One of the most established traditions in the South African Muslim community has been the sighting of the new crescent to herald the Islamic lunar months. This is a tradition that was born over 350 years ago in Cape Town. Sixty-seven years ago this community function was formalised with the[…]

Discourse with fundamentalists of any ilk can be frustrating. Perhaps that’s why the great 12th century scholar, Imam al-Ghazali, wrote that engaging with those unable to listen was like competing with the braying of an ass. He suggested that it was a waste of time – those who didn’t know[…]

The Cape Argus op-ed ‘Israel’s apartheid label is a slanderous fabrication’ by South African Zionist Federation chairman, Ben Levitas, is in urgent need of an unemotive response. His shrill notion that the Israeli Apartheid Week (which creates awareness about Israeli apartheid) is a ‘sinister’ event is laughable. His piece, characterised[…]

IT’S two years ago that I crossed the eastern Saloumi border post from Egypt into Libya. Cairo had been empty of tourists and traffic, yet it was a city full of hope. But now, the third domino of the Arab Spring was beginning to fall. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the inimitable[…]

MAWLID SA 1434, Cape Town’s mass celebration of the Prophet Muhammad’s (SAW) birth at the Urban Park in Green Point, was a historical event marking a joyous demonstration of Islam in a public space. Inspired by a similar event six decades ago – when Maulana Abdul ‘Alim Siddique addressed the[…]