Muslim Public Claiming Heritage in Post-Apartheid Cape Town

Abstract

On November 29, 1929, only a month after the stock market crash of
1929, a “great-great-grandson (of Tuan Guru, the then) the Imaum,
or Priest, of the Chiappini-Street Mosque,” told a journalist of the
Cape Times that:
The Circle of Islam around Cape Town and suburbs,
prophesied by a holy man of Islam 260 years ago, is now
complete.
Sketching the circle, the report continued:
From Signal Hill, round ZandVleit, Constantia, Bakoven
and Robben Island, stretches a long line of kramats, the
tomb of Tuans, or holy men of Islam, completing a vast
circle within which, if the prophecy of Khardi Abdusalam
260 years ago is correct, all followers of the Prophet
Mohammed will henceforth be safe from fire, famine, plague,
earthquake and tidal wave.1

Journal for Islamic Studies Vol. 24&25 2004/5: pp. 78-104