Revival From Below

by Brannon D Ingram

  Indians first arrived in Natal as indentured servants in 1860, and shortly thereafter the first “passenger” Indians began to arrive, so called because they paid for their own passage to Africa—as opposed to indentured Indians, whose passage was paid by their employers in exchange for a fixed (and often brutal) labor contract. Beginning in the 1880s, both indentured and passenger Indians began to fan out across southern Africa, entering the Boer-controlled Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek (later the Transvaal) and the British-controlled Cape. Between 1860 and 1911, when importation of Indian labor ceased, over 150,000 Indians entered southern Africa.20

  Significantly, among those on the first ship to arrive was the Sufi Badshah Peer, regarded as the founding saint of Indian Sufism in South Africa. Another Sufi, Shah Goolam Muhammad, known as Soofie Saheb, is credited with establishing Badshah Peer’s legend.21 Habib Ali Shah of Hyderabad sent the young Soofie Saheb, his initiate in the Chishti Sufi order, to Durban to propagate Islam in Africa. Upon arrival in 1895, according to narrations of Soofie Saheb’s students, he intuitively knew that a great “holy man” had recently died and sought out his grave. After finding the site along the banks of the Umgeni River in Durban, he established a shrine, mosque, and Sufi retreat (khanqah) that remains among the country’s most important Sufi institutions today.22

  Of the passenger Indians, almost 80 percent were Muslim.23 Many hailed from Gujarat and were roughly divided into two “ethnic” groups: Memons, a merchant community from Kathiawar, a coastal peninsula within Gujarat; and Bohras (not to be confused with the Dawoodi Bohras, a Shi‘a sect), mostly from the city of Surat (and hence often called Surtis). Accordingly, wealthy Gujarati Muslims founded mosques along largely ethnic lines in the 1880s. In 1881 a Memon merchant financed Durban’s Grey Street Masjid, one of South Africa’s largest, whereas Bohra traders financed the West Street Masjid in 1885.24 The trustees that managed the mosques were also defined in terms of ethnicity; Memons exclusively oversaw the Grey Street Masjid until 1905, when a Bohra successfully challenged that arrangement in court and forced the trustees to include at least two Bohras. Still, these mosque committees wielded enormous influence in establishing new mosques and defining their ideological slant. In the Transvaal they were typically elected, and in Natal often appointed for life, allowing the patronage of wealthy Muslims to shape religious infrastructure.25

  These “ethnic” divisions also constituted divisions over normative Islamic piety. The Memons were more inclined toward popular Sufi devotions, tracing their origins to a descendant of ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani and maintaining close links to the annual ‘urs of Mu‘in al-Din Chishti at Ajmer, India.26 They began observing ‘urs and mawlud almost immediately upon arrival; in March 1877, they petitioned the government to exempt the “period of the Moulood Sharif” from the evening curfew that applied to all Indians.27 The Surtis, on the other hand, were “giving up their former spiritual guides and transferring their reverence to the new preachers who have become the leaders in religious matters,” preachers described as “Wahhabi,” in the words of a contemporary observer.28 These divisions, while far from seamless, presaged the ethnic contours of Deobandi–Barelvi polemics in later decades, and more specifically, the efforts of “Deobandi” and “Barelvi” mosque committees to exclude the other from prayers at their respective mosques, as this chapter further explains below.

  Indian Muslims spread into the interior, especially after the discovery of gold in the hills of the Witwaterstrand in 1886, prompting a massive influx of labor into what would become Johannesburg. Indians in Natal and the Transvaal (roughly corresponding to the current province of Gauteng) faced severe restrictions on their religious practice. The Boer-governed Orange Free State, centered at Bloemfontein, completely prohibited any Indians from living in its borders, while the Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek, centered at Pretoria, forbade nonwhites from owning land except in rare circumstances.29 This is of course the context for the early career of Mohandas Gandhi, who established the Natal Indian Congress in 1894 to petition the government on behalf of Indians and in 1906 developed his philosophy of satyagraha at Phoenix, near Durban.30 The “Indian Question” became even more vexing after the 1910 formation of the Union of South Africa, based on a political compromise between Boers and the British. Almost immediately the leadership imposed a detailed racial hierarchy upon all aspects of economic, social, and political life in South Africa. Most whites favored repatriation for so-called Asiatics; D.F. Malan’s Asiatic Bill of 1925 declared Indian properties and businesses “unsanitary” and advocated Indians’ return to India.31

  Despite these restrictions, Indian Muslims continued to seek ways to build new mosques. Some migrated to Cape Town, where they enjoyed relatively more freedom; the Quawatul Islam Mosque was the first Indian mosque in Cape Town, built in 1892.32 A second wave of Indians, mostly Konkani speakers who tended to share the Shafi‘i legal school with the majority of the Cape’s Muslims, came to the Cape directly from Bombay. Even after Indian immigration to Natal and Transvaal ceased in 1911, the Cape continued to allow Indians to immigrate.33 It was during the interwar period, and especially in the 1920s, that the beginnings of a Deobandi presence in South Africa could first be discerned.

  THE ARRIVAL OF DEOBANDI SCHOLARS

  Deoband has been a global phenomenon nearly since its inception. Whether through figures such as Hajji Imdad Allah teaching scores of Deobandis in the Hijaz or through graduates of Deobandi madrasas fanning out over the British empire, Deobandis moved, like millions of other Indians, through the global networks established by the British empire.34 The connection between Deoband and South Africa dates back to at least as early as 1910. In that year, the Dar al-‘Ulum Deoband–based journal Al-Qasim commented on the large number and quantity of donations coming from Muslims in South Africa: “The orbit of [Dar al-‘Ulum’s] influence is so wide that it has even reached South Africa, and especially Johannesburg.” Some South African madrasas had managed to contribute nine hundred rupees.35 “It gives us utmost joy and delight to announce our sympathy with these madrasas and believe this affinity our scholars have established with these madrasas in South Africa will continue to progress. . . . This is that spiritual proximity [qurb ruhi] that even a great physical distance cannot break.”36 Unfortunately, it does not elaborate on the precise source of these donations, only that they came from Johannesburg.

  But Johannesburg was also the location of the first institution founded by a Deobandi in South Africa: the Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal. In 1922 a group of ‘ulama formed the Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal to provide Islamic guidance on religious and Islamic legal matters to local Muslims in the Transvaal. In its creation, Abdulkader Tayob posits an effort by Transvaal ‘ulama to assert their authority against increasingly powerful mosque committees.37 However, in its first incarnation the Jamiatul Ulama was ineffectual for the most part. Some years later, in 1935, a young graduate of the Dar al-‘Ulum Deoband, Mufti Ebrahim Sanjalvi (d. 1983), revived it. Sanjalvi arrived in Durban from Bombay in 1932 and migrated to Johannesburg in 1934. Sanjalvi announced in the Gujarati-language Indian Views that his organization would field questions from Muslims on matters of Islamic belief, ritual, and law.38 The Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal was thus primarily an advisory body of ‘ulama that worked to standardize local madrasa curricula and provide consultations on issues such as zakat, prayer, fasting, and so on. It did not engage in Deobandi polemics, nor did it identify as a “Deobandi” organization.

  The Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal was closely linked to the Waterval Islamic Institute outside of Johannesburg, founded in 1940 by Muhammad bin Musa bin Isma‘il Mia. Mia was born in South Africa in 1904 into a family of Gujarati merchants, and graduated from the Dar al-‘Ulum Deoband in 1925 or 1926.39 At Deoband, Mia studied with one of the preeminent Deobandi Hadith scholars of the twentieth century, Anwar Shah Kashmiri (d. 1933).40 Kashmiri began his career teaching at the Dar al-‘Ulum Deoband but left in 1927 on account of his support of a student group that had grievances with th
e administration. Mia stepped in to convince Kashmiri to move from Deoband to his ancestral home at Dabhel and teach at a new Deobandi madrasa he was instrumental in founding, the Jami‘a Islamiyya in Dabhel.41 The Jami‘a Islamiyya Dabhel became famed within South African Deobandi circles of Gujarati descent for the fact that Anwar Shah Kashmiri, Yusuf Binnori, Shabbir Ahmad ‘Usmani, and other prominent Deobandis taught there. It was through the initiative of the Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal that Kashmiri’s vast commentary on the Hadith collection of Bukhari, Fayd al-bari ‘ala Sahih al-Bukhari, was published.42

  The Waterval Islamic Institute was primarily involved in translating Tablighi texts into English, especially those of Muhammad Zakariyya Kandhlavi,43 and facilitating the construction of mosques and madrasas.44 The Jamiatul Ulama used these texts in the curricula it managed for local madrasas.45 Still, the Waterval Islamic Institute, like the Jamiatul Ulama, was a “Deobandi” institution only to the extent that its founders and many ‘ulama associated with it studied at Deoband. It was not a Dar al-‘Ulum, meaning it was not preparing students to become ‘ulama. In another sense, the public seems not to have associated the institute directly with Deoband. A May 1963 obituary of Maulana Muhammad Mia, Waterval’s founder, does not mention his time at Deoband at all.46

  SOUTH AFRICAN TABLIGH AND THE FOUNDING OF DAR AL-‘ULUMS

  The Mia family maintained close links to the man who would eventually establish the first Dar al-‘Ulum in South Africa, Qasim Sema. Sema was born in South Africa in 1920. Muhammad Mia encouraged him at a young age to pursue advanced Islamic studies in India. He arrived in Dabhel to study at Jami‘a Islamiyya with Yusuf Binnori. Mia secured Qasim Sema employment in Simlak, near Dabhel—at Majlis ‘Ilmi, which Mia founded.47 Sema returned to South Africa in 1944, where he became a founding member in 1955 of the Jamiatul Ulama Natal, designed to provide for Muslims in Durban services similar to those of the Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal.48

  Sema became, alongside a Gujarati businessman, Ghulam “Bhai” Padia, a tireless advocate for the Tablighi Jama‘at in South Africa. In December 1960, Bhai Padia and Sema instigated the formation of the first Tablighi party (jama‘at) in South Africa.49 Sema approached Hajji Suleiman Seedat, custodian of the Soofie Saheb mosque in Ladysmith, for permission to have the first South African Tablighi gathering (ijtima‘) at that site. Soofie Saheb had arranged the construction of this mosque, Ladysmith’s first, before he settled in Durban.50 The first South African ijtima‘ was held there in 1961.51 The Tablighi Jama‘at reached the Cape as well in the early 1960s. In 1966 Bhai Padia and a Pakistani scholar, Mufti Zayn al-‘Abidin, initiated the first Cape Town branch (jama‘at) of the Tablighi Jama‘at, and two years later, in 1968, an ijtima‘ was held at the Muir Street Mosque, which remains the center of Cape tabligh.52 By the late 1960s, the Tablighi Jama‘at was firmly established in the Cape. One report describes its work in the townships,53 while another gives a list of dates and times when jama‘ats from Durban would be visiting the Cape’s mosques.54 By the end of the decade, a public discussion had formed around whether the Tablighi Jama‘at’s methods were appropriate for the task of proselytizing in a country where Muslims made up such a tiny minority.55

  The rise of Tablighi activity in South Africa was part of a larger global expansion of the movement during the 1950s and 1960s. Muhammad Ilyas’s son, Muhammad Yusuf, became the second leader of the Tablighi Jama‘at upon his father’s death in 1944 and worked to spread the movement beyond South Asia, a decision that Marc Gaborieau traces to an ijtima‘ held in 1945, with the first preaching parties traveling to Arab countries such as Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. In the mid-1950s Tablighi preaching parties began to make inroads into southern Africa.56

  The Tablighi Jama‘at also fed the need for Deobandi Dar al-‘Ulums in South Africa, which was also, in part, a practical accommodation to South Africans who did not wish, or were not able, to travel to India or (what was then) West Pakistan to become ‘ulama. (As a reminder, a Dar al-‘Ulum has typically been defined as an institution that trains ‘ulama, as opposed to a local madrasa, where Qur’an, basics of Islamic belief and practice, and so on are taught.) Today there are at least ten Deobandi Dar al-‘Ulums in South Africa.57 The first was the Dar al-‘Ulum Newcastle, founded in 1973 by Qasim Sema (d. 2007). It is important to note that this relatively late date for the first Dar al-‘Ulum may strike some as surprising, given that Deobandi scholars had been in South Africa for at least five decades at this point. But the “late” founding of Dar al-‘Ulum Newcastle has more to do with the willingness of South African Muslims to travel abroad for their training.

  The Dar al-‘Ulum Newcastle illustrates several crucial points about Deobandi Dar al-‘Ulums in South Africa. First, from the outset, the Dar al-‘Ulum Newcastle was closely aligned with the Tablighi Jama‘at, as discussed previously. Second, soon after it was established, its administration found it necessary to teach Shafi‘i law, since a large number of non-Hanafi, non-Indian students began to enroll from the Cape. This is remarkable in light of the considerable ink Deobandis in the subcontinent had spilled by this point in defending the Hanafi school from Ahl-i Hadith and other critics, and in light of the place that mastery of Hanafi law has in the Deobandi curriculum.58 Although it is located in the Natal highlands, southeast of Johannesburg, in a region where most of the Muslims were, and remain, of Indian origin, the prestige of being the first Dar al-‘Ulum in South Africa drew students from the Cape region, where the Shafi‘i school of law has historically dominated, deriving largely from the centuries-old links with Southeast Asia.59 Because of the rising number of students coming from sub-Saharan Africa, the Dar al-‘Ulum Newcastle has, since 2007, begun to incorporate texts in Maliki jurisprudence into its curriculum as well.60

  This accommodation of the Shafi‘i school certainly applies all the more to Deobandi seminaries founded in the Cape region itself, such as Qasim al-‘Ulum, founded in 1997 by students of Qasim Sema in the Cape Town township of Mitchells Plain. Because its students are almost exclusively Coloured Muslim (“Malay”) students from the Cape, Qasim al-‘Ulum teaches Shafi‘i law in addition to Hanafi law. As a former student and current instructor explained, “We broke from the Indian tradition. . . . We changed that system to fit local needs. Our graduates are meant to serve the local community.”61 The director of Qasim al-‘Ulum credited Qasim Sema with introducing instruction in more than one legal school to South Africa.62 Much of the institution’s literature revolves around defending adherence to one legal school while promoting the equality of all four.63 In its curriculum, the madrasa teaches Shafi‘i commentaries on each of the six canonical Hadith collections. Qasim al-‘Ulum accommodates Muslims of the Cape in language as well, providing instruction in English and Arabic, rather than Urdu, the standard language of instruction of the Dar al-‘Ulums in Natal and Gauteng.

  One of the markers of a Dar al-‘Ulum’s international prestige is the publication of a collection of fatwas under its aegis. While many Deobandi seminaries in South Africa field questions on religious matters from the general public (and, in fact, Durban-based Deobandi scholar Ebrahim Desai maintains a popular website, www.askimam.com, and runs a Dar al-Ifta’ that receives requests from all over the world), by far the most extensive fatwa collection in South Africa is the one published by Dar al-‘Ulum Zakariyya, founded in 1983 in honor of Muhammad Zakariyya Kandhlavi, discussed below. The Dar al-‘Ulum Zakariyya first began issuing fatwas in 1987, and established a Dar al-Ifta’ (an institution devoted to this service, usually with multiple muftis) in 1992.64 In this collection, too, the accommodation of Muslims who follow Shafi‘i law is on full display. Most of the questions from Shafi‘is pertain to matters of ritual and worship: prayer, fasting, purification, and so on. Understandably, many questions pertain to contexts in which Hanafis and Shafi‘is regularly interact, such as mosques, or that pertain to marriages in which the husband follows one school and the wife another. One person wants to know the Shafi‘i opinion on wiping the neck as part
of wudu’ (ablutions in preparation for prayer).65 Another seeks advice on whether a Shafi‘i praying behind an imam should recite the Fatiha during Salat.66 Fatwas on Shafi‘i matters draw on jurisprudence by major Shafi‘i scholars, most notably Nawawi. However, most explanations of complex legal matters, especially those central to Deobandi thought, such as bid‘a, rely primarily on texts by Hanafi scholars (such as Ibn ‘Abidin) or on non-Hanafi scholars whose work has been especially important within Hanafi circles (such as Shatibi). We must note that, for the muftis of Dar al-‘Ulum Zakariyya, incorporating Shafi‘i law into its fatwas in no way dilutes these Deobandis’ commitment to Hanafi law, or to the principle of following one school (taqlid). To underscore the latter point, the head mufti of the seminary, Mufti Raza al-Haq, reminds his (Hanafi) readers that “answers to questions given in accordance with Shafi‘i law should only be followed by Shafi‘is.”67

  A DEOBANDI BRAND EMERGES

  But to understand precisely when a public awareness of the Deoband movement began to emerge in South Africa, we need to go back to the 1960s. Well into the 1960s, even though there were prominent Deobandi scholars and a fledgling Tablighi movement, there was little consciousness of a “Deobandi” identity. The polemics that would divide South Africa’s Muslims in the 1970s and 1980s, discussed below, had not yet emerged. For instance, an organization known as the Universal Truth Movement (UTM), supported largely by Deobandi ‘ulama, collaborated with Barelvi scholars and even endorsed local mawlud celebrations. Founded in 1958 by Ismail Abdur Razzack and Qasim Sema,68 the UTM had the primary purpose of translating the Qur’an into African languages and printing pamphlets introducing Islam to a wide, mostly non-Muslim audience. They also raised funds for sending South African students to Deobandi Dar al-‘Ulums in India and Pakistan; during Qari Muhammad Tayyib’s visit to South Africa in 1963, the UTM beseeched him to set up special language training in Urdu and Persian for African students at Deoband. But notably, the UTM translated and published a major Barelvi scholar’s introduction to Islam, Abdul Aleem Siddiqui’s Elementary Teachings of Islam, and hosted an annual mawlud program that the organization viewed as an opportunity for interreligious discussion and reflection: “Everywhere in the country Muslims hold the Mouloodun Nabi. The significance of the Prophet Day Celebrations held by the UTM lies in the fact that prominent speakers from all races and religious denominations are given an opportunity of expressing their view on the Holy Prophet’s life. The value of this interchange cannot be over-emphasized for it brings in its wake true harmony and tolerance amongst different people.”69 What are we to make of this ostensibly “Deobandi” organization—which hosted Deobandi scholars, raised money for Deobandi students, and was cofounded by the scholar who founded the first Deobandi Dar al-‘Ulum in South Africa, Qasim Sema—sponsoring an annual mawlud?