Historic prayers at Cape Town castle

The Cape Town Castle, built by the Dutch East India Company is surrounded by a moat fed by Table Mountain streams.
Photos Shafiq Morton

NOT all is bad in post-apartheid South Africa, reeling from the shady and reckless rule of a profligate President Jacob Zuma who has sold off the country to the Guptas, a group of Indian-born businessmen from Uttar Pradesh.

Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta arrived in South Africa from Saharanour, India, sent by Shiv Kumar, their businessman father, to explore business opportunities in the country – something which they have done to the point of state capture and ongoing controversy.

The corrupt shenanigans of the power elites aside, Cape Town Castle – built in 1658 – was the scene of historic Friday – or Jumu’ah – prayers at the end of May. They were incorporated into a cultural pre-Ramadan festival held inside its walls.

What is significant is that the Castle, a corporate structure built by the Dutch East India Company, was where slaves (many of whom were Muslim) were incarcerated, tortured and even torn apart at the wheel.  During World War I and II, the Castle was garrisoned by troops, as it was during the apartheid era.

In 1994, on the dawn of South Africa’s first democratic elections, a group of Muslims involved in the 300^th anniversary of the arrival of Shaikh Yusuf of Makasar – an Indonesian exile sent to the Cape by the Company in 1694 – prayed the post sunset prayers on its lawns.

This was a hugely symbolic moment, marking the first time after 346 years that Muslims were free to practice their faith in a place that once typified the arrogance of imperial and apartheid grandeur.

To top it, the Friday prayers were led by Mufti Ebrahim Khalil al-Awadallah, the Islamic legal authority in Ramallah on the West Bank in Palestine. As a Palestinian, the occasion was not lost on him. In a broad-ranging address, in which he condemned extremism, he said that Palestinians – longing for freedom from Zionist apartheid – often looked to South Africa for inspiration.

The Castle entrance.

Cape Dutch gable inside the walls.

The historic prayer in  April 1994, led by Shaikh Yusuf da Costa.

Shaikh Abdul Karrim makes the call to prayer.

Mufti Ebrahim Khalil al-Awadallah in prayer.

Mufti Ebrahim Khalil al-Awadallah

A large crowd attended the Friday prayers.

Mufti al-Awadallah addresses the crowd.

Second left Shaikh Ebrahim Gabriels Muslim Judicial Council and Ebrahim Rasool, former Premier and SA ambassador in Washington.

Women listen to the sermon.

Jamiel Wallace: a gentle giant of community radio passes on

WIDELY acclaimed as the “gentle giant” of community radio, Hajji Jamiel Wallace passed away this week (Monday) after a short illness. An anchor at the Voice of the Cape, Jamiel Wallace – or Boeta Jamiel as his thousands of fans called him – rose from being a volunteer to a full-time presenter.

Born in Parow 70 years ago to William and Francis Wallace, Jamiel Wallace embraced Islam as a young man, marrying Fahma Stevens in 1973.  He worked for 30 years in the furniture business, where he says he learnt how to communicate.

Wallace was introduced to community radio in 1998 via his local mosque, Masjid Nur ul-Huda in Belhar, where he was its secretary. In those days, Voice of the Cape had a night shift – an empowerment initiative running from midnight to the early hours – that was organised by the station’s Community Forum.

Wallace was introduced to the night shift by then programme manager, Achmat Rylands.  Neighbour Imam Allie, finance manager at Voice of the Cape, wryly notes that he always thought his sociable friend would make it on radio.

Wallace was one of the successes of the Independent Broadcasting Act of 1993 that liberated our airwaves, rising to becoming Voice of the Cape’s breakfast show presenter. He also hosted an evening show, Talking Point, Sunday Live and just before his retirement last year, Friday Nasiha (spiritual counsel) with various clerics.

Voice of the Cape conducts many outside broadcasts – well over 100 a year – and it was at these OB’s that Wallace really made his mark. Whether it was at a mosque, a shopping centre or at the State of the Nation address, he would always be able to keep the airwaves alive with his gentle patter, endless anecdotes and good cheer.

He was also the master of ad-lib. Former news editor, Shanaz Ebrahim-Gire, recalls an incident in 2008 when the station’s power was cut due to an Eskom outage. The station was running on a small generator just enough to power up a mike and the transmission signal.

“One man, one microphone, no lights, no jingles, no ads, no music and he kept VOC on air by just talking! God alone knows where he got the energy to talk non-stop for what felt like forever, but what turned out to be two hours. What a legend!”

Another role that Wallace played was that of a consumer watchdog, using his wide range of contacts to help people in distress. Whether it was hire-purchase headaches – or even in one case, marital abduction in a foreign country – Wallace would quietly and unobtrusively find solutions. In the early SASSA years he ironed out grant problems for scores of people.

Although Wallace had retired early from the furniture business, his youngest daughter Watheeqah, says that her dad – apart from having green fingers in the garden– had always shared a passion for news and politics.

A gentle person with engaging manners, and never – ever – short of conversation, Wallace was not an in-your-face presenter. Adept in local politics, community issues and current affairs, he could pose the most awkward of questions, and make it sound like he was asking you how would like your tea. Guests liked, and trusted, him.

An avid reader and coffee drinker, Wallace was not a digital journalist. He would rely on hard copy, countless newspapers and his contacts. He was a skilled primary source journalist in the true sense of the word. And whilst he could improvise if he had to, former 

Breakfast Show producer, Goolam Fakier, said that he was always well-prepared.

Former colleague, Dorianne Arendse, said that one could give Wallace any topic, and he would find a way to break it down. “When we did the broadcasts at the State of the Nation, he would so easily strike up a conversation with the ministers and the MP’s…it was amazing ...”

News Editor, Tasneem Adams, said that Wallace had a unique ability to interact with people from all backgrounds, from religious clerics, community activists to businessman and politicians. But it was his natural warmth, charisma, and great sense of humour that cemented his bond with listeners, especially the elderly.

“Boeta Jamiel would often stand in my office and talk about anything and everything. It was a running joke sometimes that he just wouldn’t stop talking, especially when you’re on deadline. But I always appreciated the value he added to our newsroom. Even when he was in retirement, he would often call me with news stories or to chat about a political event. He just had so much passion…”

Wallace is survived by his wife, Fahma, his children Zieyaad, Ghalied, Lamees, Watheeqah and eleven grand-children.

The Qur’an and Ramadan, a mansion of many spacious rooms

Photo © Shafiq Morton

RAMADAN, as we all know, is regarded as the month of Qur’an. Historically, the Qur’an was revealed on its 27th night. Its verses are recited every evening in mosques across the globe, and many try to read it from cover to cover in 29 to 30 lunar days.

This is a truly astounding phenomenon – one that resounds in the heavenly realms as Divine Mercy descends to earth on the Night of Power. A Godly gift said to reside in the last ten days of Ramadan, it offers the immeasurable rewards of having worshipped for over a thousand months.

Ramadan, resplendent with layered significance, offers grace, mercy and forgiveness in equal measures. It offers exoneration of sin to those who have fasted with a good heart; it gives equal relief to those who have paid their fidya, or expiation, if one cannot fast.

As the fast is a secret for each person, something known only to Allah, Ramadan is a mansion of many spacious rooms. Its outward measures – such as protecting the tongue, the pre-dawn meal, hastening to eat when the sun sets and being generous – are the embellishments of those who submit. 

But the greatest thing of all is the speech of Allah, the Qur’an. The Qur’an – as its descriptive moniker indicates – is a revelation and it talks to each of us with a rare intimacy. Yet it is not a poem, nor a work of prose. As Allah himself tells us, it is for recitation, and its recitation is highly recommended during Ramadan.

Ramadan, lest we forget, is also a celebratory month. It is not a time for morbidity and moroseness. It is a time of measured action and reflection, of seeking bright blessings. Tarawih – the traditional communal night prayers – is derived from the root word, “raha”, which means to rest. The beautiful incantations recited after the prayer cycles, allows the worshipper to rest.  

In other words, Ramadan is not a time for rushing through things. It is a time for savouring the moment, for allowing the Qur’an’s linguistic mastery, its cadences, its amazing transitions and its subtleties to wash over our senses.

It is for this reason that I always struggle to understand why certain mosques – albeit with good intentions – will race through the Qur’an, the youthful reciters going so fast that the words become an unintelligible jumble. Tarawih becomes a sweaty session of going up and down.

It begs the question: are we reading the Qur’an just to finish it? Is our haste not waste? Does a complete reading for its own sake become the equivalent of a meaningless trophy? Or do we read the Qur’an because we want to really listen to it, because we really want to swim in its deep pools?

Imam Qurtubi, the great 13th century scholar – whose tafsir (or exegesis) of the Qur’an is authoritative – said that the Qur’an had to be recited without haste. The reader had to clearly pronounce every word. Each letter, said Qurtubi, had to be given its proper due as it invoked the weight of ten rewards. Or as the Companion, ‘Amr ibn al-‘As, commented: “Every Qur’anic verse is a stair of Paradise.”

Quite evidently, Imam Qurtubi is being mindful of the Prophet [SAW], as Bukhari and Muslim both report the Prophet [SAW] saying that “he is not one of us who does not make his voice melodious whilst reading Qur’an.” In another tradition, via Abu Dawud, the Prophet [SAW] exhorted us to beautify the Qur’an with our voices.

Further traditions say that the Prophet [SAW] used to recite slowly, clearly enunciating each letter and lengthening the vowel – or madd – sounds in words such as Raheem.  He also used to pause after every verse, until it appeared – said the Companions – to sound longer than it actually was.

Imam al-Ghazali, the 12th century colossus, encapsulates exactly how we should approach Qur’an. He says that we have to taste the Qur’an in our hearts. We do this by magnifying its speaker, who is Allah; we do this by paying attention to its letters and words; we do this by pondering over its verses; and finally, we do this by seeking its linguistic, scholarly and contemplative dimensions.

For our response to the Qur’an to be effective, says Imam Ghazali, we have to lift four veils. The first is being concerned merely with outward recitation. The second is bias. Super-imposing our bias over Qur’anic messages prevents their true nature from being revealed. 

Thirdly, sin clouds the heart and obscures understanding. And fourthly, tafsir shouldn’t inhibit private reflection (without stepping over the bounds of Shari’ah).

A worshipper, said Imam Ghazali, had to rise in three degrees of recitation, bearing in mind that any act of Qur’anic recitation already represented a tremendous grade, or state of being. The lowest grade, he wrote, was reading the Qur’an as if one were standing before Allah, pleading, entreating and supplicating.

The middle grade was when we realised that Allah was actually addressing us with His favours, that he was bestowing gifts of meaning, us receiving them with modesty and magnification. This grade led to feelings of ecstasy, thankfulness and joy. The highest grade was when we beheld the Speaker and His attributes, when we saw the address of Allah, and only then, realised our recitation.

Whilst the comprehension of Qur’an is a noble aspiration, Imam al-Ghazali – like all the scholars of repute – says there are equal mercies in reciting the Qur’an for those who understand it, and significantly, for those who also do not understand it.

He relates a story from Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, who said: “I saw Allah, Great and Mighty, in a dream and asked Him: ‘O, Lord, how have those who have drawn near to You  achieved this intimacy?’ And Allah, the Almighty, replied: ‘By My speech, O Ahmad.’

“Imam Ahmad then asked: ‘Lord, did they do this by understanding the meaning of Your Qur’an, or without it?’ To which Allah, the Most Merciful, replied, ‘O my dear Ahmad, ‘by understanding it as well as without understanding it.’”

Helen Zille: historical lessons from a tweet

Thanks Zapiro

THE recent hullabaloo surrounding a tweet from Western Cape premier and former DA leader, Helen Zille, on colonialism has been illustrative more of our political hysteria than anything else. No excuses for questionable viewpoints, of course, but personal mudslinging takes the debate away from the real issues – a lesson the anti-Zuma camp needs to learn too. 

And whilst a lot of things have since flowed under the proverbial political bridge, there is – I feel – still a lot to discuss about the infamous Zille tweets that were posted in March.

The gist of Zille’s social media message, that colonialism hadn’t been all that bad and that it had brought us piped water, infrastructure and an independent judiciary, was sent while she was boarding a plane in Singapore. She’d been studying the trillion dollar halal market in the Far East related to a proposed R1-billion halal agri-processing food park in the Western Cape.

Veteran journalist and author, Zubeida Jaffer, challenged Zille on the website www.thejournalist.co.za in her Open Letter to Helen Zille:

“Your tweets finally clarify why you have not broken these colonial practices. It is because your philosophical position sees nothing innately wrong with the havoc of colonial governance. This thinking has easily flowed into the present,” wrote Jaffer.

“Your tweets confirm consistently repeated prejudice that feeds into the old apartheid consciousness: where whites rule, things are better: where blacks rule, things are a mess.”

I feel that Zille’s somewhat Freudian tweet has been correctly questioned, but all too often, without the pre-requisite context. We have to interrogate – and fully understand – this deeply-conditioned response to our history, one that conflates colonialism with setting positive standards.

Historically, as author Malcom Ray points out in his book Free Fall, what we are discussing here is witnessed by the British “liberal” policy of the early 19^th century. It proposed that the “child-like” native had to be “educated” by the European to aspire to an imperial identity (at the cost of his own one), in which his traditions would be replaced by economic dependency.

Or as Cecil John Rhodes was to declare in 1894, “…we will teach them (the Africans) the dignity of labour,” a monstrous statement by a monstrous little man, his words echoed by the Eichmann of apartheid, Hendrik Verwoed, 70 years later.

And whilst grasping the fact that civic infrastructure was built to chiefly benefit the economic interests of the imperialist – in this case the British – we have to unveil Ms Liberty to see what really happened, and how we all have been affected by it – the so-called independent judiciary more responsible for enforcing colonial decree than real justice.

In the Cape, it was the London Missionary Society that started the rot when Dr John Philip arrived in Cape Town after 1818. The British political masters expediently saw the missionaries as an extension of British interests, and the missionaries – keen to Christianise the barbarians at the gates of the empire – were happy to play along.

Evangelically inspired – and supported by more sinister political motives – missionary liberalism became the cloak and missionary education the dagger to create a black working class in South Africa.  

It would have an impact not only here, but also in India and even Palestine. Millions would die, and millions more would be uprooted in the name of empire. Ironically, it was this stream of evangelism – proposing an end-times Jewish homecoming – that inspired the Zionist discourse.

This happened well before its Jewish aspiration in 1898 by Theodore Herzl, a Viennese journalist. His Der Judenstat was predated by an Anglican chaplain, William Hechter, who wrote The Restoration of the Jews to Palestine in 1894.

Zionism – seen by some as neo-evangelical imperialism started by the British – had two significant actors in Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Oliphant. Shaftesbury would declare in 1853 that there was “a country without a nation” and that God in his wisdom had directed him to a nation without a country (historical Palestine).

An idea of how these imperialists blithely ignored the rights of others, based on their notions of superiority, is a book penned by Lord Oliphant in 1880 entitled The Land of Gilead. It reads like a handbook of the Palestinian Nakba.

Back in Africa Dr Philip, cut from the same cloth, had written home: “we have to become the masters, but rule as we do in India.” As Ray points out, “traditional social moorings” were cut, leaving the Governor of the Cape, Sir George Grey, to tellingly comment that African people had to become “useful servants, consumers of goods (and)…contributors to revenue.”

This, some would argue, is at the heart of neo-liberal policy, which they will argue entrenches historical privilege by throwing itself at the feet of market forces.

At this point, political debate aside, I’m sure it’s obvious that what 300 years of colonialism and 46 years of apartheid did was to put up a wall between South Africans. Or, to put it more bluntly, enforced class, economic and race distinctions based on a divide-and-rule policy of undermining traditional values and leadership.

This has been felt keenly in the Cape, encumbered not only by the rampant indignities of apartheid, but also by slavery and the demise of the indigenous Khoi and San – something that has been ignored when formulating policies of historical redress.

And up to 2017, our educational system has pandered to this status-quo of airbrushed history and neo-colonial syllabi. From this matrix has emerged a dangerous and divisive socio-economic polarity based on a distance from power created by privilege, despite democracy and some measurable progress.

I make no excuses for Zille – or any politician – but to believe that people can abandon decades of social conditioning at the drop of a hat, is not always realistic. If there is anything to learn from Zille’s tweet, it’s the fact that after 22 years of democracy, we still don’t know who we are, and have done very little about it.

Jesus or Muhammad? A belated reply to Mario Joseph

Image © Shafiq Morton

I HAVE never been comfortable with debates between faiths. These exchanges often result in triumphalism, which is offensive. But there is the case of a YouTube video that has recently been circulated. It is about Mario Joseph, who was formerly Moulvi Sulaiman. I was asked to comment on it by some people who were concerned by his arguments, but unsure of how to respond to them.

Claiming to have been an “imam” from Kerala who converted to Christianity in 2013, Joseph is what we’d call a murtad fitri, a person born to Islam who has committed apostasy, or ridda. The opening question, the issue of juridicial punishment for apostasy (only applied in a genuine Islamic state), has been grossly misrepresented or decontextualised – especially by extremists, or Islamophobes trumpeting the barbarity of Islam.

Firstly, there is no mention of capital punishment for apostasy in the Qur’an. Secondly, there is no evidence of the Prophet ever ordering apostates to be executed if their apostasy was distinct from state treason. Space precludes further discussion, and suffice it to say that responsible scholars within our democracies and minorities today would never support the idea of capital punishment for apostasy.

If anything, I would suggest that Joseph is not of sound mind and is in need of our sympathy. His antipathy against Islam is, I believe, based on the psychological trauma of being forced (against his will) to leave home and study at an “Arabic school” when he was eight. Surat ul-Baqarah (the Chapter of the Heiffer) proclaims that there should be no compulsion in faith, and if one listens to Joseph’s accounts, his father failed him on that count.

Joseph claims his epiphany was triggered by a member of his congregation asking about Jesus. This, he says, led to him “reading (sic) the Qur’an” and being puzzled by what he discovered. There were only four mentions of the name “Muhammad”, but there were 25 of Jesus. Ironically, Moses is mentioned 136 times in the Qur’an and the Pharaoh, an evil man, over 70 times.

This, in turn, led to a reading of Surat ul-Maryam, where he claimed to have “discovered” evidence of Jesus’ apparent “superiority” over Muhammad due to his miracles and other references to him being called “Kalimatullah”, the word of Allah, and “Ruhullah”, the spirit of Allah.

Joseph’s first assumption, that because the name Muhammad is only mentioned in Qur’an four times diminishes his status, belies the fact that Muhammad is directly addressed in the Qur’an at least 70 times. For instance, the Prophet’s exalted status is referred to seven times. That he is a beloved of Allah is mentioned nine times, that he is an intercessor is indicated three times and his miracles are described six times.

Amongst the Prophet’s miracles are the Qur’an, the Night Journey, the splitting of the moon, the angels fighting his enemies at the Battle of Badr and his escape from the Quraish in the cave of Thawr. There are hundreds more, such as the Prophet not having a shadow and water flowing from his fingers.

Joseph’s departure of faith is his conflation of Jesus with God Himself by capsizing our understanding of the divine words, “kun faya kun” – “be, and it is”. He takes from the Gospel of John, which says “in the beginning was the Word”. However, in Islam God is the beginning.

In Islamic theology, therefore, the Word existing before Allah is impossible. As creation cannot precede its Creator, and the created cannot become the Creator, Jesus can never be God. According to His own attributes, Allah is totally transcendent. Allah might arguably be co-eternal with His Word, but He cannot come after it. If the divine cart were to go before the divine horse, the universe would collapse.

The idea, posited by Joseph, that the Qur’an suggests the “word became flesh” via Jesus being “Kalimatullah” is a fracturing of the Divine Whole, or Tawhid, which is the central theme of the Qur’an. It engenders the Islamic blasphemy of Allah begetting offspring, which is condemned in Surat ul-Maryam  (Mary) and countless other Qur’anic chapters.

With the “Kalimatullah” imbued with the ruh – or holy spirit – we get the Pauline trinity of the Father, the son (divine flesh splitting off from the godhead) and the holy ghost (the split divine flesh being imbued with an equivalent godly spirit). Islamic scholars say this tends to polytheistic confusion.

What is misunderstood with regards to Jesus, a much beloved prophet in Islam, is that “Kalimatullah” means he was blessed to carry a prophetic message. Some scholars also suggest that “Kalimatullah” means the “testimony”, the kalimah, of faith. All of this is a far cry from the attribute of divinity.

“Ruhullah” refers to several things, none of them divine. “Ruhullah” is essentially an Adamic statement, as Allah blew the “ruh” – or soul – into the previously lifeless figure of Adam. This was a moment of “kun faya kun”, a divine decree, and not an act of godly parenthood in begetting a son or a daughter.

In the case of Jesus, “Ruhullah” is an honorific title referring to his inherent spirituality. In his case, his “ruh” was blown into the womb of Maryam, a chaste and pure woman of great stature by the archangel Jibril on the command of Allah. The divine decree was “be” and “Jesus was”, an infallible Messenger of Allah, but not Allah.

Apologies are due to our Christian brethren if I have offended them. I have tried to deal with Joseph’s injustices to Islamic theology, not Christianity. Of course, Mario Joseph (aka Moulvi Sulaiman) is free to believe what he wants, but if he spreads half-truths about Islam I do have the right to reply – in the very same sense if I’m seen to have done the same myself, someone else will enjoy the right of reply too.

Finally, as Surat ul-Kafirun says: “you to your belief, me to mine”. May we all go in peace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjUXd4qW9mg

STATE CAPTURE: ZUMA FIGHTS BACK WITH FAKE NEWS

Thanks to Zapiro and the Mail and Guardian

FOR some time I’ve felt like we’ve been facing a dam wall on the whole Zuma issue. Every time Zuma critics have opened their mouths they’ve been flooded with bizarre conspiracy theories on social media platforms. Recently, as in the Ahmed Kathrada memorial in KwaZulu Natal, the ANC bully-boys have been called in to crush public dissent.

Zuma’s irrational firing of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas, on the basis of an “intelligence” report has only increased the social-media volume. Riddled with schoolboy errors, the much-vaunted report seems to have been typed on an android phone with predictive text and then pasted, without editing, on to an official letterhead.

I have often wondered who conjured up the document that supplies no supporting evidence for its allegations of Gordhan and Jonas plotting against the state (in other words, not unfreezing Gupta bank accounts and not approving the Russian nuclear deal). Was it texted hurriedly from within the Gupta compound to the presidency?

Prominent ANC figureheads and members have all expressed misgivings about the viability of Zuma staying in office. What is it that holds him to the Guptas? These are damning indictments of an amoral politician who not only faces over 780 corruption charges, but the censure of the Constitutional Court.

This is a president who cannot appear in public without being booed. This is a president who caused even the middle-class to come out in the streets. This is an economically illiterate president who went from being the lap-dog of the Shaikhs to becoming the poodle of the Guptas.

Compromised from day one, President Zuma has had to spend huge energies on ensuring he stays out of a prison cell. But not only that, he has plundered the Treasury on behalf of his family, friends and an army of worshipping acolytes inside and outside the cabinet.

These are the hard facts of a feeble presidency, marked more by dissipation and nepotism than leadership. This is a presidency that has plunged the country into crisis and the ANC, Africa’s proudest organisation, into a terminal decline. Granted, some of the rot was evident during President Thabo Mbeki’s tenure, but nothing that could not have been remedied after Polokwane.

All of the above is well-known to every single thinking South African who has not been sucked into the blind vortex of Zuma incorporated. Perhaps what is not publicised enough, though, is that last year Zuma officially entered the world of fake news. A 21^st century phenomenon, fake news is difficult to counter because of its relentless social media onslaught.

Taking on Goebbels’ famous axiom that if you repeat something enough it becomes truth, a measure of this is that in the US today there are nearly five PR practitioners for every journalist. In Great Britain there are said to be about 60, 000 journalists to 83,000 PR practitioners. I haven’t been able to crunch the numbers for South Africa, but there are hundreds more PR agencies than media outlets, or journalists.

In February 2016 (and this has been reported by The Daily Maverick, the Citizen, the Business Day and the Sunday Times) Gupta-hireling Duduzane Zuma and Fana Hlongwane – he of the arms deal – paid a PR company, Bell-Pottinger, to spin for the Guptas.

This was after Zuma had approached Durban PR specialist, Vuyo Mkhize, to manage the Nene-gate fall-out. According to the Sunday Times, Mkhize fell out of favour when he recommended that Zuma dump the Guptas. Ironically, Bell-Pottinger had in turn been dumped by luxury brand company, Richemont, after its CEO Johan Rupert had become a Zuma-Gupta fall-boy for white capital.

According to former founding member Tim Bell – who subsequently resigned – Bell-Pottinger is being paid over R 1, 7 million (100,000 pounds) a month for its services. This allegedly happened with the blessing of Zuma, who met representatives of the company, asking it to protect his son’s reputation.

The Citizen reported (http://citizen.co.za/news/news-national/1476840/read-alleged-report-bell-pottingers-gupta-pr-plan/) that one of the agreed strategies was to drive a social media narrative that “white monopoly capital”, the SA Communist Party and National Treasury had been standing in the way of transforming the South African economy.

Bell-Pottinger, which earned over R 7 billion (540 million US dollars) in Iraq from 2007-2011, has bolstered the election campaigns of politicians in Zambia, Kenya, Malawi and Nigeria – and in its early years via Tim Bell – courted clients such as Margaret Thatcher and FW de Klerk. It has also represented the arms deal company BAE Systems, Oscar Pistorius and the scurrilous News of the World editor, Rebekah Brooks.

Back home, the Bell-Pottinger narrative has been echoed, literally, by the Zuma-Gupta camp ad-nauseam. To this effect, Bell-Pottinger has evidently used fake bloggers, fake commentary and unsubstantiated conspiracy to try and take the heat off the Zuma-Guptas.

During November last year, a Daily Maverick investigation revealed over 100 bogus twitter profiles concerning Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela’s State Capture Report (https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-11-10-paid-twitter-manufacturing-dissent-helping-guptas/#.WOtVftJ97c). “Suspicious tweets” linked to Mzwanele (Jimmy) Manyi and Esethu Hasane, spokesperson in the Sports and Recreation Ministry, were tracked and led to a trail of bogus accounts.

Gupta “fronts” allegedly funded, or aided in their founding by Bell-Pottinger or Gupta money, are Black First Land First (BFLF) and Manyi’s Decolonisation Foundation. The BFLF, headed by activist and former EFF parliamentarian, Andile Mngxitima, was officially launched in 2016.

Investigators note that since April 2016, Mngxitima – a regular guest on the Gupta-owned ANN7 channel – started attacking industrialist, Johan Rupert, a white capital target of the Bell-Pottinger campaign. Manyi threatened to sue the Sunday Times (http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2017/03/19/White-monopoly-capital-chosen-distraction-in-PR-strategy-to-clear-Guptas1), denying links to the Guptas or Bell-Pottinger.

In the meantime, decent South Africans – rich and poor and black and white – relive the final scene in George Orwell’s iconic Animal Farm, where the farmyard animals – having overthrown the oppressive humans – have to suffer the indignity of watching the hogs cavort and party at the expense of the farmyard just like the humans did before they were toppled.   

    

POST SCRIPT: on 12 April Bell-Pottinger dropped the Guptas as a client. See: http://www.fin24.com/Companies/Investment-Holdings/why-bell-pottinger-dropped-guptas-oakbay-20170412?

Shaikh Yusuf of Makasar, a 17th century saint from the kris to the qalam

Shaykh Yusuf karamat in Cape Town.
Copyright Shafiq Morton

ONE of the most fascinating aspects of historical enquiry is its investigative component. And as a story-teller, it means I look for markers to contextualise events and to define personalities. There is no guarantee where you will find yourself.

As one sifts through the archaeological framework constructed by books, maps, old pictures, journals, interviews and diaries, it’s as if the fragments come to life. I call it ‘forensic biography’. Recently, I’ve been looking at Shaykh Yusuf of Makasar, an Indonesian exile, a pioneer of Cape Islam and a 17th century mujahid against Dutch imperialism.

The late Dr Achmat Davids – the doyenne of local historians trying to raise community awareness – cleverly placed him at the centre of our political struggle in 1994. This inspired the Shaykh Yusuf Tricentenary Commemorations, just weeks before the country’s first democratic elections.

However, the person who initiated local academic discourse on Shaykh Yusuf was Prof Suleiman Dangor of the University of KwaZulu Natal.  He wrote a thesis on Shaykh Yusuf in 1981, and translated his Ibn ‘Arabi influenced manuscript, the Zubdat al-Asrar (The Essence of Secrets) in 1990.

An Indonesian scholar of Shaykh Yusuf, Prof Abu Hamid of Hasanuddin University in Sulawesi, visited South Africa in 1994. And in his 2005 UNISA thesis, Shaykh Seraj Hendricks of the Azzawia in Cape Town fleshed out Shaykh Yusuf’s spiritual and academic influence.

Shaykh Yusuf – who uniquely has shrines in Colombo, Makasar and Cape Town – was born in Gowa in 1626. Legend claims that Shaykh Yusuf’s father, Abdullah, was the mystic Al-Khidr. Another more likely legend – and Shaykh Yusuf is surrounded by them – is that his wet nurses saw a light from his navel.

Shaykh Yusuf was groomed for scholarship from an early age. In his pre-teen years he was schooled in the Islamic sciences by Sayyid ba ‘Alawi ibn ‘Abdullah Tahir, and after the age of fifteen by Shaykh Jalal al-Din al-‘Aydid. Both of these scholars were from the Hadramaut in Yemen.

When he was eighteen, Shaykh Yusuf embarked upon a search for knowledge. In 1644 he landed in Aceh, where he was introduced to the Qadiriyyah Sufi Order by the paternal uncle of the famous Indonesian Shaykh, Nur ul-Din Raniri. In 1649 he landed in Yemen.

There he was initiated into the Naqshbandi Sufi order by Shaykh ‘Abd al-Baqi al-Mizjaji, a keen proponent of the mystic, Ibn al-‘Arabi. The next Sufi tariqah he was initiated into was the Ba ‘Alawiyyah. He was inducted by Shaykh Sayyid ‘Ali of Zabid.

It was in Yemen that he crossed paths with Imam ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Alawi al-Haddad, the great saint of the Hadramaut and author of the Ratib ul-Haddad. According to the late Maulana Yusuf Karaan, Shaykh Yusuf met Imam ‘Abdullah in the city of Ta’iz.

In a treatise Imam al-Haddad writes the following: “…rajal min ahlul ‘ilm wa sufi yamani yusuf jawi” (a man of the fraternity of knowledge and Yemeni Sufihood, Yusuf from Java…).

Arriving in the Hijaz, Shaykh Yusuf then sat at the feet of Ibrahim al-Kurani, an expert in chains of transmission and the works of Imam al-Ghazali and Ibn ‘Arabi. Shaykh al-Kurani also accorded Shaykh Yusuf ijaza, permission to teach and guide, in the Shattariyyah Sufi Order.

Most auspicious mantle

However, it was in Damascus that Shaykh Yusuf was given his most auspicious mantle, the Taj al-Khalwatiyyah (the Crown of the Khalwatiyyah Sufi Order) by the teacher in Ibn al-‘Arabi’s mosque, Shaykh ‘Abdul Barakat. The most auspicious of Shaykh Yusuf’s scholarly achievements, though, were his appointment to a kursi, or a chair of teaching, in the Makkah sanctuary – a very rare privilege.

When Shaykh Yusuf returned home in 1664 after 20 years abroad, he encountered a homeland divided by the Dutch. He settled in the court of Sultan Tirtayasa Ageng in Banten, where he became the resident scholar.

But in 1682 the bubble burst when the Sultan’s son – who’d become enamoured of the Dutch – indulged in court intrigue, jailing Shaykh Yusuf for alleged treason. In the same year Sultan Ageng was compelled to besiege the crown prince, whose pro-colonialist stance was beginning to threaten the Sultanate. The crown prince called in Dutch reinforcements to rescue him.

Forced to seek refuge in the jungle with 1,300 troops faithful to Sultan Ageng, Shaykh Yusuf managed to survive for a year, despite a heavy attrition rate. Battle weary, starving, and left with a handful of followers, Shaykh Yusuf was enticed to hand over his kris, his ceremonial dagger, when Van Happel – a Dutch officer – used his captured daughter, Asma, as bait and failed to keep his promise of freedom upon surrender.

Already regarded as a living saint, Shaykh Yusuf was a headache for the Dutch, who in 1683 exiled him to Colombo in Sri Lanka. However, when calls for his freedom began to resound from the royal families there, the Dutch dispatched him to the Cape of Good Hope in 1693. His ten years in Ceylon is an unknown chapter to us in South Africa.

En route from Ceylon to the Cape, Shaykh Yusuf displayed the saintly qualities for which he was renowned. When the fresh water supplies were exhausted on the boat, the Voetboog, it is said that after he dipped his foot into the sea, the water turned fresh.

Space precludes further commentary on Shaykh Yusuf’s time spent at the Cape. It is the topic of another article. But suffice it to say that his influence in three centres, Colombo, Banten and Cape Town, is immense.

But in Cape Town, where certain elements like to rubbish our holy flag-bearers, I wonder whether we always realise that the extraordinary man who was exiled to the Cape was not just a master of the traditional Islamic sciences, but also an authority on the mystic Ibn ‘Arabi and a Shaykh who carried the mantle of five Sufi Orders.

A giant of his time in the Muslim world, he was subjected to betrayal, treachery and unspeakable hardship and yet, remarkably, he expressed no rancour. None of his writings dwell on jihad.

In my view it is this indominatable spirit that Shaikh Yusuf brought to us; the ‘ilm ul-yaqin (the certainty of knowledge), the ‘ain ul-yaqin (the firmness of the heart) and the haq ul-yaqin (the ultimate realisation of Divine truth). And had it been any other way, Islam would never have survived at the tip of Africa.

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This was published in Muslim Views, February 2017.