The Origins of South African Islam and its Present

This is my translation of an article by the columnist Mr. Hakan Albayrak in the Turkish daily Yeni Safak (pronounced Yenny Shuff-uck”, meaning “The New Dawn”). I publish the translation with the author’s permission.

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The reprimand given me by the grand-daughter of Ebu Bekr Efendi

by Hakan Albayrak

Originally published in Turkish on June 28, 2009.

Having arrived on the coast of Cape of Good Hope around the middle of the 17th century and having begun colonizing the South African lands, the Dutch brought there Muslim slaves and political convicts from the Malay archipelago.

The Modernist Promotion of Selfishness versus the Correct Stance

With/in the name of Allah (God), the infinitely compassionate, the boundlessly merciful.

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I think that it’s an easily observable phenomenon that in the modern age people get divorced or end friendships more easily than most of the known history.

This is mainly because, in modernity, people’s own “individual rights” rather than their traditional responsibilities of having sympathy for their spouses and their friends are emphasized.

The Shallowness and Inaccuracy of the Common Anti-Religious Arguments

Some opponents of religion throughout the Internet are always busy making fun of literalist Christians who believe that the earth was created in six earth days and that humanity is only around six thousand years old. These are really weird beliefs in this day of ours. However, the conclusion that the opponents of all religion jump to based on these people’s overly anti-scientific beliefs is another mental and logical oddity. They may deny that this is their intention: but in actual effect, by making fun of the literalist Christians all the time and hence by keeping their beliefs constantly in the forefront, they try to conclude that then all forms of religion must be nonsensical falsehoods. What an illogical way of proving your case…

A literalist Biblical faith is not the only faith possible. Even not all fundamentalist Christians believe such numbers to be literal. Thus when you make fun of such people, you are making fun of that particular individual and those who think like him. You are just entertaining yourselves and pampering yourselves concerning the way you approach monotheism. The religion that we believe is authentic God-revealed religion thus remains untouched by the things you say. In other words, you deceive yourselves.