What is with your superstition

 

In the seventeenth century, the Dutch colonised what is now known as Cape Town. By that time, the Europeans had found a way around the southern tip of Africa to venture to the far east, ostensibly for trade. The end result was colonisation. It was as a result of this colonisation that Muslims from the far east, starting with Indonesia, were brought to the Cape as slaves and political exiles. They found their new home in what is today still called “Bo-Kaap”.

Being persecuted, the Muslims adopted more Dutch sounding names and hid their Islam and birth names. Yet, they preserved Islam that today there is Islam in Cape Town and, indeed, in South Africa. However, a visit to the Bo-Kaap does not give you a sense of Islam except for the many mosques in the relatively small area. In every person, there is but a reflection of yourself and your shortcomings. More so, when it is your understanding of Islam and how you live it, that reflects on yourself. So, we remind ourselves and when we do it out loud, perhaps that benefit can reach the next person. When someone’s eemaan (faith) is weak, that person may consciously leave Islam and adopt another religion or give up religion completely, i.e. become an atheist. May we all be spared from that. But the greatest threat is not that obvious disbelief. Rather it is those ideas, thoughts, beliefs and actions which are contrary to Islam. Superstition is one such example of a weak or corrupt belief system. However, to understand Islam and your belief system, you will understand why you are called Muslim. This education is what you must go and learn it from those who will clearly teach you the unadulterated pristine Islam. The one thing you don’t want happening is that on the Day of Reckoning, you discover that you committed shirk (ascribing partners to Allah). Sometimes it may be an act which does not nullify your Islam but sometimes it is a more deep-rooted belief which can absolutely nullify your Islam. The starting point of your Islam is your testimony of faith that there is only one deity, Allah, to be worshipped and that Muhammad ﷺ is his messenger. In that belief is that you reject believing in any other object or being. This object of disbelief may involve superstition. This disbelief may be like some find reason, wisdom and guidance in astrology and zodiac signs. For others it is in beliefs of what happens to the dead when those beliefs are foreign to Islam. And the list goes on.

The Bo-Kaap has become merely a tourist attraction and not a beacon of da’wah (calling to Islam). Walls are painted with reminders of Gaza. Will we give up the Bo-Kaap without a fight? Our forefathers left us Islam. Many of them were illiterate but they held onto their Islam. Today, you have access to so much knowledge. Let’s access that knowledge and let’s be Muslim and make Bo-Kaap (and Cape Town as a whole) the vibrant Muslim community we ought to be.

 

Do read, share and comment on these links below:

https://capemuslimspeak.blogspot.com/2024/07/real-entertainment.html

https://capemuslimspeak.blogspot.com/2024/07/in-death-there-is-life.html

https://capemuslimspeak.blogspot.com/2024/06/see-this-example.html

https://capemuslimspeak.blogspot.com/2024/06/headlines.html

https://capemuslimspeak.blogspot.com/2024/05/resilience-and-reversion.html

https://capemuslimspeak.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-march-to-holy-land.html

https://capemuslimspeak.blogspot.com/2024/03/bold-question.html

 

 

#bokaap #capetown #islam #gaza #southafrica #palestine #muhammad #zodiac