Indigenising Islam as a Minority: A South African Community with Southeast Asian Origins, and the case of Shaykh Seraj Hendricks

The Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore, in coordination with Wardah Books, invites you to join Dr Hisham A. Hellyer, a scholar in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (USA), Dr Suzaina Kadir, Vice Dean and Associate Professor, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS and Mr Fazlur Rahman, a Muslim community leader for a discussion on the ‘indigenisation’ of Islam as minorities, with reflections on the South African Capetonian Muslim community in general, and the example of the late Shaykh Seraj Hendricks, often referred to as the ‘Mufti of Cape Town’. 

Capetonian Muslims are indelibly impacted by South-east Asia, one of the main origins of Muslim South Africa, while deeply impacted by Western traditions. The community’s history as a deeply integral component of South Africa, which was cut off from much of the world due to its earlier apartheid regime, has since become a focus of interest of many Muslim minority communities. 

Shaykh Seraj Hendricks was a contemporary South African Sufi shaykh and Islamic scholar who drew from his own Western education and training from sages and savants in Mecca, many of whom also taught numerous South-east Asian Muslim religious authorities.