| Religion: | Islam |
| Honorific Prefix: | Sheikh |
| Abu Bakr Effendi | |
| Death Date: | 1880 |
| Jurisprudence: | Hanafi |
| Notable Works: | Bayân al-Dîn (1877) |
Sayyid Sheikh Abu Bakr Effendi (– 29 June 1880), was an Ottoman qadi of Arabic and Turkish origin, sent in 1862 by Sultan Abdulaziz at the request of Queen Victoria to the Cape of Good Hope, in order to teach and assist the Muslim community of the Cape Malays. He is known for having made several major contributions to Islam in South Africa, including the translation of his 1877 work, Bayân al-Dîn, into the Afrikaans language, then in a very early stage of development. He is credited with introducing the fez as headwear for male Muslims in the Cape, and his presence had a significant impact on the expansion and consolidation of Islam at the Dutch Cape Colony. He is the cousin and father in law of Abdurezzek ilmi Efendi and the uncle of the great Turkish Sheykh Ömer Nasuhi Bilmen. Like his relatives mentioned, he is a Sayyid whose lineage goes back to Emir Zaid ibn Ali.
Abu Bakr Effendi ([1]) was born in 1814 in the Ottoman Sanjak of Zor, although his year of birth has been erroneously cited as 1835.[2]
His father, Mullah Omar, Administrator of the ancient family School in Siysaawah, was killed according to Ottoman Archives by nationalist Kurdish uprisings against the Ottoman Administration. He studied at the madrassa originally set up by his ancestor Abu Nasr Al-Amiyr Sulaymaan Al-Qurashiy Al-Amjadiy (c. 1060 - c.1134) which was located in Sisawa. He left from this region at a young age to join his relatives in Erzurum and was never to return to Iraq. He continued his studies in Erzurum, Istanbul and in the holy city of Makkah where spent time as a teacher and Imam at the Haram.
He was asked by the Ottoman Sultan to give teachings in the Cape Colony. This came about after Queen Victoria had written to Sultan Abdulaziz to ask him to send someone to deal with the disputes amongst the Muslims of the Cape. Discord had arisen amongst the Cape Malays between groups who had been isolated from their mother tongue and original religious traditions. On 3 September[1] or October 1862, an Ottoman Imperial decree was issued for the dispatch of Abu Bakr and Omar Lutfi Effendi (his Nephew) to the Cape. The two men traveled first to London via Paris on 1 December, spending two months there[1] before traveling to Liverpool, their port of departure, whence their journey by sea took 44 days to reach the Cape.[3] They arrived in the Cape on 17 January 1763.[1]
The Cape Malays had arrived in the Cape of Good Hope mainly as slaves, brought there by Dutch settlers from 1653, from what is now Indonesia. The Dutch East India Company, since an edict by Joan Maetsuycker, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, in 1657, had compelled the Malays to hide their religious practice, with death as the punishment for practising their faith in public or for attempting to convert anyone.[3] [4]
Other imams in the Cape were mostly trying to teach the Shafi`i school of Islamic jurisprudence, but were influenced by cultural practices from their places of origin. Also being enslaved and away from their places of origin for so long meant that they had drifted from their original beliefs, hence their cry of assistance to the British Empire. Effendi was a follower and the first teacher of Hanafi school, for which he also established a madrassa in Cape Town. Shortly after Effendi's arrival, Muslim men in the Cape started wearing the Turkish fez due to his influence;[3] they had formerly worn a conical style of hat. It was easy for him to adapt considering he was a Mufi of all 4 schools of Madhhab.
He gained notoriety in 1869 after ruling that rock lobster and snoek, two staple foods in the Cape, were sinful (haraam), and there was an unsuccessful petition run to have him removed. He has often been mistaken for being a Shafi'i on the basis of him being a Scholar of the four schools of Sunni Islam, and being able to issue religious edicts according to each one. Most of this opposite was due to Effendi's deep opposition to the Imam's of the Cape having a Succession system in the local mosques to maintain wealth and power instead of handing it over to the most learned. His ancestors and children practised the Hanafi school of thought, but some later converted under pressure and marriage to the local mathaab.
Effendi died on 29 June 1880 at his home in Bree Street, Cape Town, and was buried in the Tana Baru Cemetery.[3] He had contracted malaria from reportedly travelling to Dera in Mozambique.
His most visible impact was the wearing of the fez by Malay men,[3] but his presence also had a significant impact on the growth and self-identity of the Cape Malay Muslims at the Cape. The expansion of Islamic schools drew children from Christian mission schools, and conversion to Christianity drew to a halt. Attendance at mosques and other Islamic religious observances grew.
He published the Arabic Afrikaans Uiteensetting van die godsdiens (Bayân al-Dîn meaning "the exposition of the religion") in 1877, printed by the Turkish Ministry of Education in Istanbul. The book is of particular significance as one of the most extensive publications when the Afrikaans language was still in its infancy. The Bayân al-Dîn described topics of Islamic law, including ritual ablution, prayer, pilgrimage and dietary laws.[3]
Also, written in a modified Arabic script with phonetic spelling, it gives a good indication of the pronunciation of the new language in the Cape at the time as used in the Islamic neighbourhoods (colloquially known as "Slams") of Cape Town, giving insight into the use of the new language in these communities. It was written in a modified Arabic script in which diacritic signs are used to indicate the pronunciation of Afrikaans, and bears testimony to the slave origins of the language, which was not later accredited by the White Afrikaners, especially during the era of apartheid in the mid-20th century. (The Cape Malays did not have Dutch as mother tongue, and were therefore mostly unaffected by its orthography.)
The book, totalling 254 pages, appears to follow the Hanafite law-school. It was divided into eight parts, each dealing with a specific part of Islamic law:
, a Dutch scholar and Semitic researcher, published a transliteration in Latin script of Effendi's work in 1979. Since the original work presented spoken Afrikaans without using vowels, van Selms biggest task was to decipher which Afrikaans words were being referred to. Effendi had also innovated new Arabic characters for several Afrikaans letters not found in the Arabic alphabet, the letter 'P' for example. What is interesting is that these innovated letters had to be unique, yet still recognisable by the population who were already schooled in traditional Arabic. Since this was a local modification to the language, used only amongst the Cape Muslim Community, it may have proved illegible for those familiar with traditional Arabic.
Effendi's first wife was from Erzurum with whom he had children but were left in Turkey on his mission to South Africa. His first wife in South Africa was Rukea Maker, said to be the daughter of an English woman and a Cape Muslim man, but this marriage ended with divorce and his wife eloping. He sent his 2 sons from this marriage to Istanbul under the patronage of the Ottoman Sultan. His daughter Fahimah was his eldest child from his marriage to Maker.. This is however contested as Fahimah no birth certificates in South Africa unlike his other children as is believed to have been born in Turkey. She married the Turkish Sheikh Abdurezzek ilmi Efendi.
His second wife was the daughter of a shipbuilder from Yorkshire, England,[5] Jeremiah Cook, who was a relative of famous explorer James Cook.[1] Many of Effendi's descendants originate from his marriage to Tohora Saban Cook, with whom he had six children.[1] His five sons were Ahmad Ataullah, Hisham Nimatullah, Omar Jalaluddin, Muhammad Alauddin, and Hussain Fowzy.
Ahmad (also spelt Achmat[4]) became involved in Cape politics. He became a member of the Cemetery Committee because the cemetery where his father's grave was situated was threatened with closure by the Cape Administration. He stood for the legislature of the Cape but failed to get the required votes for a seat due to a change in the system for cumulative votes, amended especially to keep him out of the Cape legislature. In Singapore is the grave of Effendi's son, Ahmed, who was the Ottoman Turkish Ambassador to Singapore.
Some of Effendi's sons served in the Ottoman Army and airforce and fought in the Hejaz, against the Anglo and Arab nationalist uprising against the Ottoman Empire.. They fought in Iraq at the Siege of Kut where the British were heavily defeated.
Many of Effendi's descendants continue to reside in South Africa, some under the surname Emjedi, while some returned to Turkey and others migrated to Australia.
On 20 August 2020, 15 of Effendi's South African descendants became Turkish citizens by presidential decree.[1]