Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives - Islamic Books ...

2 6 0Islam i n World Cult u r e sracial demands of the society and the authoritarianism of the state. And third,a new approach to Islam as a counter-hegemonic discourse was nurturedwithin the contexts of rapidly increasing modernization and racial conflict.In earlier sections of this chapter, I sketched some of the different contextsin which various Muslim communities developed in South Africa. These historiesof location and settlement shaped Muslim responses and left an indeliblemark on their institutions as well as on their social and political attitudes. Inthe twentieth century, certain patterns of community life were reinforced andothers were newly created.With the discovery of mineral deposits in the Boer republics, the Britishsought to gain access and control of this wealth. After two wars, the territorieswere finally combined in 1910 under the leadership of a united white group.Mining and related industrialization was developed under a regime of whitedominance. On the broader political stage, the disparate regions of Britishcolonies and Boer republics were brought together under the Union of SouthAfrica in 1910. This unification was offset by an opposite process of fragmentationamong the South African population. It was within this context that anAfrikaner apartheid ideology developed that urged its adherents to exploittheir presumed racial purity to take political control over the country. In thisw a y, the racialization of society that had begun much earlier in South Africanh i s t o ry was increased, and it ultimately became rigidly institutionalized in thepolitical system of the country. English-speaking people of European descentwere grateful for this authoritarianism as long as the mines and factories wereprovided with cheap labor. Afrikaner ideology increasingly racialized nearly allaspects of South African society. It systematically and institutionally relegatedthe subjugated classes into separated racial groups that could be easily dominated.The promulgation of an official apartheid ideology beginning in 1948was the ultimate outcome of this process. The political and economic contextof the twentieth century—one strong state, and many racial groups generatedand controlled by racial ideologues—provides the background for understandingMuslim communities in South Africa today.Muslim Communities and Racial IdentitiesAs we have seen, the first group of Muslims to arrive in the country came fromdifferent parts of Asia and Africa. The Muslim artilleries established to defendthe Cape in the service of the Dutch were called “Javanese Artilleries” andwere under the guidance of a Javanese Muslim chaplain. But in 1824, when acolonial commission inquired into the condition and treatment of indigenousinhabitants, Achmat van Bengalen, a prominent imam at the Awwal Mosque,said he was “of Malay extraction,” and his associate Muding was also referred