Abu Bakr Effendi: a report on the activities and challenges of an Ottoman Muslim theologian in the Cape of Good Hope
Halim Gencoglu independent.academia.edu
This thesis presents the religious activities of an Ottoman Islamic scholar Abu Bakr Effendi and his educational challenges at the Cape of Good Hope. Abu Bakr Effendi was a professor of canon law (Mudarris, Mufti-ul Arbaa 1 ) who was sent to the Cape
This thesis presents the religious activities of an Ottoman Islamic scholar Abu Bakr Effendi and his educational challenges at the Cape of Good Hope. Abu Bakr Effendi was a professor of canon law (Mudarris, Mufti-ul Arbaa ) who was sent to the Cape by the Ottoman Caliph in order to resolve the religious issues as well as educate the Muslims in South Africa in the second half of the nineteenth century. This study takes into consideration diverse archival materials that explain different dimensions of the socio-historical events which happened during Effendi’s stay in South Africa. Due to limited reliable sources, Effendi’s activities have not been examined by researchers extensively. Several local newspapers, South African and Ottoman archival materials not used before in such studies, private family documents, foundation (Waqf) records and official correspondences have been used in this study and contributed to understanding the social-religious situation amongst Muslims at the Cape of the nineteenth century. Applying a comparative historical method, the study shows how Effendi became a prominent scholar in society despite his reformist understanding with regards to Islamic topics which made him a marginal theologian in the eyes of local Muslims. In this sense, the study illustrates the contribution of his works in the Muslim social sphere and how it enabled the emergence of a Muslim consciousness and identity in Southern Africa. Finally, with his cultural and educational endeavors, Effendi became a historical figure in South African society and this reality has been illuminated by rich archival documents.

This article attempts to re-present the religious and educational activities of a forgotten Muslim scholar, Mahmud Fakih Effendi, in Cape history. The subject of the article is related to this Ottoman scholar, as well as the story of his house at 71 Wale Street in Cape Town, which is the Bo-Kaap Museum at present. In 1894, fourteen years after the death of Abu Bakr Emin Effendi, the Ottoman Caliphate in Istanbul appointed another Muslim scholar at the Cape, Mahmud Fakih Effendi. He resided at 71 Wale Street, living there until his death in 1914. After his death, his son, Muhammad Dervish Effendi, followed in his father’s footsteps as a Muslim scholar and also stayed in the same residence in the Bo-Kaap. Muhammad Dervish Effendi died in 1940 and left behind eight children. His widow, Mariam, along with the children continued to live in the house at 71 Wale Street. By 1978, when their house was converted into the Bo-Kaap Museum, it was identified as the house of Abu Bakr Effendi in error instead of as the former residence of Mahmud Effendi. This is because Mahmud Effendi did not leave behind any substantial written legacy as his predecessor Abu Bakr Effendi did, and therefore he and his son, Muhammad Dervish Effendi, became forgotten figures in Cape history. This article sheds new light on this matter as a result of new readings of Turkish and Cape archival documents. It aims to correct the historical inaccuracy of the origins of the Bo-Kaap Museum and to highlight the noteworthy activities of a forgotten Ottoman scholar and his family in Cape history.

Shaykh ‘Abdullāh ibn Qāḍī ‘Abdus Salām [1712- 1807], more commonly known in Cape Town as Tuan Guru or “Esteemed Master”, is generally acknowledged as the personality mainly responsible for the formal establishment of Islam in Cape Town. This “High Priest” of the Muslim community established South Africa’s first Muslim school [madrasah]and mosque. But his literary and intellectual legacy was of even greater significance: it was a legacy that provided the impetus for the development of the first written Afrikaans and which, more profoundly, shaped the worldview of the Cape Muslim community for the centuries to come. This worldview is contained in Tuan Guru’s transcription of a classic text on Islamic belief, entitled the Ummul Barāhīn[The Demonstrative Proofs], together with one of its commentaries. The Ummul Barāhīn was authored by a North African scholar, Shaykh Muḥammad bin Yūsuf al-Sanūsī [1435/36 – 1490] and thus was also known as the Sanūsīyyah [Sanūsi’s]. The commentary transcribed by Tuan Guru is that of a student of Shaykh Sanūsi’s, Shaykh ‘Abdullāh al-Malāli. The transcription of the Ummul Barāhīn, though, is only one component of Tuan Guru’s massive compendium of Islamic knowledge - often called the M‘arifat ul-Islām [Knowledge of Islam] – which in addition consists of ḥadīth [Prophetic sayings], fiqh [Islamic law], supplications, amulets and transcriptions of parts of the Qurān. The focus of this two-part essay is not on these more pietistic sections of the compendium, but on the theological Ummul Barāhīn and its commentary, hereinafter referred to as the ‘transcription’ or ‘text’. Part one deals with the implications of its contents, while the second part contextualises its transmission in nineteenth century Cape Town. What did the transcription mean to those who held its perspective and for the way they related to those who did not? By juxtaposing a debate regarding the reasons for rapid Islamic conversion in the early nineteenth century with an analysis of the content of the transcription, this section of the paper suggests that the transcription oriented the Muslim slaves and free blacks in a fully coherent, rationally enunciated and self-sustaining worldview that, on the one hand, provided cognitive grounds for their beliefs while, on the other, shielded them from arguments that may have been advanced by Christian missionaries and, more significantly, dissolved the temporal power of their colonial “masters” by locating it within a wider ontological sphere. This self-sustaining ontology necessarily implies a mode of being, a mode of relating to reality that ran parallel, as it were, to these other modes, not being dominated by them and indeed, since “true”, to be privileged over them.

Learning from the past prepares one for being able to cope with the future. History is made up of strings of relationships. This article follows a historical line from colonialism, through apartheid to post-colonialism in order to illustrate inter-religious relations in South-Africa and how each context determines these relations. Social cohesion is enhanced by a post-colonial theology of religions based on the current context. By describing the relationship between Christians and Muslims during the 17th–18th centuries in the Cape Colony, lessons can be deduced to guide inter-religious relations in a post-colonial era in South Africa. One of the most prominent Muslim leaders during the 17th century in the Cape Colony was Sheik Yusuf al-Makassari. His influence determined the future face of Islam in the Cape Colony and here, during the 18th century, ethics started playing a crucial role in determining the relationship between Christians and Muslims. The ethical guidance of the Imams ...