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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Selected Sufi texts of Shaykh Yusuf: translations and commentaries |
Authors: | Keraan, Mustapha Haron, Muhammed |
Year: | 2008 |
Periodical: | Tydskrif vir letterkunde |
Volume: | 45 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 101-122 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | Sufism manuscripts 1600-1699 |
About person: | Shaykh Yusuf Al-Khalwati Al-Maqassari (1626-1699) |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.4314/tvl.v45i1.29823 |
Abstract: | In 1994 South African Muslims celebrated what they deemed to have been the tercentenary of the presence of Islam in South Africa. One of the heroic figures whose name has been associated with the nascent Muslim community at the Cape during the late 17th century was that of Shaykh Yusuf Al-Khalwati Al-Maqassari (d. 1699). The shaykh, a Muslim cleric, who was brought by the Dutch to Ceylon from the Melayu archipelago as a political prisoner, was one of the most prominent Muslim figures to be exiled to the Cape of Good Hope. It was his position as a Sufi shaykh that catapulted him into prominence. Before and during his period of exile, the shaykh wrote a number of important texts on 'tasawwuf' (Sufism) that have circulated among and influenced many of his companions and students. In this article the authors translated three short treatises that have been attributed to him. Although none of them was written whilst he was in exile at the Cape of Good Hope between the time of his arrival there in 1694 and the time of his death in 1699, he was able to disseminate their contents to members of the nascent Cape Muslim community who had come into contact with him. Bibliogr., sum. [Journal abstract, edited] |