For example, I maybe a mess today because perhaps my father would beat me. Perhaps, he was a harsh man, he never acknowledged me, always called me a loser. And as a result I am a bad father to my kids, or a bad husband, or unreliable, or whatever… Through the stories we hold to our chests, we limit our own greatness or justify our own arrogance or our own racism. We say things like, “I am always a stickler for detail, I am fussy, I don’t suffer fools…” or “Women are always bad drivers”, “Blacks have no idea how to run a country which is why Africa is in a mess…” These are stories we invented partly based on limited experience of reality and partly based on very limited perception.
Our entire lives, from when we are kids, we are surrounded by stories. You could say that stories pervade everything. Our very own lives, how we see others, how we see our communities, our nation, the world, are all constructed in story.
It is like driving on the highway and a car swerves right in front of you. You honk your horn to vent your anger. You take a quick glance at the make of the car or maybe the number plate or the gender or race and we make up a story to explain the other driver’s lack of manners. We have no idea what the actual reason was for that driver’s behaviour and may never know. But we are going to go home and repeat that story to whoever cares to listen including our one-sided analysis.
There is this story of a guy who could not control his gossiping tongue and went to see a sage for guidance. He was instructed to collect feathers and release it on windy day from the minaret overlooking the city. When he returned to declare success, the sage said to him, “Now go and collect those feathers once more.” “But this is impossible,” said the man, “they are now so widely spread!” “Precisely!” said the sage.
It is said that the rose bush grew thorns to protect its flowers from fools. This is not so.
Image by Ryan Mcguire of Bells Design
The bush wished to be admired for its tenacity, its instinct for survival, its breeding and sharp intuition. And so it grew roses to draw an audience.
Some say that it is the beauty in us that cannot resist its twin in the rose and, much like the feline species, the rose had tricked people into caring for them.
Yet, what makes the rose hold our gaze?
The beauty of the rose lies in the way that it enfolds its secret desires within layers of petals. Once you pry them open, the rose begins to die.
The story of how earth and water met and why we love strolling on the beach…
Image by Forrest Cavale on Unsplash
Sand, daughter of rock, and Sea, son of rain, finally met. Sea was shy and, for once, was unable to make waves. He hid behind a boulder. Sand was less bashful. She sought him out and cornered him on the waterfront. “I have been watching you for some time already and I like what I see,” said Sand, “You are just the cowboy for me. So why don’t you marry me?”
Sea was taken aback. “I like you too,” said Sea, going back and forth, “but you don’t want to marry someone like me.”
“But I do,” said Sand, “I think we make the perfect match.”
“But I’m unreliable,” replied Sea, “everyone knows that I come and go like the tide.”
“But every time you come in,” said Sand, “I will be refreshed.” She smiled widely.
“Sometimes the weather angers me,” said Sea desperately, “then I blow up a storm.”
“On my shore,” replied Sand, “have I been anything but the epitome of calm?”
“I have depths you cannot imagine,” answered Sea, “A darkness you will never fathom.”
“I lie in the sun all day,” said Sand, “and sometimes can be quite shallow, but I like a nice challenge.”
“Yes,” searched Sea, “but I am known to drown many things.”
“Whether I am under you or inside you,” replied Sand, “you can never swallow me.”
Finally, when he could not think of anything else, Sea said: “Do I have a choice?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Sand and smiled wider than any shoreline, “It is inevitable.”
The sun set quickly behind the horizon.
And so Sand and Sea were married. Under the watchful eyes of Moon, Sea regulated his tides. No matter how deep Sea was, you always found Sand holding him up. When he blew up in storm he found a place rest on the shores of Sand. There, with every incoming wave they renewed their love for each other and mingled in the breaking crest. They talked no more as there was no need for words any longer.
After many years, and with the help of Sun, Sand and Sea gave birth to offspring that would symbolise their love for each other. These children were the first humans made of Sand and Sea. Human beings combined calm and storm, shallow and deep, travelling and staying — the one part never being able to swallow the other.
People went all over the earth always keeping grandmother Sand under their feet to keep them firm and to build their homes. At first they only went where their uncles, the rivers were, and then later took water with them wherever they went. And till today, when lovers want to renew their love for each other they go walking on the shoreline with their feet mingling in the wet sand, their children building sandcastles that the tide will try to swallow… inevitably.
Heritage Month Reflections on Water, People, and Becoming
The Forgotten River Beneath Our Feet
Before there were streets and buildings, before Company Gardens and canals, there was water. It rose from the springs of Table Mountain and came tumbling down in streams, gathering into what the Khoi called Camissa — the place of sweet waters. For centuries, this river sustained life at the Cape. The Khoi and San drank from it, rested by its banks, told stories in its shade. Later, enslaved men and women from Java, Bengal, Madagascar, Mozambique, and India touched its current as they bent under forced labour. Fresh water was the first mercy, and the first demand.
Camissa once ran openly down into the town. The Dutch East India Company carved it into canals, forcing its body into stone, bending it to their fort and gardens. But water has memory. It seeps under walls, reappears in unexpected places, refuses to be silenced. Today, buried beneath tar and pavement, Camissa still flows. And if you pause long enough, you might hear it whisper under your feet.
At the River’s Edge: A People Gathered
The river was never just water. It was a meeting place, a barzakh — a threshold where lives, languages, and faiths collided. Khoi pastoralists led cattle to drink. San hunters rested with skins and stories. Dutch settlers drew buckets to quench their fort. Slaves dug trenches, carried wood, and planted gardens for a company that claimed the river as its own.
Yet at the same banks, something else was happening. Free Blacks, exiles, manumitted slaves, and the first Muslims of the Cape gathered here. The Auwal Mosque — our first mosque — rose near the Camissa’s streams. Qur’an recitation and children’s laughter mingled with the sound of water. Out of pain, a people began to form.
African Camissa: A Wider Circle
Patric Tariq Mellet calls this heritage African Camissa. It is more than geography; it is an identity — a wider circle of becoming. In his telling, Camissa is the place where Khoi, San, enslaved Africans, Asian exiles, and their descendants all drank from the same stream, forming a new community beyond the colonial word “Coloured.”
Stuart Hall once said identity is not a fixed thing we inherit, but a process of becoming. Camissa is that process made visible in water — always moving, always reshaping, carrying traces of every stone it has touched.
The River of Resistance and Remembrance
Water has always been resistance. Hājar ran between the hills in desperation, and Zamzam burst forth in the desert — the well that still feeds millions of pilgrims. Camissa, too, gave life to those who were bound in chains. The VOC tried to control it, but enslaved hands touched it daily, and their songs flowed into it.
In my own writing, I have tried to follow these streams:
The Legend of the Silver Tree — a story of shimmering roots in mountain mist.
The Mother Tongue of Tasbih — where Afrikaans, written in Arabic script, became a stream of prayer.
Tamat — a reminder that completion is never an ending, but a living beginning.
Hājar — the Black mother whose faith turned thirst into a sacred inheritance.
All these pieces flow back into Camissa. The river is not only history — it is memory itself, resisting erasure.
Heritage Month: Listening for the Water
September often gives us monuments, parades, and neat stories of “unity in diversity.” But heritage is not polished granite or rainbow slogans. It is water that refuses to stay in its channel.
Camissa is buried, but not gone. It still seeps under Cape Town, carrying whispers of Khoi clans, slave lullabies, Qur’an verses, and the rhythm of ghoema drums. It reminds us that heritage is not just what we are handed, but what we choose to remember and honour.
Closing Reflection
The Camissa River still remembers us. It does not flow in straight lines. It curves, divides, disappears, and resurfaces — like our histories, like our families, like our faiths. To walk in Cape Town is to walk above water, on layers of memory that never dry out.
The tree shimmers still, for those who know where to look. The river flows still, for those who choose to listen.
🎥 This reflection also lives as a video. Watch it on [Instagram]
How empire sails in suits, and what it means to row in resistance.
🔰 Intro
There was a time when pirates came with cutlasses and black flags. You saw them coming. You heard the war drums. But today — the pirates wear uniforms. Or suits. Or diplomatic smiles. And while their ships sail under the banner of freedom, the wake they leave is full of oil, fire, and broken nations.
This is a story about empire. But it’s also a story about you. About where you sit — above deck, below deck, or paddling in a canoe. It’s about resistance. Memory. And the unseen rows of angels above.
“The sea is full of flags — but not one lowers its sails in grief.”
They told us flags were symbols of freedom. They said democracy wears red, white, and blue. They taught us that when their soldiers arrive, the people are being saved.
But the flag flaps like a warning now. The stripes stretch across oceans. The stars are stamped on missiles. The anthem plays over drone strikes.
This isn’t peace. It’s piracy with better branding.
The United States isn’t a country anymore — it’s a flagship. The lead ship in a fleet of multinationals, financial institutions, media empires, and war machines.
It doesn’t sail for justice. It sails for lithium. For land. For leverage.
Its flag is the Jolly Roger of the modern age — not because it’s outlawed, but because it’s above the law. And while the old pirates hoisted black flags to strike fear, these ones wave their colours with pride… and call it diplomacy.
You see them dock in Gaza, in Haiti, in the Sahel. They don’t drop anchor — they drop sanctions. They don’t build bridges — they bulldoze economies. They leave schools shattered, mothers weeping, aquifers poisoned — and they call it freedom.
Even the boldest voices still need trade. Even South Africa, with its lawsuit and legacy, still knocks on the same doors. Because when the pirates run the ports, you have to smile as they loot.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, the killing continues. The children cry in Arabic, but no ship stops to help. The sea is full of flags, but not one lowers its sails in grief.
🏢 Section 2: The Pirates Have Offices Now
“You don’t need a coup when you can crash a currency.”
The pirates don’t need eye-patches anymore. They wear tailored suits. They don’t wave cutlasses — they carry clipboards. Their muskets have been replaced by metrics.
The modern pirate doesn’t kick down your door — he offers you a deal. An “investment.” A “development project.” A “partnership.”
But look closely: The lithium ends up in their electric cars. The water rights end up in their stock portfolios. The debt — always the debt — ends up around your children’s necks.
They’ve learned that you don’t need to invade a country if you can own its infrastructure. You don’t need to drop bombs if you can drop interest rates. You don’t need a coup when you can crash a currency.
BlackRock owns more land than many nations. Nestlé bottles water it didn’t pray for. Chevron calls oil sacred. Halliburton builds what the bombs destroy.
The empire privatized its violence. It outsourced the pillaging to companies with ethical mission statements. Its generals now wear CEO name tags. Its foot soldiers are analysts, consultants, lobbyists.
And when a country resists — like Bolivia, like Palestine, like Niger — it doesn’t get invaded at first. It gets discredited. Its leaders are called unstable. Its elections are called suspect. Its people are painted as dangerous, irrational, ungrateful.
This is how conquest works now: not with sails, but with spreadsheets. Not with warships, but with press releases. Not with swords — but with silence.
Somewhere, a young trade official — daughter of a struggle veteran — tries to resist. She sits in a Johannesburg office late at night, re-reading a contract with clauses meant to trap her people. She circles words in red. She drafts a softer version. She knows they won’t accept it. But still — she sends it.
🧠 Sidebar: They Stole the Thoughts Too
They didn’t just loot land and labour. They colonised knowledge. They broke open sacred libraries, and then wrote the footnotes in their own names.
The West calls it “intellectual property.” But it’s just patented plunder.
In Egypt, Plato sat at the feet of Black scholars. In Mali, the Dogon mapped the Sirius star system — long before telescopes. In South Asia, turmeric healed wounds before it had a bar code.
They burned the manuscripts of Timbuktu. Then they published “discoveries” about African medicine in European journals.
Today they say: “You owe us mobile phones.” But what they really mean is: “We branded what we stole.”
🛏 Section 3: Below Deck — The Ordinary Citizen
“The system is designed to keep the floor clean — even if the keel runs red.”
Empires aren’t only built by generals. They are built by people who go to work, come home tired, scroll a little, and sleep.
Below deck, life continues. The engines roar above, the orders are barked on the bridge — but here, the lighting is soft. There are supermarkets, streaming shows, lawnmowers, coffee shops.
No one hears the groans of the drowned. No one smells the smoke from the burning village.
Maybe they see something on the news — Gaza, Congo, Yemen. Maybe they feel a flicker of sorrow. Maybe not.
The comfort below deck is that you don’t have to know. The noise is muffled. The suffering is pixelated. The system is designed to keep the floor clean — even if the keel runs red.
And when someone does knock on the cabin door — a refugee, a witness, a protester — the citizens flinch. Not because they’re evil. But because it’s awkward. Disruptive. A crack in the illusion.
You see, this ship sells a story: “We are good.” “We bring freedom.” “We are the world’s hope.”
It’s a story whispered through education, hummed in entertainment, declared in politics. And most below deck believe it. Or want to. Or at least, want not to think about it too much.
One evening, a man in the suburbs clicks on a video about Gaza. He watches for seventeen seconds before an ad plays. He sighs. Skips it. Opens another tab. A special on air fryers. The horror slips away — not because he’s cruel, but because the system makes forgetting so easy.
Dissent is dulled with subscription bundles. A hundred shows to choose from. None of them about Palestine. And if that fails, there’s always a pill. A holiday. A hashtag that ends by Monday.
Because thinking leads to questions. And questions lead to guilt. And guilt demands action. And action? That rocks the boat.
🛶 Section 4: Canoes and Resistance
“These boats do not always win. But they do not drown quietly.”
Not every vessel sails under the pirate’s flag. Some float with patched sails and broken oars. They are small. Often sinking. But they do not bow.
They are the canoes of the world. Gaza, battered and besieged, still sings the Adhān through rubble. Haiti, dismembered by decades of debt and interference, still cooks its own rice. Congo, bleeding from every open vein of mineral wealth, still births drums and poems.
These are not nations that invade. They don’t fly drones or send tanks. They row.
And every stroke is resistance. Every preserved language, every intact culture, every refused bribe — resistance.
They are mocked for being poor. Starved for being proud. Punished for surviving.
Some truths no longer need footnotes. As the Spanish actor Javier Bardem once said, bluntly and beautifully: “Israel kills. The US funds it. And Europe supports it.”
That’s not politics. That’s a map. A map of complicity. A map of whose silence lets the ship sail on.
The empire calls them unstable. Calls their leaders corrupt. Calls their children threats. But what they fear is not chaos — it’s clarity.
Because the canoe does not pretend. It knows the sea is dangerous. It knows what the pirate ship is.
And still, it rows.
Some canoes are communities. Some are movements. Some are just one grandmother who still tells the old stories — even as the bulldozers arrive.
Some of the canoes ride rivers: the Amazon, the Orange, the Missouri. In them sit the Mapuche, the Nama, the Sioux. They chant in languages the empire once tried to burn. They still paddle. They still protect.
As the bombs fall, a boy in Gaza recites lines from Mahmoud Darwish: “We have on this earth what makes life worth living.” He whispers them into the dust. Into his mother’s lap. It’s not defiance. It’s remembering.
These boats do not always win. But they do not drown quietly. Their resistance echoes — in funeral processions, in ululations, in the smell of fresh bread rising where bombs fell.
And in the far distance, something stirs. Not a boat. Not a bomb. But a wave. A rising swell of memory and reckoning. The kind that even empires cannot out-sail.
❓ Section 5: What Now?
“Maybe you can’t leave yet. But you can plant questions in the cracks of the hull.”
You’ve seen the ship. You’ve heard the cannons. You’ve walked the quiet corridors below deck. You’ve watched the canoes struggle to stay afloat.
So now the question is simple. What now?
You don’t have to be a general. You don’t have to command a fleet. But you do have choices.
You can choose not to cheer when the ship fires. You can choose not to believe the stories they sell you — about the savages, the chaos, the necessary war.
You can choose not to mock the canoe. You can choose to listen when the drowned call out from beneath the waves. You can learn their names. Say their prayers. Tell their stories.
Maybe you’re below deck. Maybe you can’t leave yet. But you can plant questions like seeds in the cracks of the hull. You can make art that aches. You can whisper, even if your voice shakes.
And maybe, one day, when the ship hits a reef — you’ll already know how to swim.
🌌 Postscript: The Unseen Rows
“Above the pirate ships, the angels line up.”
For the ones who row. For the ones who remember.
Above the shipping lanes and air raids, above the pirate flags and surveillance drones, above the offices and engines and war rooms — there are rows they do not see.
Al-Ṣāffāt. “By those arrayed in rows…” (Qur’ān 37:1) The angels. Not scattered. Not confused. Lined up — like soldiers of mercy. Advancing — like winds of truth. Reciting — not data, but dhikr.
وَالصَّافَّاتِ صَفًّا فَالزَّاجِرَاتِ زَجْرًا فَالتَّالِيَاتِ ذِكْرًا By those arrayed in ranks, by those who drive forward, and by those who recite the Reminder… (Qur’ān 37:1–3)
These are not symbols. They are not myths. They are the architecture of heaven. And they do not forget the ones who row.
When the shayāṭīn of power rise to steal, when the liars reach for whispers of the unseen, they are met with stones of fire. Comets hurled from truth’s edge. The skies are not neutral. The divine has guardians.
“They cannot listen to the Higher Assembly… they are pelted from every side, repelled, and for them is a perpetual punishment.” (Qur’ān 37:8–9)
And we? We row. We remember. We recite.
We do not carry cannons — but we carry verses. We are not in fleets — but we are not alone. Somewhere, angels are already in formation.
✨ A Final Word from Rafiq al-Bunduqia
The Sage on the Jetty
So here’s what I say, ne:
Don’t let them fool you with fancy uniforms and offshore accents. A pirate in a suit is still a pirate. And just because the ship looks shiny don’t mean it’s not sinking.
Me, I seen this before. The old flags change — but the hunger stays the same. They used to come for your gold. Now they come for your soul — and your SIM card.
They sell you peace while sharpening knives. Call it “stability,” call it “the market,” call it “regime change.” But listen close, my bru — they only change regimes that say “no.”
Below deck, I know some of you are tired. I know some of you feel small, feel stuck. But remember: Empires fall when enough people stop pretending.
You can’t steer the whole ship, but you can stop rowing. You can stop clapping for the captain. You can light a fire in your corner. And when the time comes — you’ll know which way to swim.
And as for the ones still paddling in canoes? Rowing against the wave, barefoot, hungry, heart full?
May your names be written on the wind. May your stories outlast the storm. And may your grandchildren sail free.
shotgun click
We ride till the ship breaks, bru. Until then — we don’t hand over our compass.
“Salaam to the angels who line up when we can’t. Salaam to the ones who row even with leaking boats. Salaam to the ones who still make dhikr in the dark.
And to the empire?
May you one day see what light you tried to drown.”
Ameen, and ashraaf ʿalaikum ya ṣaffāt.
The seal of remembrance — for the ones who row, and the ones who remember.
— Rafiq al-Bunduqia, The Sage on the Jetty 🧭
“The Pharaoh. The Banker. The Builder.”
📜 Sidebar: The Three Faces of Tyranny Fir‘awn. Qārūn. Hāmān. These three figures appear repeatedly in the Qur’an — not just as villains of the past, but as types that recur across history. Fir‘awn: the dictator, the political oppressor. He claims divinity, demands obedience, and divides people to rule them. Qārūn: the hoarder, the economic elite. He flaunts his wealth, credits no one but himself, and forgets the source of all provision. Hāmān: the enabler, the bureaucrat and ideologue. He builds towers, writes the laws, manipulates truth, and justifies oppression in the name of order. Together, they form a system: the empire that marches with a flag in one hand, a contract in the other, and blood on its boots. Sound familiar?
“Today, they wear suits. They weaponise policy. But the triad still walks among us.”
The Pharaoh, the Banker, and the Builder
In the Qur’an, they stand together — a tyrant, a financier, and a master of infrastructure. Firʿawn ruled with cruelty. Qārūn hoarded with pride. Hāmān built towers for lies.
Centuries later, the empire shapeshifts. Today, they wear tailored suits. They pass laws. They sign cheques. They pave roads to ruin.
But remembrance makes them visible. And visibility is resistance.
“The Pharaoh. The Banker. The Builder.”
🧭 Parting Compass — A Note from Rafiq al-Bunduqia
Don’t wait for the ship to turn around. Grab an oar. Row memory forward. And if they ask who you are, say: I come from the ones who remembered.
The room was warm with family and remembrance. Qur’ans lay open, voices moving together through Yāsīn, Mulk, the Quls, verses of Ḥashr and Baqara. Then came the Asmāʾ al-Ḥusnā, dhikr in chorus, and a duʿā that softened every heart.
It was called an Arwaag, but as my friend Shakeel Garda reminded me, this was really a Gaajah — from ḥājah, a need. That night the “need” was joy: the birthdays of two young daughters, celebrated with Qur’an and remembrance. In Cape Town, we are used to dhikr circling grief, but here in Joburg, it circled life — proof that dhikr belongs to both birth and remembrance.
Beyond Cape Town
Too often, Cape Town is imagined as the sole custodian of these traditions. But remembrance does not belong to one city. It lives in Worcester, in Uitenhage, in Kimberley, in Joburg — wherever Muslims have gathered to cut rampies, to recite Yā Sīn, to raise salawāt. We must widen the circle, and not let heritage shrink into a single accent or postcode.
Heritage isn’t measured by the size of a crowd, but by the pulse that refuses to stop.
A Wider Map of Memory
I laughed when Shakeel said, “Ek het amper gesamba!” — because sometimes the subtle linkages do astound us.
On language and dialect, PE-born Boeta Yusie – remembers how it felt when hearing old Uitenhage folk speak their Afrikaans, slower than usual, every word taking time to land.
And here in Joburg too, the old families — the Matthews, the Domingos, the Sallies among so many others — have carried remembrance for generations. Some, like the Sallies, trace ties to Port Elizabeth, but all became founding Johannesburg families in their own right.
In Florida North, during the Gaajah, we stood for the salawāt — the Cape inheritance. Voices rose, and in that standing it felt as if the light of Muhammad ﷺ entered the room.
Heritage does not have one accent, one city, one rhythm. It stretches wider — across towns and valleys, across languages and lineages — carried in every echo of lā ilāha illa’Llāh.
Houghton Masjid – The Chorus of the Burdah
Friday night at Houghton Mosque was a different scale. The mosque was full: elders in white, young men with turbans, children by their fathers’ sides. Groups from different mosques took their turns, each with its own melody and rhythm.
Later my daughter Lala asked me, “What is this story of the Burdah? I’ve never heard this before.” I told her: “This is pure poetry! Almost like the Riwayah — the Prophet’s ﷺ life in song. But here, in the Burdah, different groups recite in turn, and together they weave a chorus.”
When I arrived at Houghton Mosque, I noticed something new. On the poster it had said: “Ladies Facilities Available.”Inside, the organisers had placed a new screen, expanding the women’s section for those who wanted to attend. It was unusual — there is already a women’s section — but this night, they anticipated more women. They made space.
That small act struck me as part of the remembrance itself: a recognition that devotion lives in inclusivity, in the care we show each other when we gather.
Before each group began, Ml Abu Hurairah Bobat guided the gathering, introducing the chapters and themes of the Qasidah Burdah. With warmth and clarity, he explained how the verses moved from praise of the Prophet ﷺ’s birth, to his struggles, to his intercession. His words opened the door for those less familiar, making the Burdah not just recited, but understood.
And then came the moment that will stay with me: as each group finished its verses, the entire jamaat — young and old — spontaneously joined in the chorus:
O my Lord, bless and grant peace always and forever Upon Your beloved one, the Best of all Creation.
It was not performance but inheritance. The refrain rose again and again until it felt as though the very walls of Houghton Mosque were singing with us.
The Lion and the Fortress
From the Qasidah Burdah, Imām al-Būṣīrī sings of the strength carried by those tied to the Prophet ﷺ:
Those whose help comes from the Messenger of Allah — Even lions encountering them in their dens would be struck speechless with fear.
He established his community within the fortress of his religion, As the lion settles down with its cubs in its lair.
Hearing the jamaat echo the chorus, I felt that same fortress. This was not nostalgia — it was strength and mercy alive in Johannesburg.
Fragrance and Victory
Later, another passage rang true to what I saw and smelled:
The winds of victory would present to you their fragrance, So that you imagine each valiant one of them to be a beautiful flower in bud.
As if, riding their steeds, they were flowers blooming upon a height, Held there not by the tautness of their saddles, but by the firmness of their resolution.
The Burdah does not only narrate victory — it perfumes it. Just as our Cape homes once scented with sandalwood and rampies, so here the fragrance of victory was carried in chorus.
Majestic Presence
And in the majesty of the Prophet ﷺ, the Burdah declares:
Like a flower in freshness and a full moon in eminence, Like an ocean in pure generosity and like time itself in strength of resolution.
Just from his majestic bearing, even when he was alone, He seemed as if amongst a great army and entourage.
At Houghton there was no standing qiyām — the tradition differs from the Cape. But the chorus of Mawlaya ṣalli wa sallim… still lifted the gathering, as if the walls themselves joined in remembrance.
Dress and Identity – From Kurta to Thobe
As I looked around, I noticed another change. When I was younger, men in Joburg mosques wore kurtas — Indian style. Now the children, young men, and elders were dressed in thobes and turbans, a celebration of the Prophet’s ﷺ attire.
Was it the influence of hajj and ʿumrah, Gulf media, or the aspiration to be closer to sunnah? Perhaps all of these. Styles shift, but the devotion remains.
Closing – Joburg Remembers Too
This Rabiʿ al-Awwal, in Heritage Month, Joburg reminded me that Cape Town does not own memory. Dhikr lives here too — in family homes, in gaajahs for birthdays, in mosques filled with Burdah echoes.
Heritage is not just remembrance, it is continuity. Not only in books, but in chorus. Not only in Cape Town, but in Joburg.
The Prophet ﷺ is in our veins and in our graves. In sandalwood tasbihs, in rampies leaves, in choruses that rise like fragrance. Remembered not only in words, but in song.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Kaaps, and the Language of Return
“Take away our language and we will forget who we are.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o — the voice that reminds us that language is the root of memory and identity.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s words land with the sharpness of memory — not just for Kenya, where he grew up, but here at the Cape, where empire’s conquest of our bodies came with a quieter, more enduring conquest of our tongues.
Ngũgĩ’s recent essay in The Guardian tells how colonial schools punished African children for speaking their mother tongues, rewarding only the conqueror’s speech. It shows how missionaries imposed new, biblical names on students — turning Ngũgĩ into “James” — severing identity at the root. He calls this the colony of the mind, where shame and silence make us police our own voices.
The Cape Echo
We know this story. In our Cape classrooms, Kaaps — the language of our homes, jokes, and arguments — was labelled “slang,” “broken,” or “incorrect.” Arabic-Afrikaans, the written tongue of our forebears’ Qur’ans and litanies, vanished from the public page. It was no accident. This was the slow grind of erasure: to make us strangers in our own mouths.
Kaaps lives in the stoep conversations, the street games, the everyday poetry of the Cape.
Kaaps as a Living Archive
Kaaps is not “lesser” Afrikaans. It is the living grammar of the Cape, born from the meeting of Khoi, Malay, enslaved African, and European tongues. It carries the rhythm of working-class streets, the tenderness of family kitchens, the wit of those who survive by laughing.
Ngũgĩ’s call for linguistic justice speaks directly to Kaaps: the demand that we write, publish, and teach it without apology, that we refuse to bleach it into acceptability. To reclaim Kaaps is to reclaim the right to sound like ourselves.
The Ratib al-Haddad and the Sound of Home
If Kaaps is our daily voice, Arabic-Afrikaans is our prayer voice. In the Ratib al-Haddad, Cape Muslims preserved the Qur’an’s Arabic alongside Kaaps-Afrikaans, written in Arabic script. These manuscripts are living proof that language can survive conquest by going underground — into the masjid, the madrasa, the family du’a.
Ngũgĩ imagines a network of languages, each contributing its own beauty. The Ratib is already that: Arabic, Malay, and Kaaps carrying barakah together, resisting the empire’s hierarchy of tongues.
The colony of the mind — when language is caged, and light must break through.
Colonies of the Mind
The greatest victory of conquest, Ngũgĩ says, is when we no longer need to be told our languages are inferior — we have already believed it. That is the “colony of the mind.”
This is why we keep unearthing Arabic-Afrikaans manuscripts, writing Kaaps into the public record, celebrating the medora and the sorbaan, documenting the words of our elders. These are not side-projects — they are acts of return.
From Erasure to Inheritance
Ngũgĩ reminds us: decolonisation begins with language. Every blog on Kaaps, every poster that holds a Cape word like a jewel, every unpacking of the Ratib is not just cultural garnish — it’s the soil in which freedom takes root.
If the conqueror severs language to make us forget, then our work is to speak, sing, write, and teach in our own tongues until our children’s children remember again.
If there is one poet that can speak to the heart of spirituality with a timeless relevance and cutting across different persuasions, then Rumi is most certainly the master. Raised on stories of his life by my dad, I have only really begun to make sense of Mevlana Jalalluddin Rumi recently.
An empty, capless, two litre Coke bottle was jay-rolling across a busy Goldman Street near the pedestrian crossing. I had fetched my ten year old son from the primary school down Sixth Avenue. At 2.07pm, that part of Florida, Roodepoort, can be a traffic nightmare for about another twenty minutes but the 2-litre did not care. It does not go to school and—and now that it was empty—no home to go to either.
Adli Yacubi 