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[…]

THE recently published report of the Independent Halal Review Panel (IHRP) on the Cape Town-based Muslim Judicial Council (MJC) Halal Trust is a precedent-setting one. This is because there is no record of Islamic judiciaries anywhere in the world in modern history allowing themselves to be publically audited on procedural[…]

THE morning after the successful launch of Surfing behind the Wall in Penang it rains. Huge, black clouds disgorge torrents of water. The clouds clear a little, and Georgetown comes to life. Youths on mopeds with their jackets back-to-front, buzz through the traffic. My flight is at 10, 30 a.m.[…]

HAVING just spent a fairly protracted period out of the country, it was interesting coming home. I’d been based in Malaysia on a book tour where I did not encounter South African news. But that is not to say I was unaffected by events in my host country. I was[…]