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

2 6 4Islam i n World Cult u r e sherence to counter a perceived communist, atheistic assault against the“Christian” values of apartheid.Irrespective of conservative or modernist slant, the introduction of new Islamicreformist ideas from the Arab world and the Indian Subcontinent led toa greater awareness of text-based definitions of Islamic orthodoxy as opposedto more popular religious practices. As a result, in the modern period, Islam inSouth African society has witnessed an increasing degree of devotion to suchreligious obligations as daily prayers, fasting, and regular pilgrimage. The associatedincrease in the number of South African mosques and South Africanpilgrims to Mecca cannot be ignored. Since the 1980s, about 5,000 individualsgo on pilgrimage annually. At home, worshipers attend daily prayers atmosques, and overflowing crowds at Friday prayers can bring traffic in someMuslim neighborhoods to a standstill. This increase in public displays of pietyhas led to a public presence for Islam in contemporary South Africa that is remarkablypalpable in spite of the small percentage of Muslims in the population.However, while these practices were overtly based on the s h a r i ’ a , they attimes also continue to reflect the racialized social contexts of apartheid. Thus,for example, new mosques were built specifically for the respective ethnic populationsof both Indian and Coloured/Malay group areas. Different religiousschools were established in these racial ghettoes as well. All places of worship,including mosques, were granted recognition by the state through the specialallocation of sites for religious development in the racially segregated areas. Inthe overwhelming number of cases, the communities accepted these conditions.Thus, the greater degree of devotion and adherence to religion was inextricablefrom the racial categories under the apartheid state.These aspects of Islamic social life in South Africa in the twentieth centurypresented growing and sustained challenges to religious leaders and scholars.The growth of modern education produced a new Muslim elite whose membershad not been educated in traditional Islamic religious institutions andwho could challenge the traditional authority of the u l a m a in society.Over the course of the twentieth century, Islam in South Africa took on twodistinctive features: First, its political character was closely tied to the questionof race and racism, and second, it was deeply involved in debates over issues relatingto the contestation of religious authority and the rise of Islamic modernism.The first feature has been most evident in the Cape; Muslim teachersand students in Cape Town came to reject the racial construction of the Malayi d e n t i t y. The Malay racial identity had been constructed to suit the political ideologyof apartheid, and the Muslim Teachers Association regarded it with contempt.In response to I. D. du Plessis’s book on the Malays, the association arguedthat “the book propagates Islam as a Malay religion whereas Islam is auniversal religion and has only one law for all Muslims throughout the world”(quoted in Jeppie 1987, 80). Increasingly frequent statements of such senti-