Origin from 1694
On 2 April 1694, the Dutch East India Company delivered the exiled Makassarese Islamic scholar and resistance leader Sheikh Yusuf to the Cape of Good Hope, where he was settled at Zandvliet farm, later renamed Macassar in his honor. His household of political exiles and enslaved followers became a sanctuary from which, despite the colony's attempt to isolate him, the practice of Islam spread among the enslaved community of Cape Town, and he is remembered as the founder of South Africa's first cohesive Muslim community.
Facts
Dates
Start YearSourced to the subject's own account StatusSourced to the subject's own accountArrived marks the settlement of an openly Muslim community at the Cape under Sheikh Yusuf's own household, not a claim about any earlier, unrecorded Muslim presence among individual slaves or sailors passing through the colony. In Other Languages (6 names)
- Abadin Tadia Tjoessoep
- يوسف التاج الخلوتي
- Scheikh Yusuf
- Sheikh Yusuf
- Yusuf Al-Makassari
- Yusuf Makassar
Cross-Tradition Connections
Occurred In
Spread Event Of
Opens the map's own thread in southern Africa, distinct from the Swahili coast's eighth century arrival further north and the Sokoto Caliphate's nineteenth century spread further west, on a continent Islam had already reached from more than one direction.
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