WE all knew him as “Doctor” but he was a Shaikh of the Qadiriyyah Sufi Order in a written chain (which I have in my possession) extending from Madinah to India. I first met “Doctor” Ya’qub Jaffer of Claremont in the turbulent 1980’s when I embraced Islam at the hands[…]

THE other day I was asked in a radio interview whether South African youth, frustrated by lack of opportunity and the politics of party privilege, would ever rise up against authority like the generations of the 1970’s and 1980’s. It was an interesting question, asked against the background of the[…]

FOR the 40-year old son of Abdullah, a member of the noble Quraish tribe, his annual month-long retreat in a mountain cave outside the city of Mecca had been a puzzling one. During his meditative sojourn on this lonely desert peak he’d heard voices saying: “peace upon you, O Exalted[…]

THE famous English expression “don’t judge a book by its cover” is an oft-used adage that has become curled at the edges. Covered with greasy fingerprints and yellowed with age, I’m forced to use it because there are none better. It implies, with little ambiguity, that the cover of a[…]

JUST over two years ago I wrote a piece on my blog entitled “The Majlis goes snap, crackle and pop”. In it I dealt with the fulminations of its author, a now elderly maulana based in Port Elizabeth, who for several decades has published a broadsheet called the Majlis. My[…]