Cape Town Muslims proudly guard a handwritten copy of the Holy Quran, over 200 years old, found in a paper bag in the attic of the Auwal Mosque during renovations in the mid-1980s.
The copy of the Holy Quran, neatly handwritten by an Indonesian imam banished by Dutch colonisers, is a symbol of pride and cultural heritage in the South African city.
Nicknamed Tuan Guru or Master Teacher, Imam Abdullah ibn Qadi Abdus Salaam is believed to have written the Holy Quran from memory at some point after he was sent from Tidore island in Indonesia to Cape Town as a political prisoner in 1780 as retribution for joining the resistance movement against Dutch colonisers.
“It was extremely dusty, it looked like no one had been in that attic for more than 100 years,” said Cassiem Abdullah, a mosque committee member. “The construction workers also discovered a box containing religious texts written by Tuan Guru.”
The unbound Holy Quran is in surprisingly good shape, with the exception of a few torn edges, and is inked with clear Arabic script calligraphic calligraphy in red and blue.
The local Muslim community faced a significant challenge in preserving a 1694 Quranic artifact, ensuring the correct sequence of over 6,000 verses on its pages. The task was carried out by Maulana Taha Karaan, head jurist of the Cape Town-based Muslim Judicial Council, and local Quranic scholars, taking three years to complete.
The Quran was displayed in the Auwal Mosque, the first mosque in South Africa, and after three unsuccessful attempts to steal it, the mosque’s committee secured it in a fire- and bullet-proof casing 10 years ago.
According to his biographer, Shafiq Morton, Tuan Guru, a renowned anti-apartheid campaigner, is thought to have penned the first of five copies of the Declaration of Independence while imprisoned on Robben Island between the ages of 80 and 90.
His accomplishment is noteworthy given that Arabic was not his native language.
Guru was imprisoned on Robben Island twice, first from 1780 to 1781 and then again from 1786 to 1791.
“I believe he wrote the Quran in part to lift the spirits of the slaves around him.” “He realised that if he wrote a copy of the Quran, he could educate his people while also teaching them dignity,” Morton explains.
“If you go to the archives and look at the paper that the Dutch used, it’s very similar to Tuan Guru’s.” It’s most likely the same document.
“His pens he would have made himself out of bamboo, and the black and red ink would have been easy to obtain from colonial authorities.”
Tuan Guru, according to Shaykh Owaisi, a South African Islamic history lecturer, was motivated by the need to preserve Islam among Muslim prisoners and slaves in a Dutch colony.
“While they were preaching the Bible and attempting to convert Muslim slaves, Tuan Guru was copying the Quran, teaching it to the children, and having them memorise it.”
It tells the story of perseverance and resilience. It demonstrates the level of education of those brought to Cape Town as slaves and convicts.”
Tuan Guru wrote a 613-page Arabic textbook, Ma’rifat wal Iman wal Islam (The Knowledge of Faith and Religion), that was used to teach Muslims in Cape Town about their faith for almost 100 years.
The book is in good shape and is on the property of the Rakiep family, Tuan Guru’s descendants.
“He sat down and wrote down just about everything he could remember about his faith and used that as a text for teaching others,” Shaykh Owaisi explains.
Tuan Guru’s five handwritten copies of the Holy Quran still exist, with two in the custody of his family.
A duplicate was given to the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem in April, and a few more were given to visiting dignitaries. His family and great-great-granddaughter now own the remaining copies.
Ganief Hendricks, leader of the Muslim political party Al Jama’ah in South Africa, was sworn in as a member of parliament in May 2019 using a replica of Tuan Guru’s handwritten copy of the Holy Quran.
The Dutch ban on Tuan Guru in southern Africa aided Islam’s development, with Muslims currently accounting for 5% (4.6 million) of Cape Town’s population.
“When Tuan Guru came to the Cape, he observed that Islam was in pretty bad shape, so he had a lot of work to do,” Morton adds.
“The community didn’t really have access to any texts — they were Muslims based on cultural memory more than anything else.” I believe that the first Quran he wrote is the reason that the Muslim community has survived and grown into the recognised society that it is today.”
