Assalamu alaykum warahmatulahi wabarakatuhu
During this month I have spoken to you on a number of aspects of spirituality, little tit bits here and there. I could only touch on matters because I was only given about ten minute slots. But I want to come today to speak to you about some people who have in fact achieved. You see, we don't know our history well enough. To know that in the history of the Muslims at the Cape there have been people that have in fact achieved great spiritual heights. Or rather let me put it the other way around, people to whom Allah Almighty had granted major spiritual grants in our own history. Let me go right back to the beginning of Islam at the Cape. We can start off with 1667 when Tuan Mahmud, Tuan Abd al-Rahman and Tuan Matarah arrived here. They were Awliyah of Allah Almighty and they were sent here by Allah Almighty. They must've been sent here by Allah Almighty to establish the first roots of Islam at the Cape here. And they were the first people to mention, if I have my history correct, "La illaha illallah" in this country. Not long after that ShaykhYusuf comes here, another great spiritual figure to whom Allah Almighty had also given major spiritual grants. So we have in a few years from 1667 to 1694 three major spiritual figures at the Cape. The other one was on Robben Island, so if you include Robben Island, there were four major spiritual figures at the very beginning of Islam at the Cape. All these people from my understanding of history and from my own personal study of their lives were granted major things by Allah Almighty. They have come down in our history as " kramats" or "Awliyah" or "Walis" of Allah Almighty. Of course we also have Tuan Guru and Tuan Sa'id and Shaykh Muhammad Salih of the Azzawia and so many others in our long history, people who carried the banner of spirituality at the Cape here. When we look at our history, we can see how that banner was passed down from very early, from Tuans Abd al-Rahman and Tuan Mahmud, was passed down to Tuan Yusuf and others over a number of centuries. The banners of spirituality fluttered in the wind of this country. These people carried those banners. They carried the banner of adhkar, of making dhikr. They carried the banners of tariqah. They carried the banners of Islam; everyone placing a banner. The first banner was in Constantia, the next banner in Faure, another banner in the Bo-Kaap, another banner in Athlone by Mawlana Latif; so many of these banners placed all over the Western Cape. We have so many graves of these people all over the Western Cape, in Worcester, all over. You find these people having settled there, Allah Almighty gave them these grants. When we look at our history, what did we inherit? What is the Islam that this community had in fact inherited? It was the Islam of spirituality. It was a spiritual perspective that was inherited. This was our heritage. And because of their activities, and their keeping the dhikr of Allah Almighty alive in the hearts of people, Islam managed to survive. One of the major contributory factors if not the major contributory factor to the survival of Islam at the Cape was the fact that people like Shaykh Yusuf, Tuan Guru, Tuan Sa'id and Shaykh Abdur Rahim al-Iraqi kept the banners of Islam fluttering at the Cape here mainly through the remembrance of Allah Almighty. It was their using of the remembrance, using of the spiritual lifeblood of Islam, using that properly here at the Cape that allowed Islam to survive. And at the same time, I have said on previous programmes, at the same time these people came here with so many other slaves and political exiles and criminals, literally millions of slaves from Africa went to the Americas and they lost their Islam. We did not lose our Islam. And my own understanding of the history tells me we did not lose our Islam because Allah Almighty had sent pious people here. Islam was in the hands of pious people, people whose hearts were only for Allah; people whose hearts were for His religion; people whose hearts were for Nabi Muhammad (s.a.w.s.) and for nobody else. It was just like that. They had made special commitments to Allah Almighty as Lord; they made a special commitment to Allah Almighty with regard to Islam as the religion; they made a special commitment to Allah Almighty with regard to Nabi Muhammad (s.a.w.s.) as Prophet; they made a special commitment to Allah Almighty with regard to the Quran as Book. This was the nature of these people. They didn't care about other things. They cared about God. They didn't care about other things, they cared about Nabi Muhammad (s.a.w.s.). They were concerned with those things. They didn't care about other things. They cared about their Islam. Their hearts were open to the spirituality from Allah Almighty. Their hearts were open for grants from Him and they used that, the opening of their own hearts and the receiving of the message of Islam in their own hearts and from their hearts they gave it to the hearts of the slaves and the others who were around them at the Cape here. And Islam could survive. Islam survived in an atmosphere in which Allah Almighty was remembered by the pious people. And Islam survived in an atmosphere in which pious people preached; and Islam survived in an atmosphere in which pious people guided; and Islam survived in an atmosphere in which pious people set the standard of Islam. These pious people were sent by Allah Almighty as part of His Divine Decree to establish an Islam at the Cape here that would remember Allah. It was not an Islam that was trying to forget Allah Almighty or not include Allah Almighty in all our activities. This was not the kind of Islam that was brought here by our forefathers. Our forefathers brought an Islam in which their commitment was solely for Allah Almighty. They were only concerned with Him. Their hearts were only for Allah Almighty. There was nothing else that occupied their hearts. They were people like that. My word! Look at their histories; look at their contributions; look at how Islam survived and then you can tell me this is not true. Look at the survival of Islam under harsh conditions at the Cape. Look at it! Look at our great great-grandmothers who were being raped at the Cape. The people were separated from their families. They went through unbelievable trauma. They suffered. They were slaves. They were at the bottom of the social scale. And yet from that slave community and later on from the people that had come from other parts of the world, from that slave community, came Muslims. Not only did some of them come here as Muslims but many of them became reverts to Islam, and that slave community was guided by pious hearts, and gave birth to the present Muslim community. Surely there must be deep down inside us a special "Alhamdulilah" for those people. For the Islam they had brought here. It was an Islam that was geared towards Allah Almighty. It was an Islam that was geared to the Quran. It was an Islam that was geared to the one that brought this Quran to us, through Nabi Muhammad (s.a.w.s.). My word! Let's say those people were not like that. Let's say they got themselves involved in all kinds of unbelievable things. What would've happened to us? But they were not like that you see. Tuan Yusuf, Tuan Guru, Tuan Sa'id, Tuan Abd al-Rahman and Tuan Mahmud, all these people they carried the banner of Islam at the Cape here under the harshest possible conditions and they taught Islam under the worse possible conditions. And they revived Islam in the hearts of the people who were down-trodden, traumatized and raped. They kept Allah's Name in those people's hearts. And because of what they did Islam could survive you see. Because of what their hearts did Islam could survive. Today unfortunately, we are not like that anymore. We are losing our pious people. We can't find them anymore. Something is going wrong with us. So many things are going wrong with this community. During slave times this did not happen. Now during free times, it is happening and we have to ask ourselves: "Is one of the reasons for the fact that we are facing major problems in this community, not the fact that we have discarded many of the practices that these former early Muslims have brought to us?"
Subhana rabika rabbil izzati amma yassifun wa salamun alal mursalin wal hamdu lillahi rabil alamin. Wallahu a'lam.
Yours in Islam