Tuan Guru

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Tuan Guru (German: Herr Lehrermeister) , whose real name is Abdullah Kadi Abdus Salaam , also Abdullah Ibn Qadhu Abdus Salaam , in English also Qadi Abdussalam (* 1712 in Tidore , Moluccas ; † 1807 in Bo-Kaap , Cape Town ), is considered the first Imam in South Africa and plays a central role in the Islamic community of Cape Malay . He brought the Koran to the Cape Colony , which had been a Christian until then , by writing it down by heart, thereby laying the foundation for the Islamic community in South Africa.

Life

Born as a prince in the Sultanate of Tidore, he participated in the resistance against the Dutch East India Company, which was active in the Moluccas . He was therefore deported to the Cape Colony as a state prisoner on Robben Island in the course of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War from 1780 to 1784 . In his twelve years imprisonment he wrote the Koran down by heart and with its help was able to build up the Islamic community of Cape Malay after his pardon in 1792/1793.

While still under the Boer rule , he founded the first madrasa in South Africa in which he taught in the department store of the freedman Coridon van Ceylon in Dorp Street Bo-Kaaps . It gave important impulses to the Islamization of Cape Malay slaves. Abdus Salaam earned the honorary title of Tuan Guru for his teaching activities . On the same property he founded the Auwal Mosque in Bo-Kaap in 1794, the first mosque in the country, of which he was imam until his death.

As a legal scholar of the Shafiʿite school of law, his legal treatises served the Cape Malay Muslims as the main work in the 19th century.

He died in 1807 at the age of 95 and was buried in the historic Tana Buru Cemetery in Bo-Kaap, which had been closed since 1886 .

Works

In addition to his manuscripts of the Koran, which are kept in the Auwal Mosque , among other things , Tuan Guru left treatises on Islamic law.

  • Ma 'rifah al-Islam wa al-Iman  /مظاهر الإسلام و الإيمان / Ma'rifatul Islami wa'1 Imani  / ' Knowledge of Islam and Faith' on the Ashʿarīya , 1781, is considered to be his main work.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Islamic Forum (English) , taken on July 14, 2016.
  2. ↑ David Chidester: Religions of South Africa. Routledge Revivals, 2014, p. 161.
  3. ↑ a b c Robben Island sahistory.org.za/archive/1700-1799 (English; archive version ).
  4. ^ Alan Mountain: To Unsung Heritage: Perspectives on Slavery. New Africa Books, Claremont 2004, p. 90.
  5. ↑ Auwal Mosque , taken on July 14, 2016.
  6. ^ The Tana Buru Trust , taken on July 14, 2016.
  7. ↑ Abdulkader Tayob: Islam in South Africa: Mosques, Imams, and Sermons. University Press of Florida, 1999, ISBN 0-8130-2343-2 , p. 24.
personal data
SURNAME Tuan Guru
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abdullah Kadi Abdus Salaam; Abdullah Ibn Qadhu Abdus Salaam; Qadi Abdussalam; Abdus Salaam, Abdullah Ibn Qadhu
BRIEF DESCRIPTION first imam and mufti of South Africa
DATE OF BIRTH 1712
PLACE OF BIRTH Tidore , Moluccas
DATE OF DEATH 1807
Place of death Bo-Kaap , Cape Town