THE CINDERELLA OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AT THE CAPE

1. EFFORTS OF THE FIRST 150 YEARS

Religious restrictions on the Mardyckers

Islam in response to coersive Christianity

Racial and Religious prejudice: A fallacious colonial View on Baptism

Missionary Endeavour in the Eighteenth Century

Baptism – still a hot potato

Rejection of slaves, even in the Church

2. THE 19TH CENTURY – Missionary work blossoms

Missionaries on collision course

Prevalent racism

The neglect of religious instruction

The arrogance of Cape Christians

Other missionary efforts of the early nineteenth century

Slaves turning to Islam

A Bo-Kaap variation of tent-making ministry

Inter-church co-operation

Denominational co-operation

Church apartheid is born

Missionary work among Muslims after 1850

Insensitivity to Islamic culture

Interim Appraisal of Missionary work after 1850

Mission work after 1875

Rev. John Arnold, a brilliant strategist and underrated theologian

Lack of appreciation of the importance of language

Deficient preparation of missionaries

Much ado about a booklet

In defence of missionaries who have been maligned unfairly

Adressing the whole man

A caricature of the Gospel

Negative traits in Evangelism

Destruction of indigenous culture?

Preaching and Teaching deficiencies

Prophetic voices and Christian action

Christianity to the rescue of Cape Islam

Government Aid

3. The Twentieth Century

The scourge of Racism and bigoted church politics

Religious Dialogue

Ecclesiastic Disunity...........................................................................

Government intervention......................................................................

The legalization of racial separation..............................................................

Nationals of colour used as missionaries?....................................................

A power Encounter at the Green Point Track...........................................

The DRC Church leads the pack in the outreach to Muslims ..............

The missionary work among Cape Indian Muslims................................

The impact of the apartheid ideology on the DRC Church .....................

Mission Responsibility delegated ...........................................................

Estrangement of the DRC ‘daughter’ churches ...........................................

The involvement of Indian sector of the DRC.........................................

Detours due to apartheid......................................

Outreach by the Anglican churches......................

Muslim Outreach of the Baptist church...............

Outreach of other denominations Problematic Missionary Methods

Whites to the rescue of Islam once again

4. The Situation at the Beginning of the New Millennium

Missionaries among Muslims in the last quarter of the 20th Century

The indifference of the local churches

Other nations get on board

A training ground for South African missionaries

Evangelism in trains and Open Air Outreach

Efforts to minister to Gangsters and Prisoners

Other Compassionate outreach

Relationship Evangelism

Children’s ministries

Joint Ventures

Networking between various agencies and churches

Muslim Prayer Focus

Outreach to Jews and Students

The Jesus Film

Efforts in the Central Area of the City

The Response of the church and Missions to Gang-related Activities

PAGAD comes on the scene

Converts from Islam

Secret believers come out of hiding

Counterproductive Islamic Moves

Bickering among Muslims.

Islam in the New South Africa

The start of the ideological demise of Islam?

Bewilderment as the side-effect of PAGAD

Abbreviations

AE - Africa Enterprise

ACVV - Afrikaanse Vrouevereniging (Afrikaans Women’s Guild)

AEF - Africa Evangelical Fellowship

CRC - Coloured Representative Council

CCM - Christian Concern for Muslims

CCFM - Cape Community FM (radio)

CSV - Christelike Studentevereniging

DEIC - Dutch East India Company

DRC - Dutch Reformed Church (NG Kerk)

Ds. - Dominee, equivalent of Reverend

DTS - Discipleship Training School

GCOWE - Global Consultation for World Evangelisation

LMS - London Missionary Society

MECO - Middle East Christian Outreach

MERCSA Muslim Resource Centre of South Africa

OM - Operation Mobilization

PAGAD - People against Gangsterism and Drugs

PCR - Programme to Combat Racism

SACC -South African Council of Churches

SAMS - South African Missionary Society

SIM - Society of International Ministries

SPG - Society for the Propagation of the Gospel

TEAM - The Evangelical Alliance Mission

TEASA - The Evangelical Alliance of South Africa

UDF - United Democratic Front

UNISA - University of South Africa

UWC - University of the Western Cape

V.O.C - Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagne = United East India Company

WCC - World Council of Churches

WEC -Worldwide Evangelisation for Christ

YWAM - Youth With a Mission

YMCA -Young Men’s Christian Association

Z.A. Gesticht - Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht (South African Foundation)

Introduction

The basis of the material presented here was prepared as an assignment towards the achievement of the post graduate diploma in missiology at the Bible Institute of South Africa in Kalk Bay. Prof. H.C. (Juttie) Bredekamp, professor of History at the University of the Western Cape, whom I consulted in the initial stages of the studies, encouraged me to present the work to the South African Library in Cape Town. It was to be considered for the inclusion as a possible missiological contribution in their quarterly journal. At that stage it was intended to coincide with the tercentenary of the arrival at the Cape of Sheikh Yusuf of Macassar in 1994, but it was not finished in time. The research included discussion with the late Dr. Achmat Davids, a local Muslim historian. In the latter stages of that work, I had been consulting or interviewing still living and current missionaries among Muslims. My attempt was however ultimately turned down by the library. I should have revamped it, to present it again.

In the initial assignment I discussed the efforts - or more correctly, the lack of attempts - to evangelise the Muslims at the Cape in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I hereafter also researched the mission work among the Muslims in the seventeenth century. The efforts of the 20^th century were since then also looked at, bringing the story right up to the present. [1] Even though I have gone to some length to find all efforts at evangelistic outreach to Muslims at the Cape, I cannot vouch that you have the full picture in front of you. I am quite aware that much of what has been done by individual Christians is still not generally known. I do hope that this might come to the fore in due course.

Possibly the first person to put Islam in South Africa on the map was the so-called ‘Apostle to Islam’, Dr Samuel Zwemer. Most maps showing the spread of Islam in the world ignored South Africa altogether. This is hardly surprising for, Muslims are still a tiny minority in this country. Yet, when Zwemer wrote his book Mohammed or Christ in 1916, he devoted a whole chapter to Islam in South Africa. In 1929, when he wrote his book Across the World of Islam, he devoted another whole chapter to the same subject. One of the chapters in this book was simply titled Islam in North Africa and the next Islam in South Africa.

During a visit to the country in 1926 Zwemer saw great opportunities for developing sound friendships between Christians and Muslims summarizing his impressions very forcibly as follows:

The Moslems of South Africa are accessible and live in the midst of Christian communities. They are approachable and responsive to kindness in a remarkable degree. Many of them are strangers in a strange land and hungry for friendship. (Zwemer, Across the World of Islam, p. 255).

There are two partially conflicting views with regard to the success of missionary work among the Muslims. W.H. Freund writes about the work of the South African Mission Society which had been started in 1799 in his chapter on ‘The Cape under the transitional governments, 1795-1814’ : ‘Their work flourished, but on a smaller scale than in the mission settlements .... Increasing numbers of slaves and free blacks were baptised in the Reformed and Lutheran churches’ (R. Elphick and H. Giliomee, 1987:342). Haasbroek (1955:48) likewise wrote for instance rather positively that missionary work among the Muslims during the first 150 years coincided with work among the slaves. The impression gained from these two authors is that missionary work - also to the Muslim slaves at the Cape - was successful. On the other extreme, Achmat Davids and Robert Shell were initially far too negative in their appraisal of missionary work at the Cape. [2]

In this work we shall concentrate on the latter extreme viewpoint (Shell), showing simultaneously the invalidity of the former (Davids). We shall explicitly try to show how little had been done to present the challenges of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Muslim slaves before 1900. We also have to highlight the neglect and indifference that continued to the present time.

It is very sad that a century despite the apt diagnosis of Dr Samuel Zwemer who discerned circumstances in this country very favourable to the cause of evangelism among Muslims, very little meaningful was done. He highlighted the extent of their education and the opportunities which this presented. What he wrote so many decades ago is arguably still valid: ‘A larger percentage of the people are literate than perhaps in any other section of the Moslem world (Zwemer, "Two Moslem Catechisms (Published at Cape Town)", The Muslim World, Vol. 15, p.349).’

Dr Zwemer was clearly impressed by the character of the Muslim community he discovered in South Africa and its remarkable accessibility in contrast with many of the closed Muslim societies in the traditional world of Islam. I dare to plea to repeat his plea through this treatise.

A special word of thanks to Ds. Jan Mostert, missiology lecturer at BI, who initially sparked my research in 1992, Prof. Juttie Bredekamp who is also a personal friend and the late Dr. Achmat Davids for his comment as the work progressed. The last interview with him occurred a day before his death. The interviews with various retired role players like Rev. Davie Pypers and Mr. Gerhard Nehls - telephonic and otherwise years ago - have proved invaluable.

Cape Town, March 2016

1. EFFORTS OF THE FIRST 150 YEARS

Religious Restrictions on the Mardyckers

We take a brief look at the situation with regard to religion at the Cape in the beginnings of the refreshment post. The first Muslims who arrived here were the Mardyckers, who came in 1658, i.e. only six years after Jan van Riebeeck landed here. The word ‘Mardycka’ implies freedom. The Mardyckers were free people from Amboyna, one of the southern Moluccan Islands. They were brought to the Cape to protect the newly established settlement against the indigenous people - the Khoi - and to provide a labour force in the same way as they had been employed first by the Portuegese and later by the Dutch in Amboyna. Even before they came to the Cape the Mardyckers were discriminated against. The religious practices and activities of the Mardyckers - in terms of Dutch colonial policy - had been severely restricted. Already in 1642, i.e. even before they came to the Cape, it was found necessary to issue a ‘Placaat’, a decree which prohibited them to practise their religion publicly. The threat of a death sentence hung over their head if they tried to convert anybody to Islam. It is easy to discern where some Islamic governments of the Middle East at the present time got their examples for the persecution of religious opponents. The Mardyckers were however allowed to practise their religion in private. To allow them to do this at the Cape of Good Hope, Maetsuycker, the Batavian Governor, re-issued the following decree (Quoted in E. Aspeling, The Malays of Cape Town, 1883, p.17):

‘No one shall trouble the Amboinese about their religion or annoy them; so long as they do not

practise in public or venture to propagate it amongst Christian and Heathen...’

In short, it seems that this became necessary because Dutch colonists may have tried to prevent the Mardyckers to practise their religion freely. Thus it is probably not incorrect to describe the early Cape Muslims as ‘victims of European colonising activities in Asia and Africa.’ (Da Costa in Yusuf Da Costa and Achmat Davids, 1994:1)

Islam in response to coersive Christianity

With regard to the early colonial era, the spread of Islam in the Indonesian Archipelago, from where the predominant part of Cape Muslim slaves originated, has been described as ‘a reaction to the militant Roman Catholicism that was propagated by the Portuguese and the Calvinism of the Dutch’ (Boxer, 1966:143). In short, it was a response to the efforts of some colonists who tried to Christianise the native inhabitants forcibly. Their resistance in the East created religious-political convicts, who would impregnate Cape Islam in due course. [3]

The great influx of Easterners to the Cape of Good Hope began in 1667. The year 1667 also saw the arrival of the first political exiles banished to the Cape. A plaque at the tomb on ‘Islam Hill’ in Constantia commemorating these men, states:

‘...They were rulers ‘Orang Cayen’, men of wealth and influence...Two were sent to the Company’s forest and one to Robben Island.’

They were isolated by the Dutch East India Company to minimise their chances of escape. They thus hardly had any influence on the establishment and spread of Islam at the Cape (Davids, 1980:37). The Cape was officially made a place of confinement for high-ranking prisoners in 1681. Many came from Ternate, a flourishing sultanate in the Moluccas, some from Macassar in the Celebes. Of all the Indonesian political exiles brought to the Cape, Sheikh Yussuf (Tjoessoep) is regarded by many, e.g. J. S. Marais (1939:168) and I. D. Du Plessis (1972), as the most important.

Probably the best known of the Orang Cayen is Sheikh Yusuf of Macassar. His real name was Abidin Tadia Tjoessoep. After his noble resistance against the Dutch, Tjoessoep was regarded as a ‘kramat’ - a saint. The name kramat was later given to the shrines, into which the graves of the saints developed. As a political convict Tjoessoep was exiled to the Cape in 1694, coming here on board of the Voetboog. This Bantamese resistance leader and his 49 followers were housed on the farm Zandvliet, near the mouth of the Eerste River. The farm Zandvliet of the Dutch Reformed minister, Petrus Kalden soon became a sanctuary for fugitive slaves. It was here that the first cohesive Muslim community in South Africa was established. But almost the entire community was shipped to Indonesia after the death of Tjoessoep in May, 1699.

The beginning of the eighteenth century was the time when Islam started to take root at the Cape as a result of Sheikh Yusuf’s influence in the Cape. There is no evidence that Rev. Kalden made any attempt to share the gospel with the Muslim community on his farm (Haasbroek, 1955:54). Nevertheless, Reverend Kalden basically had a heart for missions. He was probably the first European who tried to learn the difficult Khoi language with the avowed object to be ‘of service to this heathen nation who still abide in such dark ignorance’ (Du Plessis, 1955(1911): 47). We should remember however that his farm was merely used as a glorified prison. Politically it would have been very difficult to even try to show compassion to someone who was banished to his farm. Yet, in a letter from the Dutch Reformed Church Council of Drakenstein and dated 4 April 1703, mention is made of a new member ‘from Mohammedan parents’[4] Be it as it may, a negative pattern was set, a tradition born: hereafter, Christians would cowardly leave Muslims alone, especially with regard to the sharing of religious convictions.

Some regents, kings, princes and more radical freedom fighters such as Achmat, Prince of Ternate and the Rajah of Madura were sent to Robben Island. These people lived lonely and isolatedly, appealing repeatedly for release.

With the exception of a few former soldiers from Europe, the Indonesian slaves were the only artisans in the town. Some slaves, on payment of a fee to their owners, lived independently of them and worked wherever they wished in the town. This freedom enabled them to attend or hold religious meetings, a practice which kept the slaves in contact with one another. From the records of George Foster of 1777 can be detected that already in the 1770s a few of these slaves met weekly in a private house belonging to a free Muslim ‘in order to read, or rather chant, several prayers and chapters of the Koran’ (Rochlin, 1939:214).

An occult Element

The policy of isolating the influential political exiles effectively prevented them from establishing Islam or influencing its spread at the Cape well into the 18th century. However, a spiritual occult force was at work. ‘It is today commonly acknowledged that it was mainly due to the presence of the Sheiks of Tasawwuf’ (Sufism) that Islam was initially established’ Lubbe (1987:54). The Sufi orders have had a vital role in the establishment and spread of Islam through the centuries as Da Costa (1989:50) pointed out: ‘The orders, binding together individuals under a supernatural bond, were themselves a social power.’ This is powerfully demonstrated by the influence of the Rajah (King) of Tambora who was exiled to Vergelegen, Willem Adriaan van der Stel’s country residence. He was apparently completely isolated from other Easterners at the Cape at the time.

While at Vergelegen, the Rajah wrote the Qur’an from memory. Throughout his banishment at the Cape there is no evidence that the Rajah helped spread Islam in any way (Shell, 1974:24). In fact, although he married the daughter of Sheikh Yusuf, all his children became Christians. Compare this with that the Rajah of Madura, who was sent to Robben Island. South African Muslims commemorate this Rajah not with his Javanese title but as Sheikh Maduro. He was one of the Sufi Sheikhs of Tasawwuf’ (Lubbe, 1987:51). The mystical practice of the commemorating days after the death of Cape Muslims is so common that local Muslims would possibly regard this as belonging to orthodox Islam.

Racial and Religious Prejudice: A fallacious colonial View on Baptism

It does not seem as if serious attempts were made to communicate the gospel to slaves at all in the early days of the Cape Colony, let alone to the Muslim slaves. In fact, the only known‘half effort’ before 1700 was thwarted by the church authorities. The Rev. Overneij, a Dutch Reformed Minister who visited the Cape in 1678, seems to have had the spiritual well being of the slaves at heart, but he had a problem on his hands when the question arose whether the children of slaves could be baptised. In fact, as early as March 1666 a sad incident had taken place. After the sermon in the old fort while the Groote Kerk was still being built, a European child was offered for baptism and thereafter a slave woman went to the baptismal font to present her own infant during the ceremony. But before the presiding minister, Rev. Johannes de Voocht, could continue, a visiting minister from Holland, Phillipus Balaeus, stopped the rite. He exclaimed that the practice at the Cape was decidedly wrong (Böeseken, 1977:27). According to him - doctrinally he surely had a point to make - they were ‘disregarding the holiness of the sacrament as the mother was not Christian’ (Davids, 1984:178). The Commander at the Cape, Wagenaer, was infuriated and immediately called a meeting of the Politieke Raad the next day. Hereafter it was decided that the slave child should be baptised the very next Sunday. Davids surmises that the main motive for the ‘altruism’ was the attempt to swell the ranks of the Christians in this way, by getting as many children baptised before they could be reared as Muslims. Davids’ theory is not supported by the facts. As a result of the Synod of Dordt in 1618, the opposite happened at the Cape. Slaves were not baptised because of fear that they would have to be set free. The fallacious colonial view on baptism continued to haunt evangelism to the indigenous people until well into the next century. We can hardly get behind the thinking, which brought a government to forbid missionaries to baptise their indigenous converts. This is exactly what happened to the Moravian Georg Schmidt, the first missionary to the Cape Colony. He was more or less expelled because he did not heed the warning - not to baptise Khoi - albeit that the Calvinists had a convenient formal excuse for their drastic measure: Schmidt was not properly ordained. The Count Zinzendorf had only ordained Schmidt by letter.

Missionary Endeavour in the Eighteenth Century

The first serious effort in the 18th century to evangelize the Muslims at the Cape was that of the Dutch Reformed Ds. Henricus Beck after his retirement in 1731. Haasbroek (Die sending onder die Mohammedane in Kaapstad en omgewing) described him as the pioneer of mission work among the Muslims. The widow Aaltje van den Heyden, one of his church members, played an important part in the mission work to the slaves after the death of her husband in 1740 by supplying the bulk of the funds for what became known as the Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht (Haasbroek, 1955:58). Another congregant, Margaretha A. Möller, contributed generously to help start the institution as a missionary endeavour to the slaves (Pamphlet: Die Suid-Afrikaanse Sendinggestig Museum, p.2).

The spiritual needs of the slaves were considered the responsibility of the slave-owners. Davids (1992:80-81) concludes: ‘Hence the first missionary, the Moravian Georg Schmidt, who had arrived in 1737, was posted to Genadendal... to work among the Khoi’. Davids’ point is valid to some extent because soon after his arrival Schmidt was required to move to Sergeants River (later called Baviaan’s Kloof, as Genadendal had been called for a long time). After being initially only 50 miles (80 kilometers) away from the Cape at Zoetemelksvlei, he was perceived by hostile farmers to be too near to the company’s post (Du Plessis, 1955 (1911):419).

On another score Davids’ statement has to be challenged however. Schmidt intentionally went there where he could minister more freely to the Khoi. It was Moravian mission policy at the time to bring the Gospel to the unreached, those who have been neglected or discarded. This was the prime reason for his coming to the Cape. The Hottentotten - as the Khoi were derogatively termed - were regarded as ‘Wilden’, as barbaric. Count Zinzendorf and his fellowship of believers in Herrnhut took up the challenge to especially reach the forgotten and neglected people groups with the Gospel.

Worldwide, slave-owners did not do much for the slaves in their care. In fact, the oral record of a concerned Christian slave at the Danish court spawned the missionary movement from Herrnhut.[5] However, the general neglect of the spiritual care of the slaves seems to have continued at the Cape after the arrival of a second batch of slaves from Batavia in 1743. This group consisted mainly of normal convicts from the East brought in to work on a breakwater in Table Bay where many ships went aground. A majority of them would probably have been Muslim. Even so, the Christian colonists at the Cape did not compare that badly in relation to what was happening in other parts of the world. This was mainly due to the efforts of the next major role player in the evangelisation of the Muslims, Ds. Helperus Ritzema van Lier of the Groote Kerk who arrived at the Cape in 1786. The conversion of the learned van Lier was the product of the faithful prayers of his mother. After he had narrowly escaped death after breaking through ice and after the sudden death of his fiancée, he sensed the call of God on his life. Ds. Vos possessed at least one committed Christian slave, one who hailed from Mozambique, named Maart. Inspired by the visit to the colony of the Moravian Bishop Reichel in 1787, ‘van Lier and all his fans’ were moved to do something about the spiritual welfare of the Khoi and the slaves (Nachtigal, 1893:121). Van Lier was deeply moved that so many ‘heathens’ fell victim to the Muslims.

Thus, as early as 1788 various people in Cape Town and its surroundings set aside one day in the week for the religious teaching of ‘the heathen’. In fact, ‘...toen men in veele delen van Europa nog bezig was te beredeneren of de slaven en heidenen wel moesten (geloven) en of het mogelijk ware dat zij konden onderwezen worden, had men met dat werk in deze Kolonie eenen aanvang gemaakt’. [6]

Cilliers (1997:205) aptly noted that the Dutch in colonial days ‘tried to outdo the Roman Catholic Church in every possible way.’ The brand of Calvinism at the Cape was of the worst kind. That other colonial powers were abusing their position in a similar way, is only a poor excuse. The Dutch not only refused other denominations to have an own building at the Cape till 1780 when the Lutherans were allowed to worship openly in Strand Street, but they insisted on their own language. In a letter of Slotsboo, a Verenigde Oost Indische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company) official, to the Classis of Amsterdam the request was put expressis verbi that the clergyman to be sent to the Cape had to be ‘nooyt een Deen of ander Uytlander, maar een goet Nederlander.’ (Cited in J.W. Hofmeyr et al, 1991:40) In his ministry to the French Huguenots, Ds. Henricus Beck who was completely bilingual, was only allowed to preach in French once in a fortnight. A countryman wrote about the missionary activity under the Dutch East India Company, which organised the trade in the 17th century: ‘The behaviour pattern of the Dutch East India Company and her servants was detrimental to the spreading of a good smell of Western Christianity.’[7] The situation improved towards the end of that century when religious tolerance increased in the Netherlands itself. The Rotterdam clergyman Petrus Hofstede (1716-1803) challenged not only the internal ‘onverdraagzaamheid’ (intolerance) but also the intolerant attitude toward ‘de heidenen’ (De Jong, 1980:271f). After 1795, when the French troops saw the Dutch ‘stadhouder’ fleeing, the way was opened for the British to take over the Cape. The religious landscape changed accordingly.

Baptism – a hot Potato

Towards the end of Dutch rule the baptism of slaves’ children remained a hot potato. The negative advice from Amsterdam - on racial rather than doctrinal grounds - militated against every effort to evangelize the slaves. The total registered population at the Cape in 1775 was 12,000. Approximately half of this number was slaves. The bulk of those were Muslims. This was a matter of concern for the Dutch authorities who tried at this time to control their numbers through legislation. In fact, many of the colonists actively encouraged slaves to become Muslims as a direct result of a ‘placaat’ (decree) prohibiting the sale of Christian slaves. In India legislation had been passed which they drew upon. In the Chapter on ‘Slaves’ in the Statutes of 10 April 1770, Article nine reads:

The Christians are held bound to instruct their slaves... without compulsion

in the Christian Religion, and have them baptized,...and such as may have been

confirmed in the Christian Religion, shall never be sold...

This decree was also applied at the Cape. However, many of the colonists hereafter actively encouraged slaves to become Muslims, a direct result of the ‘placaat’ (decree) prohibiting the sale of Christian slaves. Slave owners at the Cape interpreted these measures as a threat, believing that their slaves would become free if they were baptized.

The concern of the Church was in keeping with the spirit of the time. In a letter from the church council of the Dutch Reformed Church at Stellenbosch dated 4 June 1792, the Kerkraad asked whether slaves could be baptized with the proviso that their freedom would not have to follow.

How pervasive the implementation and effect of the decree was, is demonstrated by the case of the Rev. Michiel Christiaan Vos, who has been described - definitely not unrightly so - as one of the pioneers of missions at the Cape. Ds. Vos, the first missionary from South African soil, owned at least one committed Christian slave, one from Mozambique named Maart. This slave responded so well to the five years of Christian teaching that he was considered to become a missionary to his own people in Mozambique. However, there was no move to set Maart free, neither by Vos nor the LMS in whose service Maart operated as an associate evangelist for a further seven years (Schoeman, March 1995:145). Maart was only baptized after the missionary Dr. Johannes Van der Kemp had intervened. Ds. Vos did not take the trouble to baptize Maart. Or was he too much dictated to by the force of the general custom, an earlier version of South African way of life? Instead of swimming against the stream, Vos sold Maart van Mozambiek to the LMS as he left for Ceylon, the present-day Sri Lanka.

Rejection of Slaves, even in the Church

Slavery as such was already in existence in biblical days. It has been a major tragedy in Christianity that Paul’s revolutionary teaching - that Christian slaves were to be regarded as brothers and sisters (e.g. Philemon, verse 16) - was completely ignored. This also happened at the Cape. Instead, they were perceived as merchandise. Even otherwise exemplary missionaries/clergymen like M.C. Vos owned slaves. Among the decrees that were issued, there was the one of 1770 which prohibited the sale of baptised Christian slaves and another one outlawed the circumcision of male slaves. Many slave owners at the Cape interpreted these measures as a threat to their possession, believing that their slaves would become free if they were baptized. These slave owners thereafter neglected every form of Christian instruction for their slaves, thus minimizing the chances that they could lose their two-legged possessions. The pastors conveniently refrain from challenging the colonists with the Pauline teaching that they had to regard believers among the slaves as family in Christ. In fact, the slaves experienced rejection at the church. The conversion to Islam was ‘greatly encouraged by their almost entire exclusion from Christianity’ (Hofmeyr and Pillay 1994:29). By 1800, those benches in the back corner of the Groote Kerk (the major Capetonian church at that time), which had been reserved traditionally for the use of slaves, were empty (Marais, 1957:168). The saying soon went around ‘De zwarte kerk is de slamse kerk.’6???

To be fair to the colonists, it must be mentioned that Marais said in the same context: ‘At this very time the new interest in missionary work began to make itself felt on behalf of the slaves’ (Marais,1957:168). In fact, as early as 1788 about 60 Christians in Cape Town and its surroundings set aside one day in the week for the religious teaching of ‘the heathen’ (Haasbroek, 1955:70). The driving force was Rev. Helperus Ritzema van Lier, who came from the Netherlands in 1786. The South African Missionary Society, which was formed in 1799, concentrated on the slaves from its beginnings. Van Lier was ostensibly influenced by the Moravian Bishop Reichel who visited the Cape in 1787 and through his meeting one of the converts of Georg Schmidt (Schmidt, 1937:5). This set him in motion to write at least three letters to try and move the Moravians to resume their missionary work. Van Lier evidently preached the ‘full gospel’, i.e. that nationals should also bring the Word to the unreached of other countries, because in 1804 Rev. Michiel Christiaan Vos was already working in India as a missionary from South Africa, moving to Ceylon in 1805. Hereafter however, the interest in missions seems to have faded quite rapidly.

The rejection of slaves in the late 18th century by Christians and the Church strangely somehow still projected an image, which made the religion more attractive to them. Thus one found that whenever a slave was set free, the first thing done by him was to try and get the right to be christened (Bird, 1966 (1822):76). Material advantages also attached to being a Christian.

There were fortunately also exceptions to the general rejection by the colonists. The cited Rev. Vos of Tulbagh reported about the celebration of the Lord’s Supper with baptized slaves in his congregation when he was in Swartberg, later called Caledon: ‘some slave-owners even preferred to sit at the same table as their slaves.’ (Levensbeschrijving van Eerwaarde M.C. Vos, De Kaapse Cyclopedie, No. 56, p.44). That was definitely revolutionary for the time. This was possibly not the practice at the farm houses. Nevertheless, the attitude of Vos himself will surely have much to do with this demeanour of his congregants. His original call to the ministry was because of his concern for the slaves. After he had studied and served as a pastor in Holland, the ‘belangen der slaven en verwaarloosde heidenen’ 7 ??? drew him back to his native country.

Unfortunately occasions like the one at the Lord’s Supper in Caledon were very rare indeed. The effect of an earthquake of 1809 decreased in due course while old habits were quite stubborn. Thus Rev. Sanders could write in a letter ‘... the black man has no desire to enter into the Christian faith, whose gates have been long shut against them...The black man ...prefers joining with those who have been his friends in distress...’ (Cited in Lightfoot, 1900:33). The separation of families must surely have been one of the factors towards this attitude. Where family ties could be broken at the mere whim of the slave-owner, the family as an institution had little chance to get a positive image. The separation of slave children from their parents provided a sad precedent for the separation of Black children from their parents in the apartheid days, e.g. in 1981 where 55 women were sent to the Transkei while the husbands and some children remained in the Cape (The Argus, 26th May, 1981).

At the end of the 18th century, two stars of Cape mission work were operating in full force. Even though Rev. M.C. Vos - born and bred in South Africa - initially laboured in far-away Tulbagh, his influence and that of Ds. van Lier was felt at the Cape ‘soos ‘n suurdeeg in die Kaapse volksplanting’ .[8] A century after their pioneering work, J.I. Marais wrote in the foreword to the Dutch translation of Nachtigal’s book on missions in South Africa: ‘Het tegenwoordig geslacht plukt de vrucht van hun gebed en arbeid, van hun tranen en hun strijd. Het waren donkere dagen toen zij optraden... Doch hun geloofsmoed zegevierde.’ [9] Vos was simultaneously the link to the next century.

2. THE 19TH CENTURY – Missionary Work blossoms

A missionary spirit was not very marked in Calvinism. Many left after a short time, in striking contrast with many thousands of Catholic missionaries who were maintained by the Spanish and Portuguese crowns of that time. A dubious spur of the Dutch missionary effort was to bolster the colonial possessions, in self-defence against the Papist world monarchy. As a motivation, that was apt to wilt under pressure, not good enough to minister to slaves, let alone to evangelise the Muslims at the Cape.

In the first quarter of the 19th century there was still no specific identifiable outreach to the Cape Muslims. What did happen was incidental, an integral part of the very limited work amongst the slaves at the Cape. Nevertheless, the local Dutch Reformed minister Dominee van Lier, who never saw the ultimate fruit of his labours, had done valuable spadework. He died in 1793, only 29 years old. When the first four missionaries of the London Missionary Society arrived in 1799, they encouraged Capetonians to make efforts for the spread of the gospel among heathens and particularly among the slaves who worked for them. Cape colonists had organised themselves into the Zuid-Afrikaanse Zendelingsgenootschap (South African Missionary Society [SAMS]) under the influence of the local Dutch Reformed minister Dominee van Lier and two of the four early missionaries in the colony, Dr. Johannes van der Kemp and Johannes Kicherer (Elphick and Giliomee, 1987: 340). Van der Kemp and John Edmonds hereafter proceeded to ‘Cafferland’, to work among the Xhosas. The other two went to the ‘Bushmen’, the San.

Ministry to Slaves in the early 19th Century.

The diligent and gifted Dutch missionary Hendricus van Manenberg, who came in 1800, tackled the ministry with gusto. Already on 15 June 1801 he informed the directors of the SAMS that the oefenhuis had become too small. Plans were set in motion which ultimately led to the building which was later the sanctuary in Long Street, which became the mission Museum because of the apartheid-related relocation.

The SAMS nevertheless made little impact on the religion of the slaves living in the mother city. An important reason was probably that none of the SAMS missionaries at the Cape who worked among the slaves, stayed here for any length of time. The diligent and gifted Dutch missionary Hendricus van Manenberg, who came in 1800, had e.g. left already by 1802. But a ‘disease’, which seemed to affect Calvinist missionaries of that age especially, also infected him.

Opposition by the Rulers

Another reason for the lack of progress among the slaves was opposition by the rulers. De Mist was a Grand Master freemason. Seen from that viewpoint, it was thus not really surprisingly that Reverend Aart Van Lingen, a Dutch missionary linked to the Z.A. Gesticht, was forbidden to teach slaves and preach to them. This was a blessing in disguise when directors and members of the SAMS started with teaching of the slaves.

A few years after De Mist, Lord Charles Somerset, the British governor at the Cape from 1814, prohibited the Methodist missionary - Barnabas Shaw - to preach to slaves at the Cape. Shaw’s predecessor had left for Ceylon after waiting in vain for such permission for 18 months. Lord Charles Somerset became known to be an adversary of Dr. Philip, who arrived in 1819 to be the superintendent of the work of the London Missionary Society.

The lack of communication between those missionaries who worked among the slaves of the Mother City is shown by the fact that Van Manenberg’s colleague, Bastian Tromp, wrote in a letter from Wagenmakersvallei (later called Wellington) on 15 October 1802 that Van Manenberg had taken over from him. In a letter of the same date, Valentin A. Schoonberg, a German businessman who was very supportive of the mission effort, recorded that Van Manenberg had left for England 12(8)???. As a rule, there were usually extenuating circumstances for their short stay. Few missions at the time had to cope with so many problems.

Van der Kemp had a positive outlook toward slaves, even marrying a Malagasy slave woman. He had the belief that the missionary should throw in his lot with the people he was trying to convert. It should also be noted that Governor Sir John Cradock, on the advice of the missionary at Tulbagh, Michiel Christiaan Vos, abolished the VOC statute forbidding the sale of Christian slaves (Elphick and Giliomee, 1987:338).

Islam had been spreading at quite a rapid pace at the turn of the 19th century. The efforts of the Islamic religious schools at the Cape and the missionary endeavours of the Imams did not go unnoticed. The Earl of Caledon, who preceded Cradock as Governor of the Cape in 1806, was quite concerned that the ignorance of the slaves could leave them a ‘prey... to the missionary zeal of the Mohammedan priests’ (Horrel, 1970:10). But hardly anything was done to counter this in a loving way. Dr. Bernhard Krueger (1966:101), a bishop of the Moravian Church in the 1970s, quoted the concern of Caledon about the spread of Islam at the Cape: ‘Many of the slaves... having no access to Christian worship, took the faith over from the Malay population’. Allowing for the luxury of criticizing people who lived in a completely different era, the concern of Caledon has nevertheless to be questioned. When the SAMS requested the Governor of the Cape Colony to be allowed to instruct the slaves at the Cape, Caledon replied that the missionaries and the SAMS in particular would be better advised to put their strength into mission undertakings at a distance from Cape Town. If he were the devout Christian he was reported to have been, he would surely have allowed the missionaries to work among the slaves at the Cape rather than ‘posting’ them to a far-away place like Genadendal. To be fair to Caledon, one should also mention the effect of his 1809 proclamation on behalf of the Khoisan. Dr. Philip – the superintendent of the SAMS and surely no friend of the authorities at the Cape - referred to this document as the ‘Magna Charta of the Hottentots’ (Philip, 1828: Vol. 1, p.147). This document included some problematic clauses from a modern point of view but it was nevertheless in a sense a precursor to the Ordinance 50 of 1828 to which Dr. Philip’s background contribution was influential.

De Mist, one of the two administrators at the Cape on behalf of the Batavian Republic, saw a threat in the expanding missionary activities. It is striking that the very same De Mist promulgated an ordinance, decreeing tolerance for all religions on 25 July 1804, thus allowing the Muslims to start a new mosque, possibly the Palm Tree mosque in Long Street. However, those clerics who preached the message of the Cross soon experienced the brunt of his real spiritual source. De Mist was a grand master free mason. Seen from that viewpoint, it was thus not really surprisingly that Rev. van Lingen - a Dutch missionary linked to the Z.A. Gesticht who succeeded the zealous Henricus Maanenberg after the latter’s short stint among the slaves of the Cape - was forbidden by De Mist to preach and to give teaching to the slaves. His governor colleague Janssens issued a proclamation on 20 February 1805 along similar lines, ‘for the work of missionaries ... to proceed into the interior... at such a distance beyond the boundaries of this colony... that their schools have no communication with the inhabitants... either Christians or Heathens.’ (Cited in J.W. Hofmeyr et al 1991:71). In the same proclamation, he articulated how the missionaries were regarded, or shall we say labelled. In the terms of reference for their work among the Khoi, the Moravians were told specifically ‘not to seduce any Native or Bastard from the service of their master to their institution’ (Du Plessis, 1955 (1911):427).

The opposition of the rulers was one of the lesser causes for missionary interest to wane. This could have functioned as a challenge, to cement the believers into even greater commitment for the cause of the gospel. But this did not happen. Even at the Z.A. Gesticht, the cradle of missionary activity at the Cape, there came a lull in the outreach to the (Muslim) slaves.

It is reported that John Kendrick, a lay preacher who was evangelising at the Cape at this time, could not find a real believer after hunting around among 1,000 English-speaking soldiers in the space of four years. With George Middlemiss he could not find a single prayer meeting (Terhoven, 1989:59).

A new Urge to missionary Work

An earthquake on 4 December 1809 imparted a new urge to missionary work among the slaves (Du Plessis, 1955:97). The need that mission work had to be done among the Muslims was definitely felt - not only by the SAMS right from the start of their work at the Cape - but also in Anglican circles. Rev. William Wright, the first Anglican missionary at the Cape, sent out by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) to work among the slaves, appealed for such missionaries in 1831. His attitude was quite enlightened, commending the Muslim slave owners at the Cape on their ‘noble example of giving freedom to their slaves’ (Lightfoot, 1900:31). But the Anglican Church was without ‘a head and without organization’ at the time. Like the appeals of so many after him over the years, his appeal for more workers was ineffectual.

The lack of success of those missionaries who did try to reach out to the Muslims must also be attributed in part to the lack of support they received from the other colonists. But some success was nevertheless booked even in the early stages of the work of the missionaries of the London Missionary Society to slow down the spread of Islam. Wright wrote about success elsewhere after noting his own failure: ‘Nor should I here pass over the successful exertions of the missionaries of the London Missionary Society, in directing the religious zeal of the proprietors of Paarl, Drakenstein, Franschhoek and Wagenmakers Valley that they could now trust their Christian slaves in their wine cellars’ (Wright, 1831:7). It is striking that Islam made little progress in these areas. A mosque was already built in Strand in 1850, but in Worcester, Paarl and Stellenbosch respectively only in 1885, 1889 and 1897. This difference was surely the result of the devout French Huguenots and their descendants who started to arrive at the Cape from 1688.

Missionaries on Collision Course

Right from the early beginnings, the government at the Cape was not eager to christianize slaves. The very first missionary to the Cape Colony, the Moravian Georg Schmidt, got into conflict with the colonial authorities when he defied the prohibition to baptise his converts. He had been promptly ‘ushered away’, the first of a few conscientious colleagues who dared to oppose immoral or unbiblical practices. Missionaries like Dr. John Philip and Dr. van der Kemp were often at loggerheads with the authorities, e.g. when they suggested that the Khoi were normal human beings. The general perception was that the ‘primitive’ people were not more than animals. Fortunately, there were also some colonists who were protective of them. One who was positively disposed to the indigenous people, referring to the White colonists and their treatment of the Amaxhosa, told Johann Kühnel, one of these Genadendal missionaries: ‘They dispossessed them and took their land and hunted them down like game’ (Bredekamp et al, 1992:113).

That the indigenous inhabitants perceived the missionaries as their protectors was demonstrated when a delegation of a few small tribes of the region around the Sak River came to Cape Town to request formal protection from the authorities - encouraged by Floris Visser, a local government official. At this opportunity they also requested a missionary to come and work among them. Karel Schoeman (1996:37f) surmised that the ‘verduidelikings van die sendingwese wat aan hulle gegee was...’ gave them the idea of ‘ ’n vorm van beskerming teen die bedreiging van die blanke boere.’ [10] Of course, cattle theft was perpetrated by the nomadic indigenous people at the Cape, but the colonists were no angels either. The way how they got large pieces of land through ruthless dishonest bartering was the exact opposite of biblical teaching. It should be added that mission agencies became guilty themselves of land grabbing by applying for and receiving big areas of land from the colonial authorities. The Church and the mission agencies were not opposing the robbing of land from the indigenous inhabitants either. Even the otherwise so progressive Dr Philip got guilty in this regard when he tried to acquire more property for his mission agency.

Pervasive Materialism

Reverend Kalden, who also became guilty as well, initially had a heart for missions. He was probably the first European who tried to learn the difficult Khoi language with the avowed object to be ‘of service to this heathen nation who still abide in such dark ignorance’ (Du Plessis, 1955[1911]:47).[11] When he started to farm to augment his salary, the pervasive influence of materialism seems to have substituted his first love for the spiritually lost. Dominees belonged to the best paid officials of the DEIC. It is tragic that Kalden, who started off with a vision to reach the Khoi with the gospel, was later accused of running a plantation rather than a parish (Shell, 1994:367). Although this accusation was not sufficiently substantiated, he was one of very few clergymen at the Cape who had to be recalled for neglecting his duties as a pastor. (He was subsequently dismissed by the DEIC (Dutch East India Company, although he received two ‘baie eervolle getuigskrifte’ (Engelbrecht, 1952:34) from the Cape Church Council). Kalden had become the victim of a sad smear campaign by his colleague, Ds. Le Boucq.

Be it as it may, Kalden was not the last cleric at the Cape to succumb to the snares of greed. The clear demonstration of materialism - both by the DEIC and Kalden - is another sad heritage which is still plagueing our country. Kalden was a product of the society from which he came. Materialistic ambition was part and parcel of the cultural baggage, which was imported from Holland. Thus someone no less than the influential early Cape governor Simon van der Stel probably only married his wife Johanna Six to pursue a career in the V.O.C. (Picard, 1968:13). How much Simon van der Stel treasured profit and ambition is seen in the wish, which he expressed in a letter to the incoming governor, his son Willem Adriaan. Simon van der Stel invoked God’s grace ‘for the directing of Church and politics to the benefit of the Company’s profit and interest which shall extend to the glorifying of the all holy name of God’ on the one hand, but also to the enhancement of the new governor’s reputation.14???

When the aristocratic missionary Dr. van der Kemp wanted to have his domestic slave Suzanna baptised, it was refused with the very telling reason: ‘pride would grow insupportable when admitted to the community of Christians’ and he would not be able to sell her (Shell, 1994:354). The market value of a slave was of major concern to the rank and file colonist. When Van der Kemp went ahead to administer the communion to the slave woman without the prior rite of baptism, the colonists were really upset, even trying to assassinate him. Miraculously none of their shots was on target (Shell, 1994:354). Materialism was of course a prime ingredient of the problem of the slave owners. In Holland, from where the majority of these colonists came, ‘God clearly took a second place to Mammon’ (Boxer 1966:119). Slaves were regarded as property that could be sold. The slave owners perceived ‘that the adoption of Islam by their slaves would further distance them from Christianity and freedom. Muslim slaves would probably remain sober, and would certainly remain marketable. In an economy based on wine and slaves such considerations were important (Shell, 1994:362).

Prevalent Racism

That some missionaries got on an equal footing with slaves - with Van der Kemp and Read even marrying females from the slave ranks - was completely unacceptable to the rank and file church people. We have little difficulty to comprehend why especially the marriage of Van der Kemp, a 60-year old Dutch widower, to a Malagasy teenage slave girl was not so easy to swallow. Yet, it is nevertheless very commendable that he identified himself to such an extent with the indigenous people that he chose to share the Khoi manner of living.

The blatant prevalent racism might be very clear to us, but the colonists had a completely different set of values. Even the mission-minded Z.A. Gesticht believers had fallen into the trap of racist thinking when they started already with separate services in February, 1798 (Els, 1975:35). The official position of the Dutch Reformed Church was quite positively unambiguous at this time. The 1829 synod courageously voted that persons of colour should be treated as equals in the church (Botha, 1960:71). This was forcefully mooted ‘als een onwrikbaar stelregel op het onfeilbaar Woord van God gegrond’ (Botha, 1960: 72).

The governments at the Cape in the years before the emancipation of slaves gladly favoured the wishes of the colonists. It is telling that the Moravians, who had quite a good name all round, were ‘treated as criminals for attempting to reach the blacks’ (Cited in Du Plessis, 1955: 419 from the Missionary Review of the World, July 1908). In the same vein, Piet Retief in his manifesto, giving the reasons for the Great Trek of the Boers to the interior, inter alia pleaded on behalf of the Boer colonists that they ‘...may suppress crime and preserve proper relations between master and servant’. If it had been a case of mere economics, one probably might still be prone to condone the colonists and the government of the day, but the fact that they were known to be ‘Christians’, aggravates the matter. Even though we know that all Whites were described as Christians as a matter of course - e.g. in the diaries of the three Moravian missionaries at the end of the 18th century and also well into the next century - it leaves the follower of Jesus with a sense of immense guilt. In the apartheid era stringent conditions for missionaries applied and different visa procedures existed for them. They were grouped with journalists as potentially dangerous to the interests of the racist regime.

It would be wrong though to disregard the church planting ideals of the LMS. In a letter to Rev John Read a special suggestion was made , viz. the ‘widening and extending itself from year to year by a chain of Missionary stations’ (Els, 1971:32). The LMS definitely had the emphasis to get the individual mission stations independent. This spirit of independence was imparted at the Cape where the mission agency was initially called the ‘Kaapse Genootschap’ and not a zendelingsgenootschap15???, to stress their autonomy. By contrast, the Moravian missionaries somehow cultivated a spirit of dependency on Germany.

The Neglect of Religious Instruction

The neglect of religious instruction by the slave owners was also extended to the slave children, ‘for fear of them being lost to them on their becoming Christians’ (Cited by Shell, 1974:43).

This attitude became known to the South African Missionary Society, which focused on the Christian education of the slaves in the colony. Despairingly Rev. Vos of Roodezand (later called Tulbagh), a missionary pioneer of the Dutch Reformed Church, wrote to the authorities on the 9th of March, 1812:

Sir! Exclusive of the false prejudice of the so-called Christians... there is another obstacle in this country to the progress of Christianity... It is, namely that a slave who is baptized may not be sold. This circumstance is the occasion that the proprietors of slaves, who may possess truly Christian hearts...object to their being baptized (Cited from Theal’s Records of the Cape Colony, by Shell, 1974, p.43).

In 1817 legislation was modified to provide elementary education for Christian slave children, but this remained burdensome to the owners. By 1823 it was decreed that Christian slave children should be sent to government free schools, but the owners did not observe this. On the other hand, Muslim education encouraged conversion to Islam in more than one way: ‘... the madressah system was open to all children, regardless of race, ... the Islam schools offered an alternative education for many people hostile to or suspicious of the ruling order’ (Shell, 1984:25).

The spoken creolized Dutch, which later became Afrikaans, was used in the madressah (Qur’an school).This attracted the slaves. Achmat Davids made a special point of the value of the spoken Malayu as a glue to the Cape Muslims at a time of hardship. The use of the later development into Afrikaans towards the end of the last century may have been a form of protest by the Coloured population at the Cape. Ebrahim Moosa (in Living Faiths in South Africa, Prozesky and de Gruchy: 1995:133) pointed to the role of the madressah in the empowerment of the Muslim slaves. Furthermore he noted that the word for a contract of manumission - mukatabah - shares the root k-t-b, the word for writing (Prozesky and de Gruchy: 1995:133). Such a contract was an agreement whereby the slave paid the master a sum in return for his or her liberty. (Some slaves were allowed to practice a trade privately.)

The Arrogance of Cape Christians

In general, the colonists had only minimal interest in sharing the Gospel with the slaves. Noting that The owners did not ‘in general discourage the embracing of Mohammedanism’, Rochlin summarised the behaviour of the colonists in this way: ‘They probably preferred to have slaves of this persuasion in their wine-sellers, from the sobriety which their religion inculcates.’ (Rochlin, - Aspects of Islam in the nineteenth century, Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, London, 1939: 216). A little later the same author put it even stronger, showing that the colonists, fearing the loss of their two-legged possessions, encouraged the spread of Islam among them, claiming that a sober slave is an asset around the house. (The general perception was that the slaves had a major problem with the use of alcoholism.) Percival (1804:275) gathered the same information from hearsay as the chief motive to deny baptism. Furthermore, the attitude of the colonists to the religious instruction of slaves was so negative that it boiled down to an intimidatory influence on the rulers. Thus Lord Charles Somerset refused the Methodist missionary McKenny permission to exercise the duties of a Christian minister to the slaves. His sucessor, Barnabas Shaw courageously defied the order, ‘determined to commence preaching’ without the permission (Mears, 1973:14f). It is not clear whether Shaw actually did preach to slaves. He preached to soldiers ‘with the knowledge of the governor’ (Du Plessis, 1911:168), but Somerset probably decided not to make an issue of that. Writing in 1822, William Wilberforce Bird, a colonial officer, noted that whenever one asked a slave why he had become Muslim, the reply was: ‘some religion he must have and he is not allowed to turn Christian.’ (Bird, 1822:349)

The arrogant attitude of the colonists is aptly represented in the wording of John Centlivres Chase, a prominent English settler and civil servant: ‘In numerous cases the emancipated slaves deserted the Christian faith ... for the dull, cold creed of Mohammedanism...’ (Chase, The Cape of Good Hope and the Eastern Province of Algoa Bay, 1843:235). In a book published in 1844, James Backhouse, a Quaker visitor to the Cape, jotted down the other side of the coin: ‘It must be admitted, that persons professing to be Christians, but whose works were not in accordance with Christ’s precepts and example, had behaved unkindly to many of these (slaves) in the days of their bondage.’ (Backhouse, Narrative of a visit to the Mauritius and South Africa, London, 1844: xlvii). Blaxall, an Anglican priest, summarised the situation: ‘The amazing denial of Christianity to the slaves undoubtedly accounts for the great increase of Mohammedanism between 1820 and 1830.’(Blaxall, 1936:5). Shell cites Theal (Records of the Cape Colony, Vol. 35, p.367) to demonstrate that there were considerably fewer Muslims before 1825. He then proceeds with his own summary of the time period (referring to the significant Islamic increase): ‘it can be safely said that the spread of Islam occurred mainly between 1770 and 1842’ (Shell, 1994:367). In fact, the number given by him for 1875 is more than 1,000 less than 1842, whereby it must be noted that the 1840/1 and 1858 small pox epidemics may have taken their toll, contributing significantly to the reduction. The Cape Muslim reaction in these epidemics had been to hide their patients. Hence, when the Imams were questioned about the prevalence of smallpox in their community, they denied it. In the 1858 epidemic there were 20 to 30 funerals per day in Cape Town, half of which were ‘Malay’ (Davids, 1984: 62). We shall still see that in the period after 1842 significant inroads were made into Islam by the mission work, especially by Rev. Stegmann at St. Stephen’s, by Rev. Vogelgezang, inter alia in Rose Street and by the Anglicans at St. Paul’s (Bo-Kaap) and St. Mary’s (Woodstock). Through ministry of Christian compassion during the smallpox epidemics many a Muslim heart was opened up for the gospel.

Du Plessis looks at the situation from another angle: The Khoi and the slaves, who had before them the example of harsh masters and employers, must have become ‘indifferent towards a religion which apparently exercised little influence over the lives of those who professed it.’ (Du Plessis, 1955, [1911]:37). The fact of the matter is that the practice of Christianity at the Cape made a mockery of the gospel message. If ministers had dared to mention the biblical tenet of the equality of man before God from the pulpits, it would have been completely contradicted by their day to day living. Most probably this preaching was not done, because those gospel messengers who did it - like the missionary Dr. John Philip, a congregational minister at the Union Chapel, were harshly criticized by the very people who filled the church pews on Sundays.

The pious colonists had daily devotions as the standard practice in their homes. But the slaves and servants were expected as a matter of course to ‘attend’ these devotions either from the kitchen or at most in the doorway leading to the lounge. They were allowed to carry chairs to church meetings, but then not permitted to attend these meetings. No colonist would even have considered sitting with a slave at his table for a meal. That is why Ds. Vos made a point of it to mention this about his congregants in Caledon. The Boer Voortrekkers were at least honest in their condemnation of the hated Ordinance 50 of 1828 that put Khoi and the like on an equal footing with them. In his well-known manifesto, Piet Retief claimed the right to retain ‘proper relations’ between master and slave as one of the reasons for the Trek to the interior. Retief might have given some respectabiltiy to the Voortrekker cause, hiding the naked racism, by giving it a religious tint. Anna Steenkamp, a Boer woman, wrote more frankly what the misguided Voortrekkers felt when she considered the emancipated slaves ‘being placed on an equal footing with the Christians, contrary to the laws of God and the natural distinction of race and religion’, adding ‘wherefore we rather withdrew in order thus to preserve our doctrines in purity’ (Quoted in Oliver Ransford, The Great Trek, 1972:22). All the while they could have read in the Bible that Jesus dined even with the scum of his society, with tax collectors and sinners (Mark 2:15), that in Christ there is no difference between slaves and free men.

It is bad enough that the colonists were negative about loving outreach to the slaves and Muslims. It is tragic that the Christian clergymen in general were not supportive of a loving missionary effort. In fact, there was outright opposition because of their self-interest, ‘teenstand van sommige predikante en lidmate i.v.m werkafbakening en gemeenteopbou’ (Els, 1971:51)17 ???. They were afraid that work among the slaves (and Muslims) would encroach on their own congregations, thus a classical case of building the own kingdoms - a problem that is still with us.

Other missionary Efforts of the early nineteenth Century

In 1823 the Cape Town Auxiliary Committee of the London Missionary Society was established. Islam in Cape Town had been allowed to flourish more or less unchecked till the first quarter of the 19th century. From 1823 the Auxiliary Committee started to organise educational and religious activities. By 1824, 2 200 slaves were regularly attending the services in the 49 Christian churches in the Cape Colony which could seat 18,739 between them (Marais, 1957:169). But the rigid formalism of the Colonial Church probably accounted for the fact that only 86 slaves managed to pass the tests, which admitted them to baptism (Marais, 1957:169).

Efforts by the SAMS to find someone to work among the Muslims were at last successful when Rev.William Elliot, who knew Arabic, was prepared to come to the Cape. For three years (1825-8) Elliot ‘continued to labour with great zeal and devotion, but the soil was barren, the prejudice deep-rooted and the support of Christian friends slack....’ (Du Plessis, 1955, [1911]:98). He brought a lithographic printing press to the Cape from England for the printing of hymns. To distribute New Testaments in the Malayu language was surely a shrewd move. The dissemination of a newsletter to the different Dutch Reformed Churches harvested a positive response. Quite a few congregations contributed a collection for the mission to the Muslims. The work was stopped in 1828 because of ‘the want of funds and the inveterate prejudices of that class against the Christian faith’ (cited in Els, 1971:428). On closer inspection it does seem that he was not able to win the trust of the Muslims. If we take as a cue his letter to the directors of the LMS that was published in the Evangelical Encounter, we could deduce that his thinking must have been close to that of the racist colonists. That might have made it difficult for him to be acceptable to the Cape Muslims. Financial support for the missionary work dried up, possibly also as a backlash to Dr. Philip’s involvement, which was regarded as ‘political’ by church people, not fitting for missionaries.

Slaves turning to Islam

After the formal abolition of slavery in 1838, there was a rush of freed slaves to the towns. Many deserted their former owners in the agricultural areas. These newly urbanised freed slaves as a rule turned to Islam. Support from the colonists in the mission work was not forthcoming at all. In 1838 Rev. Sanders, a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, declared that ‘no desire has been shown (generally speaking) on the part of professing Christians for the conversion of the coloured population’ (Lightfoot, 1900:33). It does not credit the churches at the Cape that hardly any effort was made to reach the slaves at the Cape with the gospel up to about 1840. What was done was very piecemeal indeed. A lack of perseverance was very much prevalent, combined with a tendency to go for softer targets than the resistant Muslims. And not much changed thereafter.

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to suggest that no efforts were made ‘to set before the Cape Malays for their acceptance the truths of the Christian faith’ (Lightfoot, 1900:34). Unfortunately these were only the efforts of individuals, and they ‘did not meet with the sanction and approval of the authorities.’[12] A case in point was the Rev. Martinus Casparus Petrus Vogelgezang. He had been one of those Christians who had been deeply moved by the earthquake of 1809. He had become a teacher and also went for training as a missionary. In 1837 he applied to be ordained, but he did not find favour with the Dutch Reformed Church authorities. Not having obtained the expected university theological training (in Holland), they ruled that he could be ordained ‘onder geene andere wijze, en onder geene andere bepalingen... dan betrekkelijk het ordenen van zendelingen’.[13] This condescending opposing attitude was indicative of the general view by the Church with regard to mission work. We note that the church and secular authorities connived very much in the case of the Dutch Reformed Church, a pattern that was followed for many centuries.

A Bo-Kaap Variation of tent-making Ministry

Undeterred, Vogelgezang started his own society and preached the gospel among the Muslims with unprecedented zeal, initially working from his shoemaker’s shop in Rose Street (Van Niekerk, F.N. Sending onder die Mohammedane, handwritten report, 1948). That he gained the respect of his ecumenical contemporaries is demonstrated by the fact that the missionaries Dr. John Philip and Robert Moffat as well as the Presbyterian Rev. Henry Calderwood and the Dutch Reformed minister Ds. J.H.Beck, who was operating at the Z.A. Gesticht at this time, were all present at his ordination in February 1839 at the Union Chapel. In the course of his ministry he established a few chapels, also bringing the gospel to the Muslims with much authority and conviction. [14]

Vogelgezang’s fiery way of doing things was quite controversial. Critical notes by the Cape newspapers De Verzamelaar and De Zuid-Afrikaan reflect the concern of the local Dutch church. From these newspapers one could deduce that he was not always sensitive in his dealings with Muslims, especially in his first years. However, the suspicion also arises that Vogelgezang’s successful methods - albeit unconventional and crude - created some jealousy in Dutch Reformed circles. Another factor was a Western academic conception of mission work, which was far removed from the down to earth methods of Vogelgezang. De Zuid-Afrikaan of 21.8.1841 reflects the colonist expectations of a missionary among Muslims: ‘De zendeling moet met den Koran beginnen, dien hij zelf eerst moest bestuderen met eenen ijver als of zijne eigene zaligheid daarvan afhing.’ About Vogelgezang’s early ministry it is reported that he spoke of Muhammad as a liar. This would certainly not have endeared him to his Islamic listeners. The tone of a report in the Cape Town Mail seven years later suggests that Vogelgezang must have learnt a lot in the course of time, how not to be offensive to Muslims. In fact, the report says about his ministry among the Muslims that ‘...he is doing much to undermine their prejudices, and overcome their opposition to Christianity’ (Cape Town Mail, 27 May 1848). The same report states that ‘On Sunday last, 23 coloured persons were baptized by the Rev. Mr Vogelgezang... Amongst them was a family of Mahomedan, including the heads of the family, and three others were the children of Mahomedan parents, who offered no opposition to their children making a profession of Christianity. The chapel was crowded to excess, and among the spectators were many of the Mahomedan population’ (Cape Town Mail, 27 May 1848).

For the Muslims at the Cape it was nevertheless not plain sailing at all especially after 1840. Even before this date they experienced disappointments. Thus it is reported that the foundation of the Methodist Church in Burg Street was laid in 1830 ‘on the ruins of a Mohammedan mosque’ (Mears, 1973:20).

Inter-Church Co-operation

A special feature of the mission effort of the early 19th century was the close co-operation between the missions and the churches and the lack of denominational rivalry. At the Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht, a mission agency was started which worked closely with the London Missionary Society. Here ‘Lutheranen, Gereformeerdes en andere’ (Els, 1971: 128) were worshipping together as they shared the common goal of reaching the lost with the Gospel. This cordial harmonious relationship seemed to operate for many decades with few exceptions.

The Methodists seem to have been part of this denominational co-operation with the Reverends Adamson, van Steveron, Piers and Beck speaking at the laying of the foundation stone of their church in Burg Street (Mears, 1973:21). Dr. Philip, the superintendent of the LMS was known for his ecumenical spirit. Through his influence the Paris and Rhenish Missions as well as the American Board Mission came to the country.

Stegmann really had a heart for the slaves. At St. Andrew’s, Adamson would preach in English in the morning and Stegmann in Dutch during the afternoon service. A special service to highlight the actual emancipation of the slaves, was organised at the Scottish Church - hence the ministers gave the name Schotse Kloof to the area where they were residing - on 1 December 1838 (Die Koningsbode, December 1936, p.19).21???

Fruitful Period of Outreach

It is interesting to note that also ordinary church members of the three main churches at the Cape (Dutch Reformed , Presbyterian and Lutheran) were working together before and after the slave emancipation (Rodger, 1929:24; Cuthbertson, 1983:51). This seems to have been the most fruitful period of outreach to the Muslims down the years - probably the first efforts of churches at the Cape working together in evangelistic enterprise. One can safely surmise that denominational rivalry at other times contributed to the lack of success in Muslim evangelism. The few years before and after the emancipation of the slaves are probably the only period when a conscious combined church effort was made to reach the (former) slaves with the Gospel. As the first church to open its membership to Blacks, many of the one thousand adult members joined the St. Andrew’s Mission between 1838 and 1841. Many seem to have come from (ex-) slave ranks. Some of these slaves were ‘professing Mohammedanism’ before joining the mission (Cuthbertson, 1981: 50,51). St. Andrew’s Mission had a social component, meeting a need in welfare that retained the dignity of the poor and needy. By paying only one shilling per month, members of the ‘Friendly or Benefit Society’ were entitled to medical care and a burial (Cuthbertson, 1980:52). This system was surely quite advanced for its time. Adamson gave the lead in biblical compassion and sharing. He went to teach at the South African College, the predecessor of the University of Cape Town, ‘that its total collapse and disappearance might be prevented’. Adamson devoted ‘the proceeds of his office as professor... to the support of the mission among the emancipated slaves’ (Adamson 1862:6).

It seems furthermore that Adamson and Stegmann were also different from contemporary clergymen in their complete acceptance of people of colour.

Denominational Co-operation

This missionary endeavour effectively slowed down the expansion of Islam. Quite a few Cape Muslims turned to Christ in the period after 1842, a result of possibly the most fruitful church/mission co-operation and outreach at the Cape for centuries. However, the Cape Muslims were not targeted as such. Various churches started with mission work of their own aimed at the slaves in general. The most notable effort was perhaps that of the Presbyterians, with the St. Andrew’s Mission in Green Point leading the pack. The work of the Anglicans in the second half of the nineteenth century in Bo-Kaap, Onderkaap (the later District Six) and Papendorp (later Woodstock) was a close second.

Lord Charles Somerset introduced rivalry when he invited Scottish clergy to come to the Cape. He wanted to counter the Dutch influence by bringing in the British Presbyterian clergy. The likes of the prayerful Andrew Murray, the father of the famous namesake, effectively curtailed Lord Charles Somerset’s bigoted nationalism. Dr. Andrew Murray (jr.) spearheaded the DRC missionary endeavour to other parts of Africa in the last quarter of the 19th century.

The cordial harmonious relationship between churches seemed to operate for quite a few years. The Presbyterian Dr. James Adamson and the Lutheran Rev. George Wilhelm Stegmann e.g. engaged into combined endeavours. And this was done; it is said, ‘with considerable success’ (Lightfoot, 1900:34). Adamson summarised the impact of the work in 1862 in his Memorial to his excellency, the Governor in regard to the Scottish Church, Cape Town, p.6): ‘... in conjunction with like undertakings on the part of others, (the work) resulted in the establishment of a steadfast and almost unexpected barrier to the prevalence of Mohammedanism among the emancipated slaves’. Stegmann really had a heart for the slaves. Soon after his ordination as a Lutheran minister he not only felt the need to do something for them, but also started with ministry among them in Plein Street. While regularly attending a weekly cottage meeting, Stegmann was deeply touched. He was asked by Adamson to join him in the outreach to the Coloureds (Die Koningsbode, Desember 1958, p.34) and hereafter he became a regular preacher at the St. Andrew’s Church in Green Point. In fact, he was appointed to the St. Andrew’s Mission. When Adamson went to Scotland in 1840, Stegmann held the ordinary services while the three Groote Kerk ministers officiated at the quarterly Lord’s Supper (Rodger, 1929:24). Furthermore, several members of the Dutch Reformed and Lutheran churches took actively part in the St. Andrew’s Mission (Rodger, 1929:24).

In the ministry of Stegmann his heart for the lost shone through, especially for the Muslims. Pypers describes him as fiery in spirit, powerful in the word and a hero in prayer (Die Koningsbode, Desember 1958, p.34). Stegmann was furthermore typified by Pypers as a man ‘met sy gebedsworsteling en herlewingsgees’23??? (Die Koningsbode, Desember 1958, p.36), illustrated by words from his diary: ‘Oh, how heavy does the case of the poor deluded Mohammedans hang on my mind... Oh Lord, ho long, how long shall they continue in darkness ... open the door, send out Thy servants.’

...and Strife

Yet we should not idealise the denominational co-operation. But this situation turned out to be the beginning of problems in the church. Influential members were unhappy about the dual profession of Dr Adamson. The ‘Coloured’ sector however, would not release him. At the Lutheran church Stegmann had similar problems. ‘Sy sendingywer het die strandstraters nie beval nie.’ (Die Koningsbode, Desember 1936, p.20).24???

It is sad that the progressive idea of an inter- denominational, multi-racial fellowship at the Z.A. Gesticht was undermined by no less than the renowned Dr. Philip, the new missionary superintendent soon after his arrival in 1819, suggesting to them to become a fully fledged church. Yet, they only became denominationally aligned more than a hundred years later, joining up with the Sendingkerk in 1937. We also find some ambivalence, e.g. with Dr. Philip, who was known for his ecumenical spirit. Willem Saayman, missiologist of UNISA, quotes Dr. Philip’s strained relationship to the Wesleyans (the Methodist mission work). This rivalry was definitely not conducive to the mission cause. Saayman describes Dr. Philip’s conflicts with the Wesleyans as an ‘intensity comparable to his battles with the Cape government and the settlers’ (Saayman, 1991:41). It is sad that the ‘restless spirit and incautious utterances’ of Dr. Philip estranged so many, even ‘strong feelings of irritation and anger’ on the part of the government officials and colonists (Du Plessis, 1911:143).

The competitive denominationally arrogant spirit which was sown by the initial Dutch colonists, continued to operate as a cancer to serve as pastors in their churches. Furthermore, prospective missionaries who came to work among the slaves were lured away by colonists. A classic example was SPG missionary William Wright, who soon found himself ministering to Whites in Wynberg rather than slaves and ‘even then to the wealthy and socially elite’ (Hofmeyr and Pillay, 1994:81). Less committed clergy found the work near to the Mother City very enticing ‘...as gevolg van hul geesdriftige ontvangs deur die piëtistiese deel van die gemeenskap verlei ...om in geriefliker omstandighede ... te werk’ 25??? The alternative was the harsh pioneering missionary work, which would have included the mission to the resistant Cape Muslims.

The Centenary Record of St Andrew’s mentions ‘the unsatisfactory arrangement’ as a reason for the discontent after Rev. George Morgan had joined the mission to the slaves (Rodger, 1929:27). Haasbroek (1955:82) mentions the concrete reason of the discontentment: the slaves were not happy with Rev. Morgan. The split, which occurred at that church in 1842, was possibly more the result of personal rivalry between Stegmann and Rev. Morgan, where it seemed as if Stegmann could have influenced the slaves. Adamson had been quite happy to leave the Dutch preaching to Stegmann, but Morgan also wanted to preach to the Dutch-speaking part of his flock, which consisted predominantly of (ex-)slaves. The role of Adamson in the quarrel was not completely neutral.

Slaves linked to the Presbyterian Church left St. Andrew’s when Adamson and Stegmann started with services in the old Komediehuis, the former theatre in Bree Street. Adamson discerned the destructive separate tendencies, which led to ‘dismemberment of the church’. This led to the separation of the great majority of its ‘Coloured’ members (Adamson 1862:19). He ‘discountenanced’ these tendencies until it was found to be inevitable (Adamson 1862:19).

Rev. Morgan was quite firm in his opposition to slavery and any form of racial discrimination in the church. On the former issue he has been quoted as saying: ‘Slavery in its least oppressive from is a bitter draught; and it is injurious no less to the slaveholder than to the slave’ (Cuthbertson, 1981:59). But even he could not stop the formation of two entities in 1848, two de facto separate congregations: one English-speaking White and the other mixed with the use of the Dutch language. From here the tensions between the two congregations increased with numbers dwindling. Five years after Rev. Morgan stopped in 1873, the St. Andrew’s Mission ceased to exist.

Apparently Stegmann had some vision for spiritual warfare. It is reported that conversion of souls was the fore-most goal of his ministry and that he was a ‘warrior of God and an attacker of the strongholds of satan’ (Die Koningsbode, Desember 1936, p.20). The Lord used Stegmann’s powerful preaching to convict the congregation on 5 November 1843 in such a way that a man, evidently overpowered by God’s spirit, exclaimed aloud towards the end of the sermon: ‘Lord, have mercy’ and fainted. A hush fell over the church and thereafter the whole congregation burst out in tears in a typical revival scenario (Die Koningsbode, Desember 1958, p.36). Stegmann was also self-critical enough when the near revival looked to have been stifled a few months further on. He took part of the responsibililty when he conceded in August 1844 with regard to the spiritual warfare: ‘What a havoc satan has been making in poor St. Stephen’s lately, so that with my own inward corruption and the perverse walk of many... I am ready to sink down.’ (Die Koningsbode, Desember 1958, p.36).

Church Apartheid is born

Unfortunately two mundane issues crept in which undermined the blessed work, viz. carnality and the ‘root of all evil’, the love of money. With regard to the carnality, the pulpit was the cause of strife when Morgan wanted to share the preaching with Stegmann. Lesser morals came into play when Stegmann apparently called the slaves together, complaining of his supposed unfair treatment.

Money played a role in at least two instances. When Adamson went to Scotland in 1840/1 to get funds for the emerging Scottish mission, elders and deacons rather unconventionally, pocketed his half salary (Adamson 1862:6). Denominationalism also came into play when there was opposition when someone from another church - Stegmann - was on the Presbyterian payroll. Stegmann probably held some record, having officiated in three different denominations: Lutheran, Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed . That Stegmann was no materialist is proved by the fact that, ‘serving as pastor of the Colonial Reformed Church... he offered to undertake certain pastoral duties without remuneration’ (Adamson 1862:7).

The snobbish attitude of the colonists attitude rubbed off on the DRC with two separate institutions for theological training in Stellenbosch and one for missionaries at Wellington ensuing under the inspiration of Dr. Andrew Murray. Worse was that two titles got in vogue. The minister at the White church was a ‘dominee’ and the missionary was called ‘Eerwaarde’.[15] The building to be used in the Mother City as a separate church for freed slaves could however not be appreciated by the colonists. Being their former theatre, they were terribly angered. No wonder that the church was pelted with stones - hence the name St. Stephen’s, named after the first Christian martyr who was stoned to death.

Stegmann resigned from St. Andrew’s Mission in April 1842, thus only a few months after the induction of Rev. Morgan. It has been implied that Stegmann instigated the slaves, before taking the bulk of them along to the new church at the former komediehuis, but there is little proof to substantiate it. Adamson had been quite happy to leave the preaching in Dutch to Stegmann, but Morgan also wanted to preach to the Dutch-speaking part of his flock, which consisted predominantly of ex-slaves. Presbyterian ex-slaves left St. Andrew’s when Adamson and Stegmann started with services in the building that later became St. Stephen’s Church.

A slight question mark has to be put to the use of the komediehuis, which was bought on the initiative of Adamson and Stegmann as a sanctuary for the emancipated slaves. In April 1843 it was formally constituted with Stegmann as the minister. There is ample reason to suspect that many colonists were not really sad to see the slaves, a bone of contention, leaving their own churches. In fact, Stegmann was criticised for ‘sy gedurige preek vir kleurlinge’, ‘his constant preaching for Coloureds’. Conveniently they suggested that his preaching suffered because of this. Thus he could not preach ‘passend vir sulke beskaafdes soos hulle ... nie’ (Die Koningsbode, December 1958: 35). It does appear though that Stegmann radiated a schmismatic spirit, later starting another Lutheran congregation in Long Street, the present-day St. Martini Church.

Missionary Work among Muslims after 1850

Initially the attitude of Christian missionaries towards the Cape Muslims was fairly positive, as reflected in the Report of the Cape Town Auxiliary Committee for 1847. It described the Muslims e.g. as ‘an industrious, thriving people, many of them wealthy, and generally speaking, they manifest an intelligence of mind and a respectability of character decidedly superior to most of the other classes of the coloured population’ (Report of the Cape Town Auxiliary Committee (of the London Mission Society) for 1847 [1848], p.7). This was in keeping with the philanthropic spirit of the period before and after the emancipation of the slaves.

This spirit was bound to change when the general attitude in society towards Muslims turned around. The Anglican Church did not officially take any active part in the outreach to the Muslims until after the arrival of Bishop Gray in 1848. He implemented his vision almost immediately to reach out to the Muslims with the gospel, albeit that the initial spur was his concern at the spread of Islam. After being in the country for only two months, he wrote on 11 April 1848: ‘...I cannot but feel a deep interest in their condition, and am resolved, God helping, to make some effort for their conversion...’(C. Gray, 1876:169) He made passionate pleas for suitable personnel. About the same time, on Easter Monday, he wrote: ‘...If the Mother Church helps me now, I can, I believe, strike a blow. But I very much believe it is our last chance... I could weep to see the havoc made, the ground lost, through past indifference and neglect...’ (C. Gray, 1876:174)

A major evangelistic coup was to bring in Rev. Michael Angelo Camilleri, who arrived at the Cape on 9 December 1848. He was the first missionary sent out by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) to work specifically among the Cape Muslms. But he was also the gaol chaplain. The Anglican Church archives report about his work: ‘Within eighteen months (1849-1851) Mr. Camilleri baptized 28 Malays and prepared for baptism 100 heathen (some connected with Malays), besides carrying on other works’. We see thus very early one of the problems with the outreach to the Muslims. His other responsibilities - till he left in 1854 - probably distracted this gifted missionary to the Muslims from what he had originally come to do. Lightfoot reported that already for some time prior to 1854 Camilleri was ‘responsible for other branches of church work than that of his Mission only’, because other Anglican clergymen had left.

A mission service in St George’s Cathedral was held on Sunday afternoons by Rev. Edward Glover, the son-in-law of Bishop Gray, but after 1854 no special services were provided for Cape Muslim and other slave converts (Lightfoot,1900:34). The mission service was replaced by an afternoon Sunday School for Coloured adults till Archdeacon Thomas Fothergill Lightfoot arrived in 1858. The afternoon mission service was then resumed and other additions to the work were made. Mission services with evening classes were held in a store, which was rented in Upper Buitengracht. This was the forerunner of St. Paul’s, which in turn was followed by the parish work of St. Philip’s, St. Mark’s and St.Mary’s. Lightfoot wrote: ‘For some years... we continued to gain converts from Islam; some men, but more frequently women’ (Lightfoot, 1900:37). It is interesting which reasons were forwarded for this success. Lightfoot gives as the chief influence the ‘loving-kindness and the exercise of other kindred graces’ by employers. In second place there was the beneficial effect of the teaching in the Christian schools the Muslims had attended and only in the third instance the Muslim men who married Christian women (Lightfoot, 1900:36/7).

Lightfoot did not mention it specifically as a reason, but his personal compassion during the small-pox epidemic of 1858 surely played a role. He did mention an increase of ‘catechumens’ (candidates for confirmation) after the epidemic. The old taunt that the Anglican denomination was not a Church for the ‘Coloured’ people was not valid any more as thriving churches were started at St. Philips and St. Marks in District Six and St. Mary’s in Papendorp (Woodstock), apart from his St. Paul’s flock in Bo-Kaap.

Initially, the SPG missionary Rev. Angelo Camilleri was the only one to come out to the Cape to work especially among the Cape Muslims on behalf of the denomination. Some time elapsed before any successor to Camilleri became directly responsible for the outreach to Muslims. Bishop Gray wrote to Father Benson of the Cowley Fathers in 1871, that he believed ‘a brotherhood most likely to be an effectual instrument of conversion among the Malay population in S.A.’ (Lightfoot,1900: 40). Bishop Gray died in September 1872, but the new Archbishop, West Jones, was also positively inclined to the importance of the work. He recruited the German-born Dr. John Mühleissen Arnold to come to the Cape in 1875. Before he came here, Arnold had been a missionary in the Levant (eastern Mediterranean), in Abyssinia (Ethiopia), Bombay, Malta and Gibraltar. Furthermore he was the founder and secretary of the Moslem Mission Society in England. Bishop William West Jones wrote about him: ‘He is a fine old man, full of energy and self-denial. ... The Church is crowded every Sunday, and his simple earnest preaching is working wonders’ (Quoted by Barnett Clarke, 1908: 107).

Insensitivity to Islamic Culture

The Cape Muslims of the 19th century displayed fierce religious objection to vaccination, quarantine, fumigation and hospitalisation. They regarded epidemics as inflictions imposed on them by God, and which He could only relieve. Communal prayer meetings were organised during the epidemics of the 19th century. True to classical Islamic thinking, and shared by the pre-determinist Calvinists at the Cape, life and death is in the knowledge of God over which man has no power. Vaccination was seen as interference in the sovereign will of God on the part of the infidel authority (Davids, 1987:65). The Colonial Office had become ‘a victim of the thinking of the society in which it functioned’ (Davids, 1987:64). This is displayed in the health measures, which were promulgated. They were definitely not geared to the needs of the lower classes.

In 1805 the City Council granted land to the Javanese slaves for a burial ground, which became known as the Tana Baru (new ground) when after 1840 more Imams acquired sites at the Tana Baru cemetery at the top of Longmarket Street.

The smallpox epidemic of 1858, however, focused attention on urban cemeteries. A special committee on cemeteries, as elected by the Cape Town Municipality after a letter of complaint had been received with regard to the health hazard that urban cemeteries presented. This special committee recommended in December 1858 ‘that health and safety of the inhabitants imperatively demand that no further internments should be tolerated in the present Burial Grounds and that a general cemetery should be established...’ (Municipal Cemeteries Commission Report of 1858, cited by Davids, 1980:68).

These recommendations were not acted upon, possibly because of the sensitive nature of the issue. In 1873 another special committee was elected to look into the matter. They came up with a similar recommendation, this time mentioning the Green Point Common as a possible venue for the general cemetery. In 1875 the Cape Town Cemetery Bill was gazetted. But parliament referred it to a select committee, after strong petitions, notably from the Dutch Reformed Church. The Parliamentary Select Committee heard evidence from all interested parties. The Cape Muslims were represented by an educated cab driver, Abdol Burns. He came to play an important role as negotiator for the Cape Muslims from 1875 to 1886 in their dispute with the Cape Government on the cemetery issue.

From his evidence before the Parliamentary Select Committee it became clear that Burns was not prepared to concede any of the rights of the Cape Muslims on cemeteries. Burns’s central argument was that Muslims must carry their dead to its last resting place. This he put as a religious law, sacred to all Muslims. ‘The cemetery riots of 1886 are probably the most significant expression of civil disobedience of the nineteenth century Cape Muslim community... The closure of their cemeteries, in terms of the Public Health Act No. 4 of 1883 moved them to an emotional frenzy which united them to ward off what they regarded as external interference in their religion’ (Davids, 1980:62).

The closure of cemeteries did not make sense to them. Their cemeteries - according to them - constituted no danger to public health. They saw the measure as a means of undermining the religious freedom they were enjoying in the Colony. They feared that should they concede willingly to give up their holy cemeteries, their sacred mosques would certainly be endangered. Their cemeteries were as important as the mosques ‘as a rallying point of culture, as an expression of their religious cohesiveness’ (Davids, 1980:64).

Interim Appraisal of Missionary Work

Achmat Davids’ appraisal of Christian missionary work among Muslims in Cape Town is very negative. ‘When it was extensively engaged in... (missionary work)’ he wrote, ‘it proved a complete failure’ (Davids, A. 1987:67). Elsewhere Davids wrote about ‘the frustration... at this failure’ (Davids, 1992:95). This judgement calls for some qualification. First of all, whereas it can be stated that the churches and mission agencies were quite engaged in missions generally, 28??? it cannot be said of the outreach to Muslims. Secondly - as Schoeman has pointed out so conclusively - there may have been quite a few people who came to the Cape Colony in the 19th century to work here as missionaries, in the wake of the widely known ‘success’ of the mission work at Baviaanskloof (Genadendal), but many of them were distracted. Schoeman cited Lichtenstein, a critical analyser of the Cape mission scene: ‘... Most of these (new missionaries)... no sooner arrived at their place of destination than, seeming to forget all their boasted zeal and the call which they had professed to feel, they thought only of performing the duties undertaken so far as was necessary to give some colour of pretence for claiming the promised stipend...’ (Cited in Schoeman, 1996:173). No wonder that Van der Kemp warned soon that the stay of new missionary arrivals in the city should be as brief as possible ‘since a sojourn there was able to quench the missionary spirit’ (Cited in Clinton, 1937:30).

On the other hand, in the actual work among the Cape Muslims, although there was no immediate phenomenal success, the missionary efforts cannot be regarded as a complete failure. Lightfoot cites Bishop Gray’s praise of the work of one of his colleagues, Rev. Michael Angelo Camilleri: ‘...Within 18 months he baptised 28 Malays and prepared for baptism 100, some connected with Malays’. (Lightfoot, 1900:36). Dr. Camilleri was very successful, but in 1854 he had to leave South Africa after working here only a few years. What Lightfoot reported about the work of Camilleri is quite significant as well. He was ‘cautious in his way of dealing with the people, and is approaching them not only in person, but by endeavouring to interest masters and employers ...who meet him in class to receive instruction...’ (Lightfoot,1900:36), so that they could learn how to relate better to the Cape Muslims. It is not clear to which class he was referring. It was probably the evening school or the daily classes he was running in his home.

The work in Papendorp, the later Woodstock, which started with a mission school, was initially quite succesful, with the conversion of a few Muslims reported. By 1859 it was said that ‘more respect is now shown to the Sabbath even by the Mahometan and heathen population’ (cited in Langham-Carter, 1992:6).

The Ministry of Ds. Frans Lion Cachet

The ministry of the Dutchman Ds. Frans Lion Cachet, who came to the Cape in 1858 has to be highlighted. An interesting feature of his short stint at St. Stephen’s - after Stegmann had left the post vacant - is mentioned by Haasbroek: the main service was in the evening, attended by ‘blankes en kleurlinge’ (Haasbroek, 1955:84). Cachet took over at the Ebenhaezer Church in Rose Street after the sudden death of Rev. Vogelgezang, work that was at that time linked to the Congregational Church (Cachet, 1875:82). He initiated the remarkable innovation of teaching Arabic to the pupils. This was a display of keen insight since the Arabic script was common at the time among the Muslim slaves. He also conducted evening classes with the intention of enabling his children and adult pupils to read and understand the Qur’an and to judge for themselves. An Imam who visited the school was evidently satisfied: ‘now they (the pupils) can understand in English and Dutch what they read in Arabic and that they cannot learn in our schools.’[16] Furthermore, Cachet was aware of the need to work through the medium of their own culture, especially by using their language. Coming himself from a Jewish background in Holland, it is striking that he compared outreach to Muslims to the outreach to Jews. It was ‘bijna zo moeilijk den Mohammedanen het evangelie te brengen dan Joden in Holland’. [17] The young preacher was very courageous and gutsy, preaching the Gospel bluntly to Muslims. He even pointed to Jesus as the true Redeemer compared to the false prophet Muhammad when some of them attended a funeral of one of his church members. The religious tolerance was typical as he noted how they listened to him ‘met grote oplettendheid.’ But Cachet was self-critical enough about this injudicious performance even though nobody bothered him. ‘... ofschoon mijn onbedachtzaam en onnodig spreken over Mahomet, de gemoederen wel had kunnen gaande maken’.[18]

Cachet discerned ‘...de lauwheid en onverschilligheid der Christenen in wier midden zij wonen’ as a part of the problem. Cachet furthermore saw that it is imperative to use a congregation as a basis for mission work among the Muslims. He was prepared to commit himself for 5 years to work in the mother city but his work here was terminated on 30 April, 1861 - thus after only three years (Haasbroek, 1955:91). It seems as if church politics played a role because he was operating as a Reformed minister in a Congregational church, with a special permission to operate as a missionary without losing his ‘status’ as a minister. Cachet wrote to his friend in Holland: ‘I was minister in a congregation to which I did not belong church-wise, in connection with a mission commission on the expressed condition that I would not be treated as a missionary’ (Cachet, 1875:30). It is sad that the Bo-Kaap was thus deprived of the gifts of this energetic young preacher. He made an interesting remark in a letter to his friend in Holland: ‘I would have loved to dedicate myself to this work indien een medische zending aan de Kaap kon worden gevestigd’ (Cachet, 1875:84). [19] His own modest assessment contradicts the version of Davids on mission work at the Cape: ‘I did not have a rich harvest on my mission work in Cape Town, but I may still say that I did not labour unfruitfully’(Cachet, 1875:83).[20]

The Dynamic Canon Lightfoot

There is little doubt that Canon Lightfoot, who came to the St. George’s Cathedral in 1858, was fairly ‘successful’ from the outset, including his work among the Bo-Kaap Muslims. Dean Douglas wrote, for instance, to Bishop Gray already in February 1859: ‘Lightfoot... has about sixty children, most of them Malays, and last Sunday several Malays were standing near the door during his service....’(Barnett-Clarke, 1908:110). Gustav B.A. Gerdener, a Dutch Reformed missionary among the Muslims at the Cape and later theology professor at the University of Stellenbosch, wrote quite positively about the work of Lightfoot: ‘At St Paul’s, at the foot of Lion Hill, Archdeacon Lightfoot had gathered a large congregation at one time and through its members many Mohammedans were influenced to come to the church’ (Gerdener, 1958:134). Lightfoot himself spoke about three influences for ‘our success’, but he was quite self-critical with regard to applicants for baptism on the grounds of marriage (Lightfoot, 1900:37), which he rated as only the third cause of their success.

But also the work at the S.A. Gesticht in Long Street, where separate church services were held for non- Whites already from 9 February 1798 (Els, 1971:35)[21] was quite successful. There the need to reach out to the Muslims was discerned very much, but they were nevertheless simply lumped with the outreach to the other slaves. When the need for a special mission to the Muslims was felt, it was only hampered by a lack of resources. Nevertheless, some success was booked. Els mentions 18 additional members in a certain year (around 1972) of which 7 had been Muslims (Els, 1971:432).

Shell wrote initially rather scathingly (e.g. Rites and Rebellion, p. 21) about the work of Rev. Lightfoot, but the historical evidence suggests that Shell was not sufficiently objective in this assessment. The comment of a contemporary is significant, ‘Mr. Lightfoot has gained the good opinion of nearly all the coloured population; and the Malays, who are Mohammedans, speak well of him’ (Barnett-Clarke, 1908:110). One wonders what would have happened if this gifted priest had been allowed to concentrate on his ministry to the Muslims. It must be said however that he was aided in his ministry by the smallpox epidemic of 1858 and 1882, after which the Muslims were ‘very grateful to the ‘English’ and the English Church’. Lightfoot was not only compassionate to the Muslims during the epidemics but he also displayed great courage to express support for the Cape Muslims at a time when the local press poured scorn on them (See The Cape Times, 1 August.1882; The Lantern, 9 September 1882). Seen from our twenty first century perspective, a blot on the copybook of the Anglican Dean of Cape Town was recorded at this time. In a speech, addressing the relief committee for smallpox patients in 1858, he advocated extending health care to Muslims as ‘a means of softening their minds towards Christianity’ (Davids, 1984:69). Still one could argue: ‘Why should this not be valid?’ However, that The Lantern even called for separate residential areas for the ‘Malays’, was ethically below the belt. One could nevertheless be critical of the competitive spirit, which Lightfoot’s colleague Dr. John Mühleissen Arnold radiated in his appraisal of Lightfoot’s work: ‘Some of the former converts to Islam from our people have been reclaimed by the efforts of Canon Lightfoot’ (Arnold, July 1877:247). However, in terms of David’s assertion, the quotation does shed some light on the performance of the St. Paul’s priest.

Lightfoot was years ahead of most of his contemporaries in the mission societies and churches when he saw potential missionaries in emancipated slaves, who could assist as guides and interpreters. ‘One Sunday morning... (he asked) how many were willing to offer themselves to go with him and help him in the work he was undertaking for their countrymen. ‘Twelve men stood up... six of them did eventually go with the Mission on an outreach to the interior’ (Quoted in Barnett-Clarke, 1908:12).

Mission Work after 1875

The first missionary from the Anglican Church - if one excludes Dr. Camelleri, who had been brought out by the SPG - to reach out to the Muslims from the outset, was Arnold. He had been instrumental in founding the ‘Moslem Mission Society’ before leaving England. But here at the Cape even he was not available for work among Muslims exclusively. His attitude was very positive, his ‘first desire being to make the acquaintance of the Malay population, examine their modes of thought, and test their knowledge of their own religion’ (Arnold, 1877:246-7). Gradually he also devoted ‘more attention to his parochial than to his Mohammedan mission work’ (Arnold, 1877:246).

The view that missionaries had to be available full-time for the missions among the Muslims, was reinforced by Bishop Gray (Gray, 1876:169). This was reiterated by Father Puller of the Cowley Fathers: ‘I have all along been convinced that the priest who specially devotes himself to the Malay work ought to reserve himself for that work’ (Lightfoot, 1900:42). There was no illusion at the time about the difficulty of such work. Father Puller continued wisely: ‘...It would be quite contrary to all experience’ if anyone were to expect numerous conversions or even to expect any conversions for some considerable time’ (Lightfoot, 1900:42). Rev. J.A Hewitt wrote along similar lines: ‘We need special men... who will look for no immediate results, but be content to labour and to wait’ (Hewitt, 1887:246). He continued in August 1887, ‘It is undoubtedly a reproach to Christians in South Africa that so little has hitherto been done to set before this interesting people, the Malays, the more excellent way of Christianity. Although we have had for many years various societies labouring for the conversion of the heathen, there has hitherto been no special persistent effort made to reach the Mohammedans’ (Hewitt, 1887:250). Indeed, a special persistent effort was needed.

But the consciences of the responsible people in the churches were evidently not sensitive to Hewitt’s urgent appeal. Instead of flexibility to send workers to help Arnold, a rigid legalism came in its place. The churches were too occupied with their own internal issues to see the need of spreading the Gospel to the Malays who were perceived to be inferior.

Even in England, the heartland of missions in the last quarter of the 20th century, the mission to Muslims could not excite the Christians. Archbishop West Jones visited England in 1878 ‘to raise 5000 pounds (sterling) to provide an annual income of 350 pounds for the Moslem mission... but he brought back only 1670 pounds’ (Blaxall, 1936:7). Furthermore, in a clash of priorities, invariably the outreach to Muslims suffered: ‘...it was impossible for them to do all the good Bishop wanted, and it was the Moslem work that had to be left out’ (Blaxall, 1936:9/10).

At this time, the outreach from the SAM suffered for the same reason. The need for a special mission to the Muslims was definitely felt and a sub-commission specially formed for this purpose. Speaking on behalf of this sub-commission, Rev. G.W. Stegmann - whom we had encountered at the pioneering work of St. Stephen's - insisted on a final decision in 1873. The chairman of the board of directors, P.E. De Roubaix, announced that a lack of funds made a special Muslim mission impossible (Els, 1971: 429). In a rare touch of irony another De Roubaix, the philanthropic parliamentarian, supplied funds for a mosque in these years (Kollisch, 1867: ??), viz. for one in Port Elizabeth, which is generally abbreviated P.E.

Rev. John Arnold, a brilliant Strategist and underrated Theologian

Arnold, the priest of Papendorp (modern-day Woodstock), was a brilliant strategist. The letters published in The Mission Field in July 1877 indicate that he was very successful from the outset. He was nevertheless quite honest in his assessment of the missionary situation among the slaves. Bluntly Arnold mentioned that far more former slaves were converting from Christianity to Islam than vice versa. He discerned the importance of teaching as an effort to ‘wearing out slowly but surely Moslem bigotry and prejudice’ (Arnold, July 1877:246). He looked at long-term goals and not only at the short-term effect: ‘... there is a brighter prospect. Many educated Malays long for something better than Islam can offer them’ (Arnold, July 1877:246). Therefore he needed more workers: ‘What I ask for is immediate aid to employ a few fellow-labourers to work among some 8,000 Mohammedans’ (Arnold, July 1877:247).

A sad fact is that the lives, especially the alcoholism of the Christians, cancelled much of what the missionaries had achieved. And Arnold who laboured very successfully, cried in vain for assistance: ‘help I must have ... Not to help will have the gravest consequences. The door may be shut some day. I lay the matter upon your consciences.’ In the same letter, he also wrote: ‘Papendorp[22]contains a large number of Malays without priest or mosque... (I) have many really Malay Mohammedan parishioners, but most of them seem very accessible’ (Hewitt, 1887:250).

It seems superficially as if the above-mentioned negative conclusion of Davids is vindicated when Dr. Arnold, as a new Anglican missionary to the Cape scene, wrote about the work in general ‘... no impression of any great or lasting nature has been produced’ (Arnold, 1877: 246-7). Later however, Arnold evidently must have had second thoughts about his initial impression, after he had heard what his colleague Lightfoot had accomplished in Bo-Kaap. Only four months later Arnold himself wrote about his own work among the coloured population: ‘I have now in three months baptized about sixty adults... A vast number are still waiting to step into the pool ...’ (Arnold, 1877:246). Other reports show that Arnold made a significant impact on Muslims in Papendorp (Woodstock).

Arnold was an exceptional but completely underrated missionary operating in Papendorp (the present Woodstock). He would definitely have made a deep dent on Cape Islam - in tandem with Lightfoot in Bo-Kaap - if he had not died already in 1881, i.e. after being at the Cape for only 6 years. Other parochial duties sapped his energy, with little time left for the actual evangelisation of the Muslims of the area (Arnold, 1877: 246).

In so many ways Arnold’s wisdom was exceptional. Instead of e.g. randomly jumping into the work he ‘purposely waited till I had in some measure reconnoitred the ground the Moslem Mission Society purposes to occupy in these parts’ (Arnold, 1877:246). In the same context he wrote: ‘I am deeply sensible ... that evangelistic work among Mohammedans is most difficult and demands great patience’. Arnold’s judgement on another matter was special for his time. He noted that ‘all Moslem, even those of English or Scotch blood are indiscriminately called Malays’ (Arnold, 1877:246). Very few Christians at the Cape had this sensitivity and discernment. It needed much work on the part of Cape Muslims to get that resented generalisation removed. Another feature of Arnold’s work was how his wife and only daughter were involved in the work, surely a positive sign of his commitment and example. Evelyn, his only daughter, joined the community of All Saints and founded a mission school in Woodstock in 1886. She was the headmistress there until 1893 (Langham-Carter, 1992:20).

Langham-Carter (1992:12) gave a negative summary of Arnold’s historical contribution: He was ‘an old man and he was in charge of Muslim work over the whole Peninsula and he had his duties as rector of the parish. He did not effect many conversions...’ This view seems to me very superficial. Arnold would definitely have made a deep impact on Cape Islam - in tandem with Lightfoot in Bo-Kaap - if he had not died already in 1881.

(Lack of) Appreciation of the Importance of Language

Davids has been at pains to stress that the missionaries had little feeling for the importance of using the language of the people (Davids, 1987: 68ff). This is not completely correct. Ds. Kalden, who initially had a heart for missions, especially for the Khoi, tried to learn their language and George Schmidt, the first missionary likewise made an effort (Lightfoot, 1900:42). Ds. van Lier, who unfortunately died at a fairly young age and after only a few years at the Cape, started to learn the Malayu language in order to reach out to the Cape Muslims. After his sudden death, Ds. Thom emphasised that the new mission agency - a legacy of Van Lier’s pioneering work - had to endeavour to get a preacher ‘die de Maleische taal genoegzaam magtig was...’[23]

Right from the start of the SAMS, the board saw that ‘...het geschikste middel, om den... steeds toeneemende uitbreiding... met vrucht tegen te gaan... zoude moeten bestaan... de grondbeginselen van onsen gezeegende godsdienst in te boesemen... in de Maleische taal.’[24] Dr. Philip, the long-time superintendent of the LMS, definitely knew of the importance of language. He noted how Dr. van der Kemp, who could read and write in 16 languages when he was between fifty and sixty years of age. Van der Kemp would study languages to master the principles of a new language to put it in service of the spread of the Gospel (Philip, 1828: Vol.2, o133/4). He thus went to ‘Cafferland, ... drew up a rough sketch of a grammar of the Caffer language and formed a vocabulary of about 800 words’.

We have seen how Rev. Cachet was so sensitive to the issue of language that he even taught Arabic in an attempt to reach the heart of the Muslims. About the same time Dean Lightfoot and Rev. Camelleri were operating at the Cape in the Anglican Church. The former referred to a certain Mr. Henry Solomons who had ‘considerable acquaintance of Arabic and the Malay dialect’ (Lightfoot, 1900:42).

Yet, the need for language acquisition was expressed here and there. At the SAMS, which was operating separately from the LMS after 1811, when the latter agency decided to get an own superintendent, one of the directors, De Schmidt, urged the mission to get ‘een bekwaam en geordend zendeling te bekomen die de Arabische taal volkomen machtig is’[25] (Els, 1971: 428). At about the same time the Rev. Albert Wood wrote to Bishop Gray: ‘...Your Lordship will see I have not much time either for reading or acquiring Dutch’ (Cited in Barnett-Clarke, 1908:107).

Possibly influenced by Cachet’s experiences in the Mother City, his brother (Ds. Jan Lion Cachet), a Reformed clergyman, later became one of the stalwarts in the fight for the recognition of Afrikaans. It is significant that this warrior - who was born and bred in Holland - had to remind Afrikaners that the language of Holland was not feasible in this part of the world at a time when they were about to give up the fight for their language (Dekker, 1980:32). It is tragic that the Afrikaners made an idol out of the language, even building a monument for it in Paarl. Ds. Jan Lion Cachet was pivotal in the fight for recognition of the Afrikaans language. Furthermore, instead of safeguarding the culture of the elite, two of the recruited Dutch teachers, Arnoldus Pannevis and Cornelis P. Hoogenhout, became staunch fighters for the Bible in the vernacular of the poor. That would ultimately become the language Afrikaans.

The Rev. William Uniacke Watkins, who was at the Cape from 1887-90, spent five months in the parish of Heidelberg where he was very successful in acquiring knowledge of colloquial Dutch. Watkins could hardly put his acquired skills to effective use because he was at the Cape only from 1887 to 1890. In summary, it can thus be said that there were at least a few individuals at the Cape among the missionaries who saw the importance of using the languages of the Cape Muslims, Arabic and/or Malayu.

It is also interesting that the translation of the bulletin on behalf of the African Peoples Organisation at the occasion of the formation of the Union of South Africa on 31 May 1910, by Dr. Abdullah Abdurahman, a learned physician who had studied in Scotland, was also in Afrikaans - and not in High Dutch. The British had not yet officially recognized this ‘kitchen’ language. In this sense an element of protest on the language issue can be discerned. This was all the more remarkable because Abdurahman was known to look down condescendingly on Afrikaans. In 1910 high Dutch was still taught in the schools.

Deficient Preparation of Missionaries

The inference by Davids that the churches lacked sensitivity to appreciate the importance of the language of the slaves as part of the preparation of missionaries is nevertheless appropriate to some extent. I have found little evidence contrary to his inference: ‘...the Dutch Reformed Church, … insisted on high Dutch as the religious language, and the English Church … insisted on English...’ (Davids, 1987:70). Yet, the instructions, which the Moravian missionaries received from Count Zinzendorf before they left Herrnhut in the 1730s, could be regarded as modern, in line with the orientation, which present day missionaries would get. They were taught e.g. not to apply the ‘Herrnhuter Elle’ (the measuring stick of Herrnhut) in their approach to the indigenous people wherever they went.

There was furthermore quite wise insight present with regard to the preparation of missionaries at the Cape from quite an early time. Cachet had the insight that ‘die sending onder die slawe... moet ‘n selfstandige werk wees,’[26] albeit from the base of a church. The suggestion of Bishop Gray for a team to be sent - rather than individual missionaries - was unfortunately only followed up in 1896. Father Page and Father Waggett were accompanied by a female medical doctor, Dr. Pellat, who had obtained her diploma with the intention of entering mission work (Lightfoot, 1900:43). That was quite revolutionary for a female physician at the time. It was a great sorrow to many when Dr. Pellat had to lay down her task in 1903 owing to increasing blindness. In the Church Chronicle of August 1887, Rev. J.A. Hewitt wrote down radical ideas emulating the practice of Hudson Taylor in another part of the world: ‘We need not denationalize or even de-religionise the Malays. There is no reason for instance, why on becoming Christians they should not retain their distinctive dress, their abstinence from wine and from certain meats and if they preferred it, the use of Arabic in public worship’ (Hewitt, 1887:251). These ideas were however apparently never put into practice at the Cape.

Blaxall noted a problem which the London Missionary Society outreach had encountered well before the Anglican Mission to Moslems in Cape Town experienced the same: ‘it is doubtful if there is another Mission in the world which has had so many changes in its history...’(Blaxall, 1936:6). The only constant factor was Archdeacon Lightfoot who was however first and foremost the minister of St. Paul’s in Bo-Kaap.

The net result of the missionary work can be regarded as counterproductive, with missionaries not operating as salt, as a counter to the sick society, but tremendously influenced by the thinking of the environment in which they functioned. What Robert Percival (A British naval captain) wrote at the beginning of the 19th century about the Dutch clergy, was possibly also applicable to the missionaries in later years: ‘...(they) show but little charity toward their unenlightened parishioners... An intimate acquaintance with their private characters will soon convince an observer that their religion is in a great measure mere outward appearance’ (Percival, 1969:288). It is known that even right up to the 1960s German missionaries were, for instance, called ‘Heer’ (Lord) on many mission stations, accompanied by practices which were replica’s of the prevalent racist and discriminatory thinking of the Whites in the country. Similar tendencies could be (and still are) discerned in far too many churches.

The clarion call of Lightfoot at the beginning of the 20^th century ‘...whether the time has not arrived when special efforts ought to be made by competent champions of the Christian faith to present the claims of that faith in an effective way to the attention of these more cultured Moslims...’ (Lightfoot, 1900:43), has by and large gone unheeded. Fifty years after Lightfoot’s words nothing had happened basically. It is very humbling for the Christian, so that nobody could really contradict Gerdener when he said in similar wording in 1958: ‘In the city of Jan van Riebeeck, with its more than three centuries of the Gospel, the challenge becomes a reproach, when we remember that many of the followers of the prophet of Arabia are descendants of the slave trade, abolished more than a century ago.’ (Gerdener, 1958:134). Another half a century on, the churches at the Cape are still indifferent to the spiritual needs of the Muslims in their midst.

Much ado about a Booklet

Davids’ assertion that the distribution of the booklet Abdullah ben Yussuf; or the story of a Malay as told by himself in 1877 was ‘a despicable effort of the Anglican mission’, is not proved beyond doubt. That the booklet did not result in the ‘gaining of proselytes’ probably has other causes than the fact that it was not written in Afrikaans. In the foreword to the second edition, Abdullah ben Yussuf writes: 'One thousand copies of the story in Dutch were quickly sold and eagerly read and many more would have been sold and read, but they were not to be got. As many Malays read English better than Dutch, I have at last determined to publish this pamphlet in plain English' (Abdullah ben Yussuf, 1295 a.H. (l917):3). Abdullah is however not convincing if it is correct that the original had been written in 1870.[27]

The booklet itself is very negative, painting a grim picture of Islam. But although, as the anonymous author states, there were many Muslims who were thinking like him, he did not succeed in what he had set out to do, to offer a ‘helping hand’ to ‘the man who is drowning’ (Abdullah ben Yussuf, 1877:3). That the author only gets as far as comparing the Apostolic Creed to that of Islam, is not near to being a helping hand. The life-changing power of faith in Jesus is not mentioned at all in the booklet. To change one religion for another, without the living relationship with Christ, would not have been attractive to any Muslim. That would still be the case today. It is unfortunate that the real name of the author of the booklet is not mentioned. But it is well known that converts from Islam have to fear even for their lives. This would be an acceptable reason for the use of a pseudonym.

In Defence of an unfairly maligned Missionary

Shell’s suggestion that Arnold was the author of the pamphlet is not convincing at all. That Arnold had written other pamphlets, is not in itself convincing evidence that he was the author of this particular booklet. It is strange that nobody referred to the profound missiological-theological work of Arnold prior to his coming here. Why did Arnold’s accusers only point to the pamphlets he had written and not to his monumental book on Islam, the third edition of which had been printed in 1874, just a year before he came to the Cape? It is all the more notable that only very few books on Islam had been written in English before him. He was a researcher of no mean quality, delving out less known facts about the life of Muhammad, the supreme Islamic prophet, e.g. that he was not circumcised and not buried within 24 hours after his death.[28] That Arnold was an Islam scholar of note is demonstrated by the fact that he could e.g. quote from the faked Gospel of Barnabas in Spanish - i.e. at a time when no English translation was freely available. That he was a very able researcher can be derived from his knowledgeable view: ‘the interpolation of this spurious Gospel by a Muslem hand is too palpable to deserve a word of comment or argument’ (Arnold, 1874:170). Arnold was also well versed in the Jewish Talmud, one of the main sources of the Qur’an. Arnold used in a scholarly way not only his home language German - he was born and bred in the Schwabian village of Zell - and the theological languages Greek, Hebrew and Latin, but also unusual ones like Amharic and Ethiopic. Arnold knew about the discussion of the prophecy of Surah 61:6 as a supposed Qur’anic prophesy of Muhammad by Jesus. In Islamic literature it was suggested that a word was changed (In a footnote to this verse Rodwell suggested in his translation of the Qur’an that Muhammad picked it up himself). The Syriac translation of the Greek word perikletos (as opposed to the Greek Biblical parakletos, comforter) would render Ahmad, which has the same root as Muhammad (Arnold, 1974:170). It is a tragedy that up to this day Arnold’s phenomenal work remained relatively unknown. I suspect that his exposure of the occult and demonic influences in Muhammad’s life did not fit into the liberal pattern of Western theological thinking of his day and age or that there was only a small number printed. Nevertheless, the book experienced already its third printing in 1874.

Shell - in looking for the author of Abdullah ben Yussuf; or the story of a Malay... (and followed in this suggestion by Davids) evidently took his cue from Rochlin who sees the above-mentioned pamphlet Abdullah ben Yussuf... as the brainchild of Abdul Burns (Rochlin, 1954:146). Shell could have noted that Rochlin saw the pamphlet within the context of the Islamic disputes of the time and not as an attempt to denigrate the highly respected Abdul Burns as the author of the pamphlet (Rochlin, 1954:146). Possibly because Rochlin said that the booklet ‘... may be traced to his influence’, Shell (1984:39) suggested that Arnold was the anonymous author, purporting that he ‘penned it for propaganda purposes’. Shell’s appraisal of Arnold is in stark contrast to the missionary’s contemporaries like Hewitt who wrote inter alia that ‘the Malays... held him in the highest esteem for his courtesy and charity, as well as for his knowledge of their religion’ (Hewitt, 1887:251). In fact, there is written proof of this. The same Rochlin pointed out that The Cape Times published a tribute to Arnold’s memory ‘from the pen of a Moslem’ (Rochlin, 1954:146). This was especially notable after Arnold had worked at the Cape for only six years.

The suggestion of Shell that Arnold had written the pamphlet is strikingly in keeping with a general negative tendency in Shell’s initial writing about church matters. [29] One of Arnold’s pamphlets was actually published in Cape Town with the very striking title Kind Words and Loving Counsel to the Malays and Other Moslems, printed by Murray and St. Leger in Cape Town in 1879. A copy of this pamphlet is in the South African Library, Cape Town. It must be said though that Arnold did not mince his words in his loving counsel. On the one hand Arnold countered Islamic doctrinal errors very wisely in quite an original way, stating inter alia that the ‘Christians ... erred greatly when the rank and file believer appeared to have three gods, when they worshipped God, Christ and Mary’ (Arnold, 1879:6). But he also bluntly included in the pamphlet: ‘The Moslems on the other hand... delight in fighting and conquering and bringing people into slavery’ (Arnold, 1879:5). Arnold was however quite one-sided when he conveniently ignored the example of Constantine and other Christian emperors, the crusades and the inquisition in later centuries, but recent studies where Islamic interpretations of Jihad are expounded (e.g. Behind the Veil (1998), Islam unveiled, 1997[1987], Islam and Terrorism: What the Quran really teaches about Christianity, violence and the goals of the Islamic jihad (2002), vindicate Arnold’s judgement.

Shell accused furthermore that Muslim women became an ‘obvious target of the Christian evangelical offensive’, and that Lightfoot ‘noted that his predecessors had used the cultural residue of the Muslim women’s childhood Christian education... as a wedge in the front door of the Muslim households’ (Shell, 1984:21). We may put against this view Lightfoot’s own words with regard to applicants for baptism from the ranks of Islam due to marriage: ‘I had been doubtful about this class of applicants... (I) insisted upon a long term of probation and preparation’ (Lightfoot, 1900:38). A similar defence as I did for Rev. Arnold, could be made on behalf of Dean Lightfoot. This is not necessary because Barnett-Clarke did this sufficiently in his biography of the great Bo-Kaap clergyman, who was however nowhere appreciated by his White compatriots. Even a superficial reading of Lightfoot’s biography will make it clear that Shell was far off the mark with his remarks. I could not, for instance, detect any ulterior motive why Dean Douglas wrote to Bishop Gray in 1859: ‘...Mr Lightfoot has gained the good opinion of nearly all the coloured population; and the Malays, who are Mohammedans, speak well of him’ (Cited in Barnett-Clarke, 1908:110). Would it serve any purpose to retort by showing how Muslim men married Christian women under false pretences (Zwemer, 1925:333)? Nor does a closer study of what Arnold wrote in his letter written in January 1876 and published in The Mission Field in July 1877 lend any support whatsoever to Shell’s allegation. In fact, Arnold is quite self-critical with regard to Christianity: ‘The very greatest hindrance to Malays embracing Christianity seems to be the drunken, wicked, ungodly lives of Christians’ (Cited in Arnold, 1877:246).

Adressing the whole Man

The Moravians especially were exemplary in holistic teaching. Many new missionaries in the country visited Genadendal to see how things were being done there. Margaret Donaldson (in Hofmeyr et al, 1994:42-3) highlights their contribution to the mission scene in this country, referring to the strict discipline required by Khoi who wanted to stay on the mission station. It seems as if the co-operation of mission agencies had the result that the Genadendal model could be exported through missionaries from there. Schwinn was thus appointed towards the end of the 18th century to go to the San tribe at the Sak River region where Kicherer and Edwards later operated.[30]

But there were fortunately also exceptions to the majority of the culturally insensitive and arrogant missionaries. The Cape however had its notable exceptions, even leading the field worldwide at some stage. Dominee van Lier and his compatriots at the ‘Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht’ had genuine spiritual concern for the slaves, long before many in Europe and America had such a vision.

Dr. J.T. van der Kemp, who arrived at the Cape in 1799 and later married a Malagassy slave, understood the biblical message of identification, to become ‘a Roman to the Romans’. But also in the city there were individuals like the Anglican Dean Lightfoot and the denominationally non-aligned Rev. Vogelgezang in the second half of the previous century, who had a vision to reach out lovingly to slaves with an Islamic background, addressing the whole man. They showed respect for the Islamic religion without compromising the gospel, leading many Muslims to Christ in the process.

South Africa also had wise Christians like Bishop Hewitt who saw the necessity of dropping the European wrappings in which the Gospel has been brought (but which is unfortunately still being done). Hewitt suggested the inclusion of cultural elements in the worship that are not at variance with the gospel, but which could serve as a bridge to Muslims. Unfortunately (to my knowledge) this suggestion has not been followed up in South Africa.

The Anglicans in England had a sound report before them in 1926, a Call from the Moslem World. We can read there e.g. about both the desire and faith to be ‘related to an exercise of the wills of God’s faithful people and this in no haphazard way’ (Donaldson, 1926:71). Even the value of prayer was appreciated duly and also viewed realistically: ‘Men and women must be prepared to pay the price of a new effectiveness in prayer and it will not be paid easily.’

A Caricature of the Gospel

The missionaries often contributed in no small measure to a caricature of the Gospel. Unfortunately people like Georg Schmidt and Johannes van der Kemp were the exceptions rather than the rule. And even Van der Kemp and his missionary colleagues contributed unwittingly to their bad image among the colonists. Misunderstanding of the different cultures contributed to the estrangement. Schoeman (1996:171) pointed to the fact that the missionaries were often less developed people of ‘eenvoudige herkoms wat hulle nie altyd kon handhaaf in die moeilike situasies...’ [31] On top of it, the forthright Dutch way of doing things and especially of speaking your mind, did not endear the Dutch missionaries to the colonists. ‘Die Nederlanders was dikwels taktloos en aggressief, met inbegrip van Van der Kemp self, wat reeds daarin geslaag het om hom by die owerheid en ‘n aansienlike aantal mense ongewild te maak’ [32] (Schoeman, 1996:171). They have often been slanderously accused of being influenced too much by the humanistic ideas of Jean Jacques Rousseau. The accusations have especially been flung at his L.M.S. colleague Dr. John Philip, who made no secret of his support for Ordinance 50 of 1828. This decree called for equality before the law between Blacks (especially the Khoi Khoi) and colonists. The complete identification of Van der Kemp with the slaves and the uncomfortable facts about the treatment of slaves, which Philip brought to light in his Researches in South Africa, possibly accounted for the negative judgment in the history books of the previous era. It was clearly not Dr. Philip’s intention to be difficult, but his publications nevertheless seemed to cause the drying up of funds for the mission effort.

On the other hand, notions like the ‘equality of man’, which is of course quite biblical, inspired Van der Kemp to train African missionaries on a par with Whites. He wanted to put them in charge of mission stations. This idea never really took off at that time. In fact, it was completely reversed already early in the 19th century. By contrast, the equality afforded to slaves who converted to Islam, was one of the strong draw cards in the spread of Islam in the colonial days.

In the run-up not only to the Great Trek, Dr. van der Kemp and Dr. Philip tragically and definitely joined to turn the tide against mission endeavour. We have respect and admiration for Dr. Philip who discerned already in the 1820s ‘the short-sighted policy of the Government (who) has never regarded the Hottentots as consumers, but solely as producers’ (Macmillan, 1968[1927]:176). We appreciate the total identification of Van der Kemp and Read with the underdogs. It was perhaps also due to their stance that the Dutch Reformed Church synod of 1829 still came out strongly for racial equality.

But we have to conclude that the missionaries Dr. van der Kemp and Dr. Philip overstepped in their zeal for the cause. Things changed drastically already in the 1830s, especially after the formal emancipation of the slaves.

Nationals were only really given the charge over mission stations in the late 1960s, i.e. well over a century after the pioneering moves of Van der Kemp.

Negative Traits in Evangelism

Evangelism at the Cape has by and large been characterised by methods, which are tantamount to cultural imperialism. Sometimes the Cape Muslims have been approached insensitively and occasionally they were arrogantly offended. Cilliers mentions the motivation of the Dutch Christians at the time: the colonial expansion was predominantly driven by ‘differences with the church of Rome’. Furthermore they brought the Gospel to the Cape Muslims ‘in European garb’(Cilliers, 1997:205).

We have already referred to the unfortunate terminology in the colonial days around the issue of baptism: the White colonists were called Christians whether they were followers of Jesus or not. Similarly, the term ‘ongedoopte bastaard’ was thrown around without thinking much about the stigma attached. That the missionaries encouraged the people of colour to use the term Griqua instead of bastaard (Shell, 1994:364) did little to diminish the negative perception, which the Whites had of all people of colour. The lack of dignity and self-esteem of the underdogs were enshrined simultaneously. Marais notes the contrast: ‘Islam did more than Christianity to bridge the gulf between slave and free-born’ (Marais, 1957:172-3). Cilliers refers to another reason that probably contributed significantly: Islam was the ideal religion to the slaves ‘because it leaves room for the human desire of self-redemption...’ (Cilliers, 1997:191). The human desire to use power and good works to achieve goals has a prominent place in Islam. Of course, the religion had simply taken this over from Judaism and from the church of Muhammad’s day. Even today it may not be preached overtly, but practised all the same.

If the condescending and negative attitude of White Christians could be regarded as the rule at the end of the 19th century, there were however also exceptions. Eric Aspeling, a Cape Colonist, wrote for instance: ‘Care should be taken not to excite or wound the Malays by using harsh or satirical expressions in discussing religious questions with them’ (Aspeling, 1883:18). The approach of Aspeling was definitely more positive than that of Abdullah ben Yussuf. There is no clear evidence that Aspeling was a devout Christian. No ulterior motives can be suspected when he liberally thought with regard to a Dutch translation of the Islamic sacred book, that it would ‘demand very little ingenuity or zeal on our part to prove that if the Bible be true, the Koran must be false’.

We do not discuss the evangelisation of Muslims in other parts of South Africa in this treatise. It is nevertheless interesting to note that a similar attitude of the Christians was to be detected elsewhere. The great Methodist missionary Ralph Scott, who operated in Natal, was positively hopeful that the estate owners would be willing to provide schoolrooms for Indian children and accommodation for a teacher, but the replies were completely discouraging. Many of the colonists ‘were convinced that education would prove hurtful’ (Brain, 1983:205). Bishop Colenso, who had a genuine heart for missions, unfortunately got entangled in bitter theological disputes, which led to a schism in the Church of England in this country. The separation, combined with a shortage of funds, brought organised missionary effort to the Indian immigrants by this denomination to a halt.

Religious Disputes as a unifying Factor

With the expansion of the various mosques and prayer rooms in the beginning of the nineteenth century, conflicts were bound to emerge. The ensuing fights did sap some energy, but it also served the consolidation of Islam in the Bo-Kaap. However, intense as their conflicts were, the emerging cleavages did not disrupt their communal functioning significantly. In fact, the conflicts helped to strengthen the communal ties and heighten their religious awareness. ‘These conflicts ... were the regulators of the communal value system and acted at times as measures of social control to ensure the perpetuation of the culture’ (Davids, 1980:49). The disputes did not hinder their feeling of togetherness in a time of crisis.

The nature of the disputes was divergent, but two themes were common, doctrine and leadership. The appointment of the imam was in many cases such an issue. He had supreme powers and was answerable to no one. Therefore the congregation, or any dissidents, had no alternative to have grievances redressed than through the Supreme Court.

Although they had very good intentions, neither P.E. Roubaix, the Cape Parliamentarian, nor the British Government consulted the local people. They thought that the only solution to the fights at the mosque would be to bring an imam from overseas to act as spiritual guide to the Bo-Kaap Muslims. Abubakr Effendi, as it turned out, was a Hanafee and his introduction as spiritual guide in a predominantly Shafee community - 90% of them - was bound to lead to problems, as it did (Davids, 1980:52). The leadership dispute was substituted by a doctrinal tussle. The Hanafee-Shafee (two schools of Islamic law interpretation) dispute plagued the Cape Muslims ever since the gifted Abubakr Effendi arrived here in 1863. Ironically he was sent by the Ottoman regime at the request of the British Government to solve the never-ending dispute at the Jan van Boughies Mosque concerning the appointment of an imam.

Destruction of indigenous Culture?

Before we take a closer look at mission work in the 20th century, it is appropriate to consider missiological tenets of the work at the Cape over the years. Humanist anthropologists have been claiming that mission work destroys the indigenous culture. To some extent, this has indeed happened at the Cape. However, with regard to the Khoi, the contrary is more true to fact. One can safely assume that the pioneering work of Georg Schmidt probably saved the local Khoi from extinction at that time. In fact, word got around so widely about this aspect of the Moravian work at Baviaans Kloof, that Schwinn - one of the three Moravian missionaries who arrived in 1792 - was asked to come and assist Kicherer and the LMS work at the Sak River.

The majority of missionaries at the Cape however had an imperialist spirit, being more interested in winning souls for their own denomination than bringing people to a living faith. This obviously had a negative effect on Muslim Outreach. This may be one of the causes of the cowardly mutual tolerance, which prevails to this day: ‘You have your religion, I have mine.’ The latter attitude - combined with indifference of Christians - effectively prevented them from sharing the Gospel with their Muslim neighbours in areas like District Six. A negative factor was the emphasis on spreading ‘civilisation’. Thus one found that even within the confines of the S.A. Mission Society (SAMS) this was stated as the motivation for mission work. None less than Dr. James Adamson of St. Andrew’s was quoted, saying that mission work was imperative ‘ter beschaving en bekering der wereld’ (cited in Els, 1971:31) noting the order of civilisation before conversion as typical of the sense of priorities. The aforementioned attitude and the indifference of the church led to the deceptive deduction in due course that the Islamic Allah and the God of the Bible are identical. That the New Testament portrays God as the Father of Jesus clearly distinguishes Him from the aloof Allah of the Qur’an who has no Son. [33]

Preaching and Teaching deficiencies

A tragic tendency can be observed in the preaching of the gospel in general. The pastors approached the slaves with ‘the European mentality of superiority’ (Cilliers, J.I., 1997:164), which could hardly have given them credibility with the indigenous people. Furthermore, discrimination was the order of the day, also in the Church. A condescending attitude towards the natives was the common pattern. Not much has changed since then. They hardly gave any encouragement for the indigenous people and slaves to read or interpret the Bible themselves. Yet, there was also the occasional exception. In one of his sermons, Rev. Morgan of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church acknowledged class distinctions in the early church, but he stressed that ‘they were utterly repudiated and condemned by the Apostles, and in the Church of Christ there is to be ‘no respect of persons’ (Cuthbertson, 1981:60.).

The Gospel that was preached, was also being castrated in another respect. The individualistic European pattern of that time was the vogue. Sadly also the missionaries at the Cape negated the New Testament principle and practice of full sharing - that is so near to traditional African communal custom - to all intents and purposes.

The early missionaries understood much better to incorporate their converts in the spreading of the good news. George Barker examined five women in 1816, prior to their baptism. He discovered that ‘not one of them attributed the beginning of the work of grace in their hearts to the preaching of the Missionaries, but to their own people (Hottentots) speaking to them’ (Quoted in Elbourne, 1992:9). In fact, if the missionaries had been open to learn something from the so-called ‘primitive’ African communal life style, interesting dynamics might have developed. Even in the late 1970s scorn and opposition was encountered when it was suggested that Europeans could learn from Africans. That would probably still be the case in many circles.

Prophetic Voices and Christian Action

There is nevertheless clear evidence that at least some Christians at the Cape understood the obligation that the Gospel had to be brought to the uttermost parts of the earth. As we noted, already as early as 1804-1809, Rev. M.C. Vos, born and bred in the Western Cape, operated as a missionary in India.

Against the background of the general negative attitude of White colonists, including the majority of missionaries and clergymen, there is one Christian who towers above everything that happened among the Cape Muslims: Mr. P.E. de Roubaix, a Cape Parlamentarian and SAMS director. He practised what Christianity was all about. Kollisch, a contemporary, notes that public newspapers and other records of his time would show that De Roubaix ‘most cheerfully rendered his aid whenever required, and as his deeds were open, it was a matter of general surprise ... that as a Christian... he should give such support and assistance to a class of people belonging to an opposite creed’ (Kollisch, 1867:9). P.E. De Roubaix, the philanthropic parliamentarian and chairman of the board of directors of the SAMS ‘obtained a handsome contribution’ from the Turkish Sultan towards the completion of a mosque in these years, viz. for one in Port Elizabeth (Kollisch, 1867:10).

It was especially remarkable how - after losing the parliamentary election in 1856, mainly because of his involvement with the Cape Muslims - De Roubaix even more staunchly went forward as the champion of the Muslims. He spared, according to Kollisch, no time and money to effect the reform that was so much desired (Kollisch, 1867: 9). De Roubaix, a director of the SAMS, displayed the Spirit of Christ as he stood next to the discriminated and downtrodden Cape Muslims.

Further Factors towards the End of the 19th Century

Lightfoot (1900:40) referred to Muslims as the aristocracy of coloured citizens, which made it well-nigh impossible for Muslims to convert to Christianity. ‘The conversion to Christianity would be... even more than the abandonment of caste would be in the case of the strictest Brahmins.’

District Six (originally Onder-Kaap) and Bo-Kaap had together formed the cradle of Islam in the Western Cape. Its role in the preservation of Muslim Culture in a city that had a pressing Christian presence, cannot be underestimated. Bo-Kaap, which became an area with a predominant Muslim population in the 1960s and 1970s in the wake of the effect of the Group Areas Act, remained a stronghold of Islam in the Western Cape until the present day.

After the emancipation of the slaves in 1838, there was a great need for modest dwellings in Cape Town for the freed slaves, most of whom were Muslims. Many moved to new parts of Bo-Kaap. By 1865 about a quarter of the people in Bo-Kaap were Muslims. The influx of Muslims to the area described as the Malay quarter, increased. By the turn of the century half of the ‘Bo-Kaap’ population was Muslim and by 1930 three-quarters (Townsend, 1977:12).[34] The influx was closely connected to the construction of several mosques in the area after 1840. Thus ‘Bo-Kaap’ became more Islamic than District Six.

Whites to the Rescue of Cape Islam

Instead of flexibility to send workers to help Reverend Arnold, a visionary Anglican missionary, who came to the Cape in 1875, a rigid legalism came in its place. The churches were too occupied with their own internal issues to see the need of spreading the Gospel to the Malays who were perceived to be inferior.

Furthermore, in a clash of priorities, invariably the outreach to Muslims suffered: ‘...it was impossible for them to do all the good Bishop wanted, and it was the Moslem work that had to be left out’ (Blaxall, 1936:9/10). That Islam survived in Cape Town so long is no less than a miracle. It is ironic that Christians have saved Islam from extinction at the Cape again and again. A near fatal blow to Cape Islam came from its own ranks in the second half of the 19th century. The religion was all but knocked out in the Bo-Kaap when personality disputes rocked the mosques. (The many mosques in the ‘slamse buurt’, the original ‘Malay Quarter,’ form a sad legacy of this bitter infighting). The rescue effort came from outside. Mr. de Roubaix, a philanthropic Cape parliamentarian, came to their assistance, bringing in Abu Bakr Effendi, an imam from Turkey. (Lightfoot suggested though that De Roubaix came into parliament because of the ‘Malay vote’. There was thus also some debt to be paid.) Effendi was howeer nowhere the final solution because he caused doctrinal problems himself.

At this time, the work of the SAMS suffered because of a lack of funds. The need for a special mission to the Muslims was nevertheless definitely felt and a sub-commission was specially formed for this purpose. Speaking on behalf of this sub-commission, Rev. G.W. Stegmann insisted on a final decision in 1873.

Illustrated by the person of De Roubaix, possibly a shift occurred within the SAMS, away from an outright evangelical position to a more humanist approach. In Kollisch’s praise for the philanthropist De Roubaix’s ‘indefatigable zeal in the cause of civilisation and progress’ (Kollisch, 1867:44) - there is nowhere mention of any passion by De Roubaix for the spread of the Gospel. It is somehow strange that as the chairman of the board of directors of the SAMS, P.E. De Roubaix announced in 1873 that a lack of funds made a special Muslim mission impossible (Els, 1971: 429). However, Port Elisabeth imams praised De Roubaix in an address for ‘the sacrifices you have made both pecuniary and otherwise, for the good of the Musselmans of the Cape Colony’ (Kollisch, 1867: 10). In a touch of irony P.E.De Roubaix, the philanthropic parliamentarian, supplied funds for a mosque in Port Elizabeth, which is generally abbreviated P.E. , the initials of De Roubaix.

The ‘Anglo-Boer’ War indirectly also influenced the situation at the Cape. Because of the war and the run-up to it many refugees streamed to the Cape. The population of the Mother City more than doubled from 1891 to 1900 (79,000 to 174,000). Most of the refugees were White, including Lithuanian Jews (An increase of 41,000 to 104,000). Of the rest, many will have been Black, i.e. one may assume that there would hardly have been Muslims among them.[35] Suddenly the Cape Muslims had become a significant minority in the city. Lightfoot mentioned 11,105 in the Cape district recorded in the ‘recent census’ (Lightfoot: 1900:32). This might have influenced Dr. Abdullah Abdurahman, a Muslim, who had just returned to Cape Town after completion of his medical studies in Scotland, to get politically involved.

Government Aid

The government also unwittingly came to the aid of the embattled religion. Legislation on health matters regarding food to be brought into hospitals during smallpox epidemics and the threatened closure of the Tana Baru cemetery at the top of Longmarket Street, where some of their Karamats (Saints) were buried, brought the Muslims together in resistance. Islam got a new lease of life at the Cape. The joining of forces between Jan Hofmeyr and his Afrikanerbond with the party of the premier Cecil John Rhodes (Davids, 1984 [1981]:192) - to keep people of colour out of the parliament of the Cape Colony - certainly was diabolic. This had also happened with the so-called 'ticket of four', when four white candidates pooled their resources to stand against Achmat Effendi (Davids, 1984 [1981]:153). On the long run this helped to bring the gigantic stature of Dr. Abdullah Abdurahman to the fore.

3. The Twentieth Century

That Islam worldwide survived so long as a religion can hardly be explained rationally. Idolatrous practices that had been already discerned as such in Muhammad’s lifetime have continued up to this day. I specifically refer to the circumambulations of the Ka’ba and other pre-Islamic Arabian pagan customs that were incorporated into the Hadjj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. Paul, the apostle, has probably given the secret when he referred to the ‘god of this age’ (2 Corinthians 4: 4), which blinds eyes to ungodly practices. Muhammad equated Allah, the main ‘god of the Ka’ba’, with Yahweh, the God of the Bible. Similar things also happen in the Church, where e.g. traditions with an occult content are kept intact. In fact, some of them have become features of whole denominations. An example is the processions and christening of infants in some denominations that have scant biblical foundation.

Influence of Dr. Abdullah Abdurahman

Dr. Abdullah Abdurahman would dominate the politics for the disenfranchised at the Cape for the first 40 years of the 20th century. That he was a Muslim - albeit not so staunch, often quoting from the Bible - gave the minority group of Bo-Kaap and District Six great self-esteem. His efforts to secure the Schotsche Kloof flats for them are still harvested deep appreciation by the Muslim community.

Sometimes the impression is spread that apartheid only started in 1948. Already in the run-up to the formation of the Union in 1910 Blacks were excluded from participation in the politics of the country. Before that the respective governments manipulated with the qualified franchise to suppress people of colour. Educational standards and other bars were used. The formation of the Coloured Affairs Council (Department) was the brainchild of Harry Lawrence, a cabinet Minister of Jan Smuts, drafting Salie Dollie and the unknown Mogamat de Vries as pawns in a sham representation of the Muslims. As the only ‘Coloured’ in the commission, which made this proposal, Dr. Abdurahman countered the move fiercely. In fact, he opposed ‘elke vorm van afsonderlike behandeling van Kleurlinge’(Botha, 1960:125). His fight on this score was of no avail. After his death in 1940, his daughter Cissy Abdurahman-Gool launched the Anti-CAD campaign in District Six as opposition to this ploy (Davids, 1984:209). Soon Dollie resigned from both the United Party and the C.A.C. condemning the Council in the process (Davids, 1984:210).

‘Malay Quarter’ saved

Bo-Kaap was threatened from yet another angle after Dr. Abdurahman’s departure from the political scene. The old houses of the original ‘Malay Quarter’ with the borders, Dorp, Strand, Buitengracht and Chiappini Streets, were deteriorating fast towards the end of the 1940s. Far-sighted people like Dr. Izak David Du Plessis, an UCT lecturer and a famous Afrikaans poet, along with other Whites like Dr. E.G. Jansen, who later became the administrator of the Cape Province, had a deep sense of cultural history. Dr. Du Plessis especially was really loved by the Muslims of the Bo-Kaap and appreciated by them for his efforts to get the ‘Malay Quarter’ restored to its former glory. When the Malay Quarter was definitely threatened with extinction, Du Plessis rallied many friends - almost all White and Christian - to fight for the restoration of the buildings. In typical altruistic style he referred to the group headed by Dr. E.G. Jansen as ‘...untiring idealists who realize that the Malay Quarter is the pivot of Cape Malay life’ (Du Plessis and Lückhoff, 1953:12/13).

The Scourge of Racism and bigoted Church Politics

The SAMS almost dissolved itself as its work was assimilated into the Dutch Reformed Church. The practice of the Moravians and the LMS to ordain workers specifically as missionaries got a negative slant because mission work was seen as something inferior. In due course the minister of the White church was a ‘Dominee’ and that of the mission church only an ‘Eerwaarde’.

Blacks played a role in Abdurahman’s meteoric rise. He was one of the ‘plague doctors’, treating many of them during the bubonic plague, which hit the city of 1901. This issue was abused to dump the Blacks in Ndabeni, Cape Town’s first Black ‘location’ and hereafter abused as a threat. After a protest in which a few imams were involved (the names of Mogamat Taliep, Maji Mahomed and Imam Adukeep are mentioned), concessions were issued to them with a stern warning: ‘if disturbances continued, Muslims would also be placed in a location’ (Van Heyningen, 1984 [1981]:101).

Already in the previous century there was a to and fro between the mission agencies and churches. In one case the work of the Moravians was handed over to the DRC, viz. Bredasdorp (Els, 1971:31). The Rhenish Mission handed their work at Stellenbosch to the Dutch Reformed Church and Wupperthal was given to the Moravians in the 1960s.

White Christians unintentionally brought with them the baggage of racial superiority. Cilliers suggests aptly that they were themselves thus handcuffed (Cilliers, 1997:164). The teaching in the Church seems to have been lacking with regard to sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, e.g. the challenge that men of God should be at the right place at the right time. This happened although Dr. Andrew Murray had given a lead to the church worldwide in the teaching on the work of the Holy Spirit. Yet, gifted people were sometimes lured to less effective ministry. Thus it might have looked strategic that the prodigious Ds. Gerdener - who had been set aside especially for Muslim outreach - became a theology professor. He had seen eight Muslims come to the Lord and he also had the foresight to stimulate the buying of a building for the discipling of converts from Islam. The building called ‘Uitkoms’ in Virginia Street, District Six, never really served the purpose that Gerdener had intended. It became a children’s home which was of course also necessary, but the impact which a house for converts could have made on Cape Islam can now only be guessed. Looking back, it is easy to see that his move to the Kweekskool at Stellenbosch, the theological seminary there, was not wise. The Dutch Reformed Church by and large lost its vision to reach out to the Muslims, even though Gerdener was hereafter one of the mentors to their future ministers for many years. (By his own admission, Ds. Davie Pypers, who studied under Gerdener and who became one of the leading missionaries to the Cape Muslims this century, did not get his inspiration for Muslim Outreach at Stellenbosch. This only happened when he became a minister at St. Stephen’s in Bo-Kaap.[36]) The aid came from elsewhere through the gifted Rev. A.J. Liebenberg in the 1920s. He came to the Cape after a stint in Nyasaland (the present Malawi). This merely camouflaged the real situation. The Groote Kerk refused to rent their school building for the use of Muslim outreach. Luckily a hall could be rented from a Mr. Lowe.[37]

Religious Dialogue

All reports seem to confirm that Reverend (Eerwaarde) A.J. Liebenberg was well received by the Muslims and he co-operated well with the Anglican Muslim outreach work under Rev. A. W. Blaxall’s leadership in the 1920s. Liebenberg apparently had little support from his church in his endeavour to co-operate with other denominations. In the outreach to the Muslims both the missionaries and churches were clearly only intent on empire building. A certain Mr. Hope, a converted Muslim, left the Dutch Reformed Church to join the City Mission, most probably because of this attitude (Haasbroek, 1955:114). Four times Liebenberg was allowed to address the Cape Malay Association, and he visited 17 ‘hogere priesters’. [38] Through the reading room on the corner of Bree and Shortmarket Street in the old Bo-Kaap, Liebenberg made significant impact on the Muslim community. His Dutch Reformed colleagues were however not happy that Liebenberg accepted all sorts of invitations - ‘selfs as dit in ‘n moskee gehou word.’ The impression gained by his church colleagues was that the Muslims were abusing these occasions and that the ‘Coloured’ press was under the control of the Muslims. There may have been some truth in the allegation, but jealousy definitely also played a role, as it also happened with Reverend Vogelgezang in the 19th century.

In his own denomination, the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), Liebenberg seems to have been merely used to prop up the strained relations to St. Stephen’s. In the sub-commission of the mission work he basically got some understanding, e.g. for the reality that it was impossible to do both pastoral work at St. Stephen’s and to reach out to the Muslims. But even within the sub-commission there was opposition to his work in the latter part of his term. Thus the chairman e.g. apparently had problems with the costs for ‘hierdie ontmoedigende werk’. [39] Sarcastically this speaker enquired after any fruit of the work. Liebenberg’s reply said it all: There had been a big change in the attitude of the Muslims towards him. He was possibly more interested in winning the Muslims to follow Jesus than to bring them to his church. The latter result was what the church was apparently hoping for.

Ecclesiastic Disunity

A competitive spirit and back-biting also among missionaries seems to have occurred at least occasionally. In his inaugural speech to the Christian Council in 1936 Rev. Nicol referred to a letter of a missionary, which he concedes was not typical: ‘Ek veg ook wat ek kan teen die Y-seksie...Ek is ‘n man van vrede, maar nou het ek oorlog verklaar.’ (Koningsbode, August 1936, p.258). The same missionary states that he never knew that one sister church could be so distrustful of another.

It is significant that Liebenberg evidently discerned the importance of research. He not only noted the presence of Muslims in other areas of the Peninsula, but he also observed that two Muslim shops were selling the Moslem Outlook in the West Coast town of Piquetberg, about 100 Km from Cape Town (Haasbroek, 1955:111/2). Liebenberg reported that the Muslims were prepared to come over to Christianity, but that they wanted to become members of the White churches. This was either a ploy by the Muslims to keep the Christians at arm’s length or the race factor could have been a stumbling block yet again in the outreach to Muslims.

There was still financial support forthcoming for a consignment of the Gospel of John in Arabic, but co-operation with other denominations turned out to be impossible. The reason for this could have been the separatist attitude in the DRC itself. Rev. Van Niekerk, who served successfully at the ‘Kanaan Kerkie’, the Ebenezer Mission Hall in Rose Street founded by Rev. Vogelgezang, referred to a similar attitude in his denomination, which was somehow linked related to the big church, the DRC. By his own admission, Van Niekerk had no liberty to take people of colour (including Muslims) to his own (White?) church, because that could have upset the emotions of the Christians. Van Niekerk’s method in the Bo-Kaap school to use tracts as reading material and the explanation of the articles of faith through a certain hymn was quite innovative. However, his own racism peeped through when he intimated that it was a big personal tragedy that the St. Stephen’s Church was not keen to link up with the Sendingkerk, the ‘Coloured’ branch of the racially separated church.

Government Intervention

The formation of the Cape Malay Association in 1923, based in Bo-Kaap, was the first attempt by Muslims at the Cape to organise themselves politically. The discriminatory character of South African society along racial lines called for protest. As the ANC had become the mouthpiece of the Blacks, the African People’s Organization (APO) was that for the Coloureds.

The valiant efforts of Dr. Abdurahman who became a City councillor in 1904 - operating under the banner of the African People’s Organization (APO) - gave the Muslims a new sense of self-respect. Here party political issues were not foremost in there minds. Hadji Effendi who was the secretary of the APO at its founding worded their feelings appropriately: ‘In reference to political affairs ... we shall not bind ourselves to any party but we shall support the most progressive and fairest policy towards the Muslims’ (Van der Ross, 1975:6). Yet, due to his efforts the Schotsches Kloof flats in Bo-Kaap were specially built for the Muslim community. Abdurahman, married to a Scottish national of whom I could not find evidence as yet that she turned Muslim, does not seem to have been a fervent Muslim. ‘It is noticeable that where Abdurahman made a religious reference, it was always from the Bible, never from the Koran’ (Van der Ross, 1975:37). He did display his fez, however, wherever he went.

Yet, Abdurahman did not endear himself to many Cape Muslims by speaking in a derogatory way about Afrikaans. Thus it was not surprising that his great adversary Mogamat Gamiet, in his presidential address of the Cape Malay Association of 1925, made a decisive break from the Abdurahman tradition, among others by speaking honourably of Afrikaans (Davids, 1981:203). It is therefore ironic that the enforced use of Afrikaans was the spark of the Soweto school protest in 1976.

Disillusionment was the basis of the founding of the Cape Malay Association in 1923. The founders of this organisation felt that Abdurahman and the APO were not catering for the needs of the Cape Muslims. The association was specifically founded to relate to the social needs of the Cape Muslim Community (Davids, 1984:176). Abdurahman surely didn’t endear himself to many Cape Muslims by speaking in a derogatory way about Afrikaans. Thus it is not surprising that his great adversary Arazed Gamiet, in his presidential address of the Cape Malay Association of 1925, made a decisive break from the Abdurahman tradition, among others by speaking honourably of Afrikaans as one of the official languages of the country. But Abdurahman was loyal to the British, reminding the Cape Muslims that it was the British who were responsible for the abolition of slavery. And he was Muslim, wearing his fez at all occasions, as we have noted, even in the meetings of the City Council and the Provincial Council. In fact, he would taunt his adversaries, Gamiet and his brother Dr. Ismael Abdurahman on this score (R.E van der Ross, 1986: 80).

It is worth noting that the Cape Muslims clearly aligned themselves to the Coloureds and not e.g. to the Cape British Indian Association (Davids, 1984:195). It is sad that it seems that the Church - and the missionaries - was just as guilty, quite happy with all the divisions. The churches hardly had any vision for the unity of the body. Even the ecumenism which grew in the 1960s was not based on a solid unity of the body, but boiled down to mere window-dressing. Every denomination - very often also the individual churches - was basically busy building their own kingdom. Very little has changed since then.

The Legalization of racial Separation

At a time when Cape Islam was reeling, the legalizing of racial separation in 1948 saved the religion. When the Nationalist government came into power in 1948, it soon became clear that people of colour would be harshly discriminated against. Islam at the Cape was embattled also from this side because its adherents were grouped with the Coloureds. The first Nationalist Prime Minister, Dr. D.F. Malan, had been a Dutch Reformed Minister. The governments from 1948-1994 - also in all four provinces - came almost exclusively from the three Afrikaans churches. Thus the apartheid legislation, which streamed from the statute books were perceived by many - not only by Muslims - as the result of ‘Christian government’. Muslims (like all people of colour) were divided with regard to the opposition to the oppressive laws. The government of the day manoeuvred cleverly to involve leading figures of the respective communities like Tom Swarts and Salie Dollie in the Coloured Representative Council (CRC), the ‘Coloured’ Parliament, the fore-runner of the sham tricameral system. They had their meetings in the building in Bellville, which was scathingly called ‘Úncle Tom’s cabin’. The implication was that the CRC, which met here, possessed the cap-in-hand door-mat mentality of so-called leaders who easily said ‘ja, baas!’ (The venue of the Council was situated adjacent to the ‘Bush College,’ as the University College of the Western Cape was pejoratively called in those days).

Nationals of Colour used as Missionaries?

That the nationals of colour could also be used as missionaries was not remotely present in the thinking of the churches in South Africa. This happened only much later more by chance, when people of colour left the shores of the country because of other reasons, e.g. due to apartheid repression.

The almost classical guilt, going right through to the present, is the lack of the church to listen to - quite apart from heeding - prophetic voices.[40] Dominee van Lier, Archdeacon Lightfoot, the Rev. Hewitt in the 19^th century, Prof. Gerdener and Ds. Pypers in the 20^th century remained lonely voices for outreach to the Muslims in their respective churches. (In the same vein - with regard to racial segregation - the warning voices of the theological professors Barend B. Keet and Ben Marais should be added. In the DRC synod of 1940, Marais warned his church not to accept apartheid because it was scripturally unjustifiable. But he was sidelined about 20 years later, Dr. Beyers Naudé was completely ostracised for the same reason. As we have shown, rac(ial)ist separatist thinking was disastrous in its effect with regard to the spreading of the Gospel to the Muslims. Dr. Andrew Murray, who had been a divine instrument world wide through his booklets at the turn of the century, unintentionally sowed the seeds of apartheid when Dutch Reformed Theologians abused his a-political stand.

Although people like Dr. Arnold had already spelt out the need at the end of the previous century - for the church to give its best people for evangelism among Muslims - it was not heeded. In general, it seems as if the church authorities kept on looking for people who could achieve quick results. A notable exception was the Dutch Reformed Ds. Davie Pypers, who persevered for many years to reach out to the Indians. He was joined by Pieter Els who had been challenged to reach out to Muslims with the Gospel along with two other student theological colleagues, Willem Louw en Coen Brand while they were studying at Stellenbosch in 1960.

It is interesting to read in Els’ doctoral thesis that the SAMS took the initiative for the outreach to the Muslims in the 1960s. This agency had been the fruit of the Dutch Reformed pastors Van Lier and Vos, who had been inspired by the mission work of the Moravians. Appropriately that denomination pioneered the work among the Cape Muslims in the second half of the twentieth century.

A Power Encounter at the Green Point Track

Ds. Davie Pypers, a Dutch Reformed Clergyman was the minister of St. Stephen’s Church in Bo-Kaap until mid 1961. Pypers was called to become the missionary to the Muslims, to be linked to the Gestig (Coloured) congregation, a post he took up on 1 July 1961. The Muslims scored an own goal just after Pypers’ inauguration at S.A. Gestig. He had hardly started with his new work when a challenge came from Mr. Ahmed Deedat - at that time still an unknown Indian Muslim clergyman - to publicly debate the death of Jesus on the Cross. Pypers felt very inadequate for this challenge. He prepared himself with prayer and fasting in a tent on the mountains at Bains Kloof for the event of the Green Point Track scheduled for Sunday, 13 August 1961. The Hex River mountain range contains the most interior early Muslim shrine of the Western Cape at Bains Kloof. However, this was not the reason that Pypers retreated to Bains Kloof.

On 13 August 1961, Deedat asked for a proof that Jesus died on the cross on the Green Point Track. When a woman from the audience, a Mrs. Withuhn, was instantly healed in the name of Jesus – confirmed by physicians that had been called up to certify the miracle – also many Muslims were deeply moved. Islam at the Cape could have been sent reeling. The re-issue of the pamphlet Abdullah ben Yussuf; or the story of a Malay as told by himself and distributed at the gates, turned out to be qcounter-productive. The Muslim community was enraged by this re-publication.

Therefore the perceived defeat at Green Point was apt to call for revenge. Deedat stated publicly that his original motivation for these public debates was his humiliation at the hand of Christians when he was still a young man. He was not going to accept defeat lying down. Over the years, he challenged many a Christian leader, usually with scores if not hundreds of his followers in attendance.

Recognition of the Need of spiritual Warfare

When Ds. Davie Pypers commenced work in 1956 as a minister of St. Stephen’s Church in Bree Street - which was very much part of Bo-Kaap in those days - he saw the need of increased prayer for the Muslims of the area. He was one of the very few ministers at that time, who had any notion of spiritual warfare. It was definitely not common knowledge.

The Green Point event resulted in a victory for the Cross when Mrs. Withuhn was miraculously healed in the name of the resurrected Lord. But the impact was diminished by the news, which came from another part of the world that same day. The report of the building of the Berlin Wall resounded throughout the world!

With the ensuing cold war becoming the talk of the day, the enemy of souls abused Communism with its atheistic basis, to hinder the spreading of the victorious message of the Cross which had been proclaimed at the Green Point Track. Yet, in his denomination Pypers was still a lone ranger. In some quarters he was even vilified by some after the Green Point event. Although he had actually been challenged by the literature on faith healing written by Andrew Murray - a revered hero of his denomination - Pypers was out on a limb in the DRC. At the Kweekskool in Stellenbosch, the theological seminary of the church, it was still officially taught that faith healing was something which belonged to a past age - to the times of the apostles. Pypers has yet to get general and official recognition for his pioneering work among Muslims and Hindus.

Repressive Laws

When the Cape Muslim Youth Movement (MYM) was formed in District Six in 1957, they objected against the term ‘Malay’ under apartheid conditions. Initially they met in the basement of the Muir Street mosque. Because the movement was perceived by many as overtly politically active and therefore non-Islamic, the young were promptly barred from using the mosque (Tayob, 1995:83). This eventually led to the estrangement of many young people from the main stream of Islam. In a similar way Christian youths were leaving the mainline churches. The youth regarded the church and the mosque as irrelevant to the struggle against apartheid and injustice. The Muir Street mosque regained its stature of resistance when Achmat Cassiem became the imam there. The work of Imam Haron with young people, especially those linked to the Stegman Road mosque in Claremont, redeemed much of the damage in the 1960s, but the lack of visible commitment by the Muslim Judicial Council (MJC) undid almost all his good work.[41] Haron’s overt political agenda - with the religious conviction seeming to take a back seat - possibly made it difficult for the conservative Imams to support him. On the other hand, the MJC was not depicted truthfully by the young radicals. Especially when Shaykh Achmat Behardien led the MJC, there definitely was a rejection of racial segregation. He was quoted as saying in an interview with the Cape Argus: ‘Of course we are anxious about the fate of our mosques and kramats under the Group Areas Act, but the community has not discussed the question of securing guarantees for the holy places in exchange for surrendering the vote on the common roll’ (Van der Ross, 1986:262). But somehow h Behardien’s public utterings appeared to have been not completely unequivocal. Thus a certain Mr. Gallow could claim having the support of Shaykh Behardien - albeit with doubtful justification - for a separate voters roll for the ‘Malays’, fearing that they would be swamped by the Coloured people during elections (Van der Ross, 1986:268).

That Father Bernard Wrankmore, an Anglican priest - and not their own imams - was calling for an inquiry after Haron’s death, was not appreciated by Muslim youth. When many of the Ulema (Muslim clergy) pitched up at Haron’s funeral in September 1969, the young radicals regarded this as a smoke screen. Many of them thought their leaders to be lethargic in respect of the apartheid brutality. Concretely, the Muslim Judicial Council (MJC) was regarded as indifferent with regard to the unjust incarceration and murder of their leader. It was sad that the opposition of the MJC to ‘defiled money ‘ from the Middle East was thus blurred (The MJC initially refused ‘oil revenue’ for the building of mosques in the Cape on grounds of principle. The argument was that the human rights record of the Arab oil states ruled them out as the sponsors of mosques in apartheid South Africa).[42] Just as in the churches, the attitude to apartheid created a major rift in Islam. The radical group Qibla - which was started in 1981 - grew out of this frustration.

Another result of the oppressive apartheid legislation was the significant increase of the Black Consciousness ideology, to which many young people felt drawn to. The apartheid repression played into the hands of the radicals. In almost myopic fashion Qibla and its cronies could exploit these views. They already had their martyrs, e.g. Achmat Cassiem who had been regularly detained. Imam Hassan Solomons fled the government repression before he could be arrested. At this time it was written in a Qibla paper that ‘Jihad is the Islamic paradigm of the liberation struggle’ (Article Arise and Bear Witness, no exact date). In the wake of the Group Areas removals Qibla conveniently quoted the Qur’an for revolutionary purposes. It was quite easy to point out that it was predominantly the people of colour who were ‘those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right’ (Surah 22:39,40). The Qibla radicals gave the young people the impression that licence was given for the armed struggle by the Islamic sacred book. They quoted the Medinan Surah’s one-sidedly, just like the Ayatollah Khomeini had done so successfully in Iran, e.g. ‘Fight them until there is no more tumult and oppression.’ (Surah 2:193).[43]

The DRC Church leads the Pack in Muslim Outreach

A witness group was started in Stellenbosch in the mid 1960s, reaching out fruitfully to the Muslims of Idas Valley, the ‘Coloured’ residential area. According to the racial group areas, which were by this time firmly entrenched or implemented, Cape Muslims were linked up with the Coloureds. Bo-Kaap and Macassar were exceptions to the rule. Indian Muslims were lumped with Indian Hindu’s in Rylands Estate, Cravenby and Pelican Park.

The group of ‘Coloured’ churches called the ‘ring’ (circuit) of Wynberg, stretching from Retreat to Cape Town at that time, decided to give a bigger responsibility to the churches to witness to the Moslems and Hindus. Ds. Davie Pypers played a major role to make the Sendingkerk sensitive towards outreach to the Muslims. At a session of one of their Circuits in October 1963, Pypers might have shocked some of the indifferent pastors by mentioning that 30-38% of the 60,000 Muslims at the Cape belonged to one or other Christian church.[44]

A notable achievement of the work of Pypers at the ‘Coloured’ church S.A. Gestig in Long Street was when one of his former congregants, Lizzie Cloete, came to the conviction in 1964 that the Lord called her for the spreading of the Gospel to the Muslims (Els, 1971:432). As a church worker in the congregation of Wynberg she thus became one of the first full-time missionaries to the Cape Muslims from the ‘Coloured’ community[45], but it was not seen that way by the church at large. She was just regarded as a church worker, but her consecration on 17 May 1964 was a landmark for the ‘Coloured’ sector of Dutch Reformed Church. The Sendingkerk synod hereafter stated that they did not only want to send individual missionaries, they wanted to be a missionary church: ‘elke lidmaat - die ganse kerk!... In plaas van sendelinge, moet die kerk in aksie wees’.

Ds. Chris Greyling had in the meantime been appointed as the first mission organiser of the ‘Sendingkerk’, with a special charge to reach out to the Muslims. The synod of 1966 of the ‘Coloured’ church took the decision to become a ‘sending church’. Evangelist Izak van der Vyver, who operated in Philippi, was very sad when one of their church workers, trained as a social worker, married a Muslim in May 1974. He wrote one of the first pamphlets in Afrikaans: ‘Wat dit beteken as ‘n Christen Moslem (Slams) word.’ (‘What it means when a Christian becomes a Muslim’.) He was not the only one in the church who was upset. The church organ published a full issue in August 1974 on Islam, with contributions from him, Ds. Chris Greyling and Prof. Pieter Els.

The tract of Van der Vyver ‘oombliklik gered’ apparently made quite an impact in the ‘Coloured’ community. Van der Vyver and Greyling’s main strategy was the training of church members, empowering them to reach out to their peers in schools, neighbourhoods and factories. Apart from the occasional outreach to Muslims, the emphasis was on preventing their church members to marry Muslims, ignorant of the problems that would follow. The other facet of their work was winning back those who had become disillusioned. A ‘getuienisaksie’ (witness action) team from the Lentegeur congregation of the Sendingkerk, with Isobel Fenton a long-standing faithful member, advised many young girls, who had become pregnant from Muslim men. Their efforts were often crowned with success when the girls in question discovered that the church did not condemn them outright. Likewise quite a few women of their congregation, who had been divorced from Muslim men, returned to the Christian fold.

One area where there was a drive for missionary outreach was among students. The bulk of the CSV work was carried by that denomination where Rev. Nic Apollis was the itinerant secretary, followed by Chris Wessels from the Moravian Church. One of their young Sendingkerk dominees, Esau Jacobs, who started off in the Transkei, had a definite vision to reach out to the Muslims. He inspired many a young student. At the student evangelistic outreach he exposed the participants to ‘spiritual warfare’ when he joined the group on New Year Day, 1965. In the outreach to Muslims some of them heard about prayer and fasting for the first time.

‘Malay Quarter’ saved

Religious Dialogue

All reports seem to confirm that Reverend (Eerwaarde) A.J. Liebenberg was well received by the Muslims and he co-operated well with the Anglican Muslim outreach work under Rev. A. W. Blaxall’s leadership in the 1920s. Liebenberg apparently had little support from his church in his endeavour to co-operate with other denominations. In the outreach to the Muslims both the missionaries and churches were clearly only intent on empire building. A certain Mr. Hope, a converted Muslim, left the Dutch Reformed Church to join the City Mission, most probably because of this attitude (Haasbroek, 1955:114). Four times Liebenberg was allowed to address the Cape Malay Association, and he visited 17 ‘hogere priesters’. [46] Through the reading room on the corner of Bree and Shortmarket Street in the old Bo-Kaap, Liebenberg made significant impact on the Muslim community. His Dutch Reformed colleagues were however not happy that Liebenberg accepted all sorts of invitations - ‘selfs as dit in ‘n moskee gehou word.’ The impression gained by his church colleagues was that the Muslims were abusing these occasions and that the ‘Coloured’ press was under the control of the Muslims. There may have been some truth in the allegation, but jealousy definitely also played a role, as it also happened with Reverend Vogelgezang in the 19th century.

In his own denomination, the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), Liebenberg seems to have been merely used to prop up the strained relations to St. Stephen’s. In the sub-commission of the mission work he basically got some understanding, e.g. for the reality that it was impossible to do both pastoral work at St. Stephen’s and to reach out to the Muslims. But even within the sub-commission there was opposition to his work in the latter part of his term. Thus the chairman e.g. apparently had problems with the costs for ‘hierdie ontmoedigende werk’. [47] Sarcastically this speaker enquired after any fruit of the work. Liebenberg’s reply said it all: There had been a big change in the attitude of the Muslims towards him. He was possibly more interested in winning the Muslims to follow Jesus than to bring them to his church. The latter result was what the church was apparently hoping for.

The missionary Work among Cape Indian Muslims

Pieter Els (later he became professor of Old Testament at UWC) soon joined the Muslim outreach effort with Ds. Davie Pypers in Rylands. There Reverend Edward Mannikam was the first from the Indian community to be given leadership responsibility in a church.

In the mid 1970s the mission effort to the Muslims at the Cape got a big push through the pioneering work of the German missionary Gerhard Nehls, who laboured hard for many years without seeing much in terms of fruit or local recognition. Nehls started with regular outreach to Muslims in Salt River in 1980 (see also p. ??). Support from the churches was almost non-existent at the time. In fact, in general they were indifferent to Muslim outreach. Even denominations that had a vision for evangelism like the Docks Mission and the City Mission hardly had an eye for the Muslims on their door-step. Suburbs like Woodstock and Salt River became increasingly Islamic, apparently because of the indifference of the churches Prostitution and drug abuse were the other major factors that pushed Christians out of these areas.

Life Challenge and the initiative from the Dutch Reformed Church seemed to co-operate quite well, especially while Ds. Chris Greyling was still the Sendingkerk man. Neville Truter became a co-worker from DRC ranks after a tract, which was given to him by Gerhard Nehls at the sale of his car in 1976, had touched him. Truter was thrown into the deep end when he was requested to arrange an appointment for Gerhard Nehls and Walter Gschwandter with the imam of a mosque in Cravenby near Parow. Hereafter, Truter teamed up with Pieter Els, as they joined forces for many years in that Indian residential area. Els had returned from the Indian University of Durban-Westville in 1973 to lecture in Old Testament at the University of the Western Cape. Professor Els immediately picked up the threads of his student days in the Muslim Outreach. Neville Truter became an affiliate worker of SIM after his retirement from secular work. (To-day he is easily the longest-serving of all the present co-workers in the Cape Peninsula.[48]) Jurie Goosen joined the Life Challenge outreach team after he had just finished his theological studies in 1984 and later he became a missionary of the denomination, linked to the Helderberg congregation in Somerset West in 1989.

The Impact of the Apartheid Ideology on the DRC Church

The Apartheid ideology influenced the whole of South African society. The Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), the denomination with a big vision for mission and evangelism till well into the 1960s, was adversely affected by the racist ideology more than any other denomination. It is very sad to note that the race policy of the government slowly but surely killed the promising beginnings of the outreach to the Muslims of the early 1960s. It brought this church into almost complete isolation and it also tainted her mission policy. Ds. Davie Pypers was understood to minister to the Indians in the 1960s as an entity. Thus he was expected not to concentrate solely on either the Muslims or the Hindus as an unreached religious grouping. Ds. Greyling was an exception in this regard when he understood his predominant role to minister directly and indirectly to Muslims. (However, he was simultaneously minister of the Sendingkerk in Wynberg.)

When Rev. Greyling moved to the University of the Western Cape as lecturer in Biblical Studies in 1977, it was indicative of the Sendingkerk, losing its sharp edge with regard to outreach to the Muslims. Unintentionally Greyling thus got into the same ‘trap’ as Prof. Gerdener decades before him, later becoming a respected Professor of Religious Science at the Indian University of Durban-Westville.

Dr. Henry Dwyer, who died in July 1998, started his ministry in District Six and Bo-Kaap, with the definite intention of also reaching out to Muslims. He was scheduled for further studies in Lebanon when war broke out in that country. He still went to study Islamics and Muslim Evangelism in Birmingham, but after completing a doctorate in the social sciences, Dwyer eventually ended up as hospital chaplain on behalf of his church, with hardly any ministry to Muslims. Nevertheless, although the changes in South Africa after 1994 made it increasingly difficult for any Christian pastor to minister to people of other faiths, Dwyer did share his faith in an unthreatening and loving way to many a Muslim. Restructuring in his denomination due to financial constraints included the scrapping of his post.

Mission Responsibility delegated

The impression gained is that the Sendingkerk almost completely lost its vision to reach out to the Muslims in the late 1970s and 1980s: the opposition to apartheid seemed to have become the major cause to pursue. The ‘Coloured’ sector of the DRC got caught up in the struggle against apartheid, led by Dr. Allan Boesak after his return from Holland in 1977. The perception was created that their outreach to the Muslims had stopped or at best that they delegated their responsibility to Rev. Paul Manne from Frontier Life Ministries. Manne, an Indian with Buddhist and Hindu roots, was already ministering to Hindu’s when Gerhard Nehls staged a seven-week seminar in Mitchells Plain in 1981. Manne hereafter started working as a Muslim co-worker with the Life Challenge team of Gerhard Nehls, operating in the (then) new ‘Coloured’ townships of Lentegeur and Westridge. Valued work continued in the DRC church where parishioners were trained to minister to those church members who married Muslims or contemplated doing it. In the process they also reached out to Muslims, not without success. In 1983 Manne was asked by the Sendingkerk to be their man. Manne’s own outreach in Mitchells Plain became increasingly less when he became more of an itinerant evangelist to different parts of the world in the late 1990s. But he became a blessing to churches in Kenya, Tanzania, Australia and New Zealand, as he got involved in the training of believers. Thus Arab-speaking Christians in Australia got trained by him in Muslim Evangelism. The Sendingkerk had by this time lost much of its missionary impetus. There was no structured or formal outreach to Muslims after Paul Manne left for Australia.

The White DRC, arguably the most influential denomination in the country till 1990, had developed a mission policy that was tainted by apartheid thinking. The mission to Muslims and Hindus was respectively given to the ‘Coloured’ and Indian sectors of the church. A lone exception was the unique St. Stephen’s Church. A Lutheran and a Presbyterian minister had started this historic congregation as a non-denominational institution for the freed slaves in 1843. Later - in 1857 - this ‘Coloured’ congregation was linked to the White DRC synod. In the 20th century two ministers connected to that church were known to have had a heart for the Muslims, viz. P.S. Latsky (1930-55, 61-68) and Davie Pypers (1956-60). Latsky studied at the renowned Princeton University in the USA under the well-known Dr. Samuel Zwemer.[49] Latsky and Pypers had the odds heavily stacked against them because they were operating as Afrikaners at a time when the Muslims increasingly hated the apartheid ideology. The links of the church to the apartheid government must have been like an albatross around their necks. (In all its history, St. Stephen’s always had a White pastor.) They were in this way of course hampered in their credibility; coming from Afrikaner stock.[50] Nevertheless, the Bo-Kaap Muslims afforded the hospitality for which they are well-known to them. Not once in his long time of service among the Muslims, Ds. Pypers was never refused entry into a Muslim home.

Estrangement of the DRC ‘daughter’ Churches

The reaction to apartheid estranged the ‘daughter’ churches of the Dutch Reformed Church. Their mission and evangelistic vision decreased drastically. Starting from a biblical premise, viz.that of justice in a sick society and standing with the downtrodden and oppressed, unbiblical values were unfortunately taken on board. Resentment, bitterness and even hatred of Whites were exonerated and the ethical teachings of Jesus like love and forgiveness got a backseat. This spiralled after the return of Dr. Allan Boesak from Holland in 1977. Young people were susceptible to the revolutionary language, e.g. that of the Kairos document. Some may have been ‘saved’ for the church, because up to that point in time many of the younger generation were drifting away from Christian ranks. Unfortunately many were poisoned in the process with racial resentment or even hatred.

Some pastors of colour seem to have concluded that the final answers in theological matters had to come from abroad. This was also linked to academic studies with a sad deduction created. The impression gained ground that the better pastor is the theologian who studied overseas. Although severely restricted by the government - with strict orders to speak only to one person at a time - Dr. Beyers Naudé set up an infrastructure for Dutch Reformed ministers of colour to study in Holland. The contribution of the far-sighted Professor Verkuyl, who had been a missionary in Indonesia - a predominantly Muslim country - was pivotal in this project. Verkuyl’s booklet Breek de Muren af had set the tone that all walls of partition must be broken down. However, the impression was spread that the opposition to apartheid - and not the spreading of the Gospel - seemed to dominate the thinking of these revered theologians.

Casualties from Overseas’ Studies

The brilliant Rev. Esau Jacobs became a personal role model of evangelical zeal to many young people in the late 1960s, the author included. Jacobs all but completed his M.Th. on an Islamic subject at the University of the Western Cape. However, when he left South Africa in 1981 to study in Holland, he was hereafter (mis)guided to finish his ‘doctoraal’, the Dutch stepping stone to a full doctorate, with a dissertation on a topic in liberation theology in stead of his original intention, to do it in Islamics. This was doubly tragic because his professor and mentor, Anton Wessels - the successor of Verkuyl at the Free University of Amsterdam - who had taught in Lebanon before he returned to his home country, was known to be an Islamic scholar of repute.

On his return to South Africa, Ds. Esau (Jakes) Jacobs did well not to succumb to the temptation of the academic world after he had been offered a lecturing post respectively at UNISA (University of South Africa) in Pretoria and at a university in Beirut, Lebanon. When Jacobs took up a call to pastor a congregation in Wellington, he however fell into another trap. He did not discern enough between church planting and church building. Jacobs was soon bogged down to all intents and purposes by the building of a big church. His interest in the missions to the Muslims had decreased significantly. Jacobs did mention to the author that he wanted to return to the mission to the Muslims after his retirement at the end of 1998. That was not to be. He died in May 1997 after he had suffered a stroke.

The Involvement of the Indian Sector of the DRC

The Indian sector of the Dutch Reformed Reformed Church had a casualty along similar lines when their prodigy, Shun Govender, went to study in Holland. Other circumstances further hampered the little spark that there was in this sector of the denomination to reach out to Islam and Hinduism. The political involvement of Rev. Mannikam when he joined the Indian council - their former minister in Rylands Estate - became quite an embarrassment to many Indian believers and to the Church at large. As a result the Indian Reformed Church thus went through a painful process in the wake of the opposition to the race policies of the country. Two of its congregations seceded to the Uniting Reformed Church. It seems as if this part of the denomination came through the race struggle not too badly scathed. After the trauma some members eventually found back to their former evangelical fervour.[51] At the Cape however, the Rylands Estate congregation still has to recover to its former glory.

There were also positives happening in spite of the apartheid deficiencies. Thus Ds. Pypers witnessed three missionaries going forth from his work. All three of them - Geetha Sunker, Tiny Kuppen and Bhim Singh - joined the mission agency WEC, with Sunker doing wonderful pioneering work respectively in England and among Indians and Kuppen among Catholics and drug addicts in Spain. In the case of Bhim Singh, he became the field leader in Fiji.

Ministers were side tracked from the difficult outreach to Muslims, but there was yet another facet to problems around the calling of pastors. At a time when so many of the better paid occupations were reserved for Whites by law, the Sendingkerk pastorate drew uncommitted men, e.g. those who were after status and a secure salary structure. Around the globe this has been a problem, but here in South Africa it was aggravated by the racial policies. The net result of these developments is that the DRC, once the leading evangelical and most mission-minded church in the country, got far removed from the promising start under Dr. Andrew Murray at the beginning of the 20th century.

The Side-tracking of Ministers of Religion

Also other denominations became politicised because of the apartheid policy. The Gospel got a back seat and Communism became increasingly popular as a result of it. The support of e.g. the churches in Holland for the ANC, which was regarded as closely linked to Communism, did not go unnoticed at the Cape.

Only in the second half of the 1990s a marked increase of missionaries to Muslim countries can be discerned, also from South Africa, albeit that the vast majority of these workers do not work overtly as such. This move happened mainly outside the mainline churches through the faith missions, in the wake of the growth of the Inter-faith movement, which had its base in those churches linked to the South African Council of Churches. Through the influence of its ‘mother’, the WCC, all religions are supposed to co-exist and dialogue entered into. No conversions to Christ are expected to ensue from such dialogue. In the meantime Muslims made big inroads especially in the ‘Coloured’ community. The deception of Islam still has to be seen, let alone spelt out.

The necessary guidance at tertiary theological institutions of the Western Cape, e.g. towards the evangelisation of the Cape Muslims, the major unreached people group on their doorstep, was well-nigh completely absent. Little has changed in this regard, but some Bible Schools started including Muslim Evangelism in their curriculum towards the end of the millennium.

Ironically, apartheid also played a role in the conversion of people. An ex-Muslim who preferred to remain anonymous for many years, became a Communist after his family had been evicted from Mowbray to Bonteheuwel. Later he fled to London where he got addicted to drugs. He was finally set free from the addiction through faith in Jesus.

The political involvement in politics of the Reverends Chris April and Alan Hendricks had a negative effect among the ‘Coloured’ population, however to a much lesser extent than was the case with Rev. Mannikam among the Indians. (Somehow it had been conveniently ignored in the 1960s and 1970s that the ruling National Party also had dominees very high up in the party hierarchy, notably the first National Party Prime Minister, Dr. Daniel Francois Malan. Dr. Andries Treurnicht and Dr. Davie de Villiers were cabinet ministers and former dominees in the last years of the National Party regime.) The net result was nevertheless that the politics of the country effectively blunted the promising missionary edge that Dr. Andrew Murray had initiated at the beginning of the century. As we have stated, Murray himself had actually sowed unfortunate seed - the a-political side of pietism.

Political Tones overshadow the prophetic Position

In the CI (Christian Institute), which was started by Rev. Beyers Naudé, the political tones overshadowed the initial prophetic position. When Cedric Mayson and Horst Kleinschmidt led the operations of the CI, the organisation had become a completely different from the original movement where Bible Studies had been in the centre of its activities. Any interest in Muslim evangelism – in any evangelism for that matter – disappeared to the fringes. This evolution was typical of many a basically evangelical anti-apartheid fighter who still had a heart for Muslims. Some of them became embittered as they saw how the apartheid system dehumanised people.[52]

A set-back in the form of a Muslim backlash threatened in the late1980s after Ds. Zevenster (a minister from the Afrikaanse Gereformeerde Kerk), called for a boycott of all hallal products - or alternately displayed the Islamic crescent - as an indication that food-stuffs could be consumed by Muslims. (His denomination was started when dissenters were unhappy because the Dutch Reformed Church started moving away from racial discrimination on 1986.) Professor Els reacted quickly in the Kerkbode, to bring things back to normal in the deteriorating Christian-Muslim relations.

Detours due to Apartheid

In the case of Richard Mitchell, a pastor of the Full Gospel Church, there was quite a detour. He started off as a Hindu, who saw apartheid as a figment of the imagination of Christians and their ‘white god’. Mitchell became embittered into hatred of Whites when he saw his family evicted. Subsequently he got involved in the ‘struggle’, landing in prison because of these activities. There he first turned to Islam and finally he met the living Jesus.

A Muslim Social Work student, Nabunisa Benjamin, was touched by the commitment of Professor Geyser at the University of Witwatersrand in the late 1960s. This was the first time she experienced a White Afrikaner in opposition to the resented apartheid ideology. When their new neighbour, the Moravian pastor Chris Wessels, showed determination and concern for the downtrodden, she opened up to his friendship and to his ultimate marriage proposal. The persecution they now experienced from her family prepared her and her husband for abuse and imprisonment later when they cared for the families of political prisoners.

Outreach by the Anglican Churches

Even though the anti-apartheid lobby had not been as strong at the Cape as had been the case in the late seventies and eighties, District Six and Bo-Kaap were definitely the leading lights in the (new) Unity movement and in the opposition to White domination. In spite of the deficiencies of the Church at the Cape, Islam was a spent force at the Cape in the early 1960s.

The only other denomination to demonstrate overt some corporate concern to minister to the Muslims to my knowledge in the 20the century was the Church of the Province. Worldwide indifference had been quite common with regard to Muslims. The Anglicans brought out a report already in 1926 with a great sense of urgency: ‘The Christian message to the Mohammedans is vital to the fulfilment of the Church... it cannot be postponed’ (Donaldson, 1926:71). It does not seem as if the denomination acted upon this call. Not much is known about the work among the Muslims of Rev. Garabedian, an American missionary who came to Cape Town in 1912, Rev. Blaxall or a certain Miss Leslie on behalf of this denomination. Rev. Blaxall did write an article An Outpost of Islam in the December 1927 edition of The Mission Field to stimulate interest in the work. This article was reprinted in Mission to Moslems in 1936.

When Rev. (later Bishop) George Schwarz approached Archbishop Joost de Blank in 1959 after he had encountered a pastoral problem - he was told that Miss Leslie would be retiring soon. (One of Schwarz’s parishioners had become pregnant from a Muslim patient at the Brooklyn Chest Hospital.) Schwarz sensed a calling to the Muslim work at a ministers’ retreat in 1960, after which he was given a special appointment as full-time priest for the Mission to the Muslims. In order to be better equipped for this work, he was sent to Canterbury in England, where he was trained for a year at St. Augustine’s by the renowned Bishop Kenneth Cragg. A stint of nine months in Jerusalem to minister among Arab Christians was intended to make him acquainted with the Middle East setting.

Back in Cape Town, Schwarz was linked to the St. Mark’s parish in Athlone with the full-time charge of ministering to Muslims in the whole diocese of the Mother City. His work centred on the counselling of marriages or others where a marriage was intended, with the one party a Muslim. Soon the archbishop approached him to move to the parish of St. Philip’s in District Six in a caretaker capacity. Schwarz’s view was respected when he objected that he would not have enough time for the Muslim outreach. When someone else suggested to Schwarz that the church there was dying and that he would not have much to do there, that he would be able to continue with the ministry to Muslims, he succumbed. Thus he moved to St. Philip’s, still in 1963. Here he also conducted seminars for the whole diocese. For seven years Rev. Schwarz laboured in District Six but increasingly the parochial responsibilities devoured his attention. By 1970, in his own words, 90% of his time was devoted to parish work. In that year he was called to take charge of the parish in Bonteheuwel. This became the end of all formal Muslim outreach by the denomination to all intents and purposes.

Bishop Kenneth Cragg changed the official tag of the Mission to the Muslims after a visit to the Mother City when he suggested a less aggressive name. It became the Board of Muslim Relationships. The work itself petered out to become almost non-existent in the late 1980s.

The well-known evangelistic St. James Church of Kenilworth from the doctrinally related denomination - the Church of England in South Africa - was not surprisingly also getting involved with Muslim outreach. This happened through workers in the Lansdowne area and later with a team under the leadership of John Higson in Salt River. After the Uniting Reformed Church of Lansdowne had been (possibly PAGAD-relatedly) arsonised in 1996, one of their church halls became the venue for the combined SIM\WEC teaching course ‘Love your Muslim neighbour’. Hereafter the interest of the denomination in Muslim Outreach fizzled down to a few individuals. After the moving of their teaching facility, the George Whitefield Bible College to Muizenberg, there were signs of an increase in mission involvement to the Islamic world. This was given a stimulus in 1999 when two students joined the course that have had exposure to Islamic countries. The one had a link to WEC Internatonal and the other to MECO (Middle East Christian Outreach).

Into the 21^st century the good tradition of St. James congregation of Kenilworth with awareness for Muslim Outreach in the area was kept alive via various church members, including Martin Wortley and Judy Tao, a Taiwanese church member. Judy went on get a doctor’s degree to at Stellenbosch University as one of the first of many foreign students to graduate there.

Muslim Outreach of the Baptist Church

Of the other mainline churches the Baptist Church was involved the most in the evangelistic outreach in Bo-Kaap and District Six. The outreach work was not targeting the Muslims as such, but many were reached in that way. Muslim parents sent their children to the Sunday School and Wayside work as a matter of course. The church building in Jarvis Street was situated in the old Bo-Kaap. This church and the one in Sheppard Street were linked to the Cape Town mother church in Wale Street, which also had its own wayside outreach in Helliger Street, in the middle of the traditional ‘Malay Quarter’. Many a Cape Muslim of an older generation still knows the choruses and songs that they had learnt there. In 1998 the 97-year old Mr. Noel Rowland still vividly remembered how they reached out in Sheppard Street and an elderly Muslim lady recognised Iris Forgus and Freda Anthony as two of the children’s workers in Bo-Kaap.

The denomination got its first ‘Coloured’ missionary to the Muslim World more by ‘chance’. When Julia Forgus studied as the first ‘Coloured’ person at the Johannesburg Bible Institute - and a lady to boot - the denomination did not know what to do with her. In the 1950s nobody expected missionaries to come from the non-white racial groups. When a new visa was refused to Judith Morck - who had worked as a WEC missionary in India - Julia Forgus was asked to join her to help with the setting up of work among Indians on behalf of the Baptist Church in Natal. In December 1960 she left for Durban, where she ministered to Muslims and Hindu’s for many years.

The interest in Muslims was revived in a special way when one of the members of the denomination, Josephine Jacobs, who had been a ‘pilgrim’ of the Africa Evangelistic Band, married Adiel Adams, a convert from Islam. Josephine’s sister Naomi was married to Angelo Scheepers, who became the regional co-ordinator of the Western Province Baptist Association.

At the Cape Town congregation a few believers, including Hendrina van der Merwe, as faithful prayer warrior, prayed when outreach groups would go to Muslim areas like Bo-Kaap, Walmer Estate and Woodstock.

As a denomination the Baptist Church showed clear interest in the ministry to Muslim in 1993. Rosemarie and I were approached by the denomination’s Western Cape Mission Commission to go and minister and live in Mitchells Plain. We were however at that time still very much committed to low profile ministry in Bo-Kaap and Hanover Park. However, we joined their Orange Street congregation when we understood that Heidi Pasques and her husband Louis, the student leader of the Tamboerskloof section of the fellowship, showed interest in Muslim outreach.

The denomination as such kept interest through the Western Cape co-ordinator, Reverend Angelo Scheepers. He approached us again, this time to start a church planting project in Bo-Kaap. (The Baptist Church had lost its building in Jarvis Street in the Muslim residential area through the apartheid removals. The minister of the city congregation in Orange Street at that time, Rev. Graham Gernetsky, was also very much interested in the project.) We were asked to share our vision to church members at a mission prayer meeting. The congregation was however not ready yet for our suggestion to befriend people from the different culture in Bo-Kaap.

A week long mission week cum training course in 1994 with a few theological students of the denomination with Bobby Maynard and me as lecturers did sow seeds, especially into the heart of Louis Pasques who was finishing his studies at the Baptist Bible Seminary. These seeds germinated when Pasques started to pray for church unity in the city Bowl in 1995. (After a major split in the congregation, Louis Pasques became the senior pastor of the church.)

The ideas of the early 1990s started to expand at the end of the century. A special relationship developed with the new church administrator, Alan Kay, who had left his work at Telkom for this purpose. Rosemarie and I joined the home ministry at Alan’s home very near to where we live. Simultaneously Louis Pasques started to attend our regular Friday prayer meetings at the Shepherd’s Watch in Shortmarket Street.

The Baptist congregation of Westridge in Mitchells Plain has a long relationship to SIM, especially through Orlando Suarez, a Mozambican national who studied at the Baptist Seminary. Her served in that congregation after completion of his studies, leading a Muslim Outreach team until he was requested to leave the country in 1998 in the wake of the operation to get rid of foreigners, which were regarded as redundant. Bob and Viccie Williamson, a Southern Baptists couple from the USA, who were recruited to assist the Baptist churches in the Mitchells Plain area, joined this congregation. They soon got involved with the care of the Muslim converts, working closely with Arina Serdyn, a local worker who had operated at different stages with WEC and TEAM missionaries.

Instead of church planting in Bo-Kaap (on behalf of the Baptist Church) Friendship Ministries evolved out of the meeting in our home in Vredehoek in 1994. The intention from the start was that converts from Islam should get leadership responsibility. Adiel Adams became an early leader. He and his wife had been hosting a WEC prayer group in Mitchells Plain at that time.

The interest of the Baptist Church as a denomination waned when the leadership of the newly formed Friendship Ministries made it clear that the group did not want to be linked to only one denomination (Rosemarie and I had also made it clear that we were not interested in a church planting effort in Bo-Kaap that would be limited to the Baptist Church). Rev. Graham Gernetsky and his successor Rev. Louis Pasques both had a heart for Bo-Kaap, which is situated so to speak on the doorstep of the church. The members of the Cape Town church however hardly got involved.

Outreach of other Denominations

Other denominations hardly had any vision to challenge the Muslims with the Gospel. Whatever there was in terms of outreach, was either completely incidental or by individuals from some churches or through mission schools in District Six and Bo-Kaap. Female teacher trainees from Islamic background continued to be challenged at the church institutions of Zonnebloem, Wesley and Battswood till well into the 1990s.

Nevertheless, the church schools saved the day for the denominational mission work. Thus the Zinzendorf Moravian Primary School in Arundel Street (District Six) and the St. Paul’s institution in Bo-Kaap were guarantors for quality education. Many Muslims preferred these schools even to the Muslim mission institutions like Rachmanya - which was named after Dr. Abdurahman - in District Six. Whereas the denominational schools gave a sound biblical knowledge to many a Muslim, the omission of a challenge towards a personal relationship with God was unfortunately also part and parcel of the message imparted. Nevertheless, valuable Gospel seed was sown at the church education institutions. At least one converts apiece from Islam were significantly influenced while they attended the Wesley and Batswood Teacher Training Colleges. The institutions in Salt River and Wynberg were respectively linked to the Methodist and Dutch Reformed Church.

Cape Town has seen at least one fellowship where a close co-operation with mission work was the vogue from its inception. After Pastor Alfred West had been turned down for mission service, he got involved with local evangelistic work in Kensington. The Blignaut family became the core around which this effort operated. The Emmanuel Mission Church was exemplary as it gave the bulk of the tithes to missions over many years. This was only scaled down in the period when the fellowship erected a building in Bishop Lavis. In the wake of the expected removal of ‘Coloured’ people from Maitland/Kensington, the evangelistic focus of the church was moved to Bonteheuwel and Bishop Lavis Township. The outreach effort to the down and outs included the ministry to gangsters and Muslims. One of the converted gangsters, Percy Jeftha, later became a pastor himself. The prayerful presence and campaigns of this fellowship prevented a crisis situation from going over into anarchy in Bonteheuwel in the 1980s. The link to mission agencies and Muslim outreach was continued when David Jun, a Korean missionary who was also an SIM co-worker, led a teaching course at the Bishop Lavis fellowship in the mid-1990s.

Those churches, which were regarded as sects, were nevertheless challenging the people in different places. Here the real mission work was being done, e.g. with Wayside children’s work. Gospel seed was sown into the likes of the late Achmat Davids, who died in September 1998. Davids led the spirit of tolerance at Radio Voice of the Cape, something that he had learnt in his childhood days and in his youth. The Docks Mission and the City Mission, along with the Scottish missionary Pastor Gay at Bethany (District Six), were reaching many Cape Muslims with the Gospel in ways, which had their roots in the British revivals of the 19th century. Also the Salvation Army played a significant role, along with many street and train preachers down the years. Many - including scores of Cape Muslims - heard the undiluted Gospel clearly for the first time at open-air services. The Grand Parade played a prominent role in these evangelistic efforts. Local evangelists like James Valentine and George McGregor thus became household names among the ‘Coloured’ population throughout the Peninsula for this reason.

Down the years some of the train preachers have been very insensitive and sometimes even abusive in their speaking about Cape Muslims.

Johnnie Louw, the principal of the AFM (Apostolic Faith Mission) Seminary for ‘Coloureds’ at Sarepta, a part of Kuils River, had a heart for the Muslims. After his retirement he set about getting a few Afrikaans-speaking missionaries among Muslims to write a chapter each for a basic booklet on Muslim Evangelism. The booklet was subsequently translated into English and distributed in many countries under the title Share your Faith with Muslims.

Children’s Ministries

The Cape Town City Mission started its compassionate outreach to the poor and needy of District Six at the beginning of the 20th century. Their buildings in Aspeling Street and Smart Street both definitely had an evangelistic component, hosting events like the Band of Hope. This children’s club, which propagated abstention from alcoholic beverages, logically always had a good relationship to the Muslim neighbourhood.

Low-key Christian service, which was non-threatening to people of other faiths, brought credibility to the Gospel in District Six and Bo-Kaap. Johanna van Zyl ministered in this capacity at St. Stephen’s for over 25 years in the latter residential area. SIM missionaries like Christel Gschwandter made their mark in this regard in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Problematic Missionary Methods

The methods to approach the Muslims with the Gospel were not always very functional. Evangelism at the Cape has been characterised by methods that boil down to cultural imperialism, sometimes insensitively approaching the Cape Muslims and occasionally arrogantly offending them. Even in cases where the missionaries were living among the Muslims, e.g. Moravian Hill in District Six, these residences were like foreign islands.

The Moravians, to whom many historians referred as the pioneers of modern missions, did not have a happy run among the Muslims at the Cape. In fact, the spadework of this church in the city was not done by the German missionaries, but by church members who came from the mission stations like Genadendal and Elim. Their interest was however limited to gathering the members of their church in the city. These people had no vision to reach out with the Gospel to other people, let alone to the Muslims. The work on the mission stations themselves deteriorated to a situation where the Moravian members more or less merely longed for the continuation of cherished traditions like the commemoration of the revival in Herrnhut in 1727. A similar story can be told about other denominations that started with mission stations on the countryside.

We should be compassionate towards so many of the European missionaries themselves who had been the product of a watered-down teaching of the Gospel. Terms like ‘conversion’ were regarded with scorn till the 1960s. The Baptist Church, with buildings in Sheppard Street (District Six) and Jarvis Street (Bo-Kaap), were regarded by many in the mainline churches as sectarian for this very reason.

Various evangelistic campaigns, e.g. by Edwin Orr in the Old Drill Hall, also attracted Muslims. It seems that the practice of a lack of proper follow-up - including those Muslims who may have been influenced by these campaigns, was standard practice. The Keswick movement that emphasised holy living, hardly touched the lives of Christians from the races other than White. The apartheid society had its negative traces where people of colour were occasionally even turned away from events at ‘White’ venues. [53]

After the passing of the Group Areas Act by Parliament in 1950, ‘Coloured’ communities living around the centre of the Cape Town central business district were destroyed one after the other. The opposition to this legislation did not function however as a rallying point against the so-called Christian government. In stead, it contributed to the spread of Islam to the new townships in the Cape Flats. Greyling refers in this regard to ‘the image which developed among the Coloureds of the involvement of the Afrikaans churches with the policy of racial segregation.[54] In fact, he says - and it would not be very difficult to substantiate it - that the frustrations of the broader ‘Coloured’ community caused many Coloureds to switch to Islam. This definitely happened in Kensington where embittered nominal Christians turned to Islam while they feared the pending Group Area axe to chase them to the sands of Bonteheuwel and its environment. Greyling surmised that the increased growth of Islam among Coloureds between 1951 and 1960 (comparing it with the period 1960-1970) should be attributed to the political upheavals of the fifties. The clampdown of the government on all political activity of resistance in the1960s caused fear and a relative indifference in the oppressed communities.

The Revival of Islam

The actual revival of Islam at the Cape started with the dual Group Areas proclamation: District Six as a White residential suburb and Bo-Kaap as a ‘Cape Malay’ pocket. The latter area was since then perceived to be reserved for Cape Muslims, with Christians expected to move out.[55]

Whites came to the rescue of Bo-Kaap once again in the wake of the District Six promulgation in 1966. Given the lead by the ‘Friends of District Six’, a very effective boycott was initiated and lodged for the buying of property in that residential area. This was publicised as blatant theft through the statute book. Hardly anybody - except apartheid protagonists of course - wanted to be party to that. Not even the undermining of the sale of property to the ACVV (the women’s guild of the Dutch Reformed Church) for the use of an old age home now called Zonnebloem could thwart the boycott. It had repercussions in Holland when Shell - the multinational petrol company with its links to the Dutch royal house - wanted to build a filling station in District Six. [56] In Holland Shell was boycotted - with church groups in the front line of the battle. Radicals went to quite great extremes like cutting hoses at petrol service stations.

Cabinet minister Blaar Coetzee and his cronies of ‘Community Development’ were already busy with the buying up of property in Walmer Estate when the government of the day got a fright through the effect of the District Six boycott. Bo-Kaap with its excellent views and proximity to the CBD would surely have followed suit if the government had its way in District Six and Walmer Estate - to be declared a White residential area. Muslim entrepreneurs sensed the chance of making big profits in Walmer Estate. This resulted in the previously out and out Christian suburb becoming Islamic although it still has only one mosque.

The growth of Islam of the 1950s was easily eclipsed by that of the three decades after 1970. The combined effect of the Group Areas legislation and other repressive laws, passed by the perceived Christian government, boiled down to a major boon to the spread of Islam. In 1966 District Six was declared a White residential area and the Bo-Kaap above Buitengracht Street became reserved for ‘Cape Malays’.

The late Dr. Achmat Davids - and with him surely many Christians and Muslims who lived side by side in Bo-Kaap - felt very strongly about the destruction of harmonious relations of mutual tolerance between Muslims and Christians through the implementation of the Group Areas Act, when Christians had to move out of the Bo-Kaap area. The residential area of Bo-Kaap, which was changed in this way, now became completely Islamic inluding sctions that had been almost exclusively Christian. Those churches below Buitengracht Street, which chose to stay put, viz. St.Paul’s (Anglican) and St. Stephen’s (DRC), merely survived. Their members hereafter often had to travel great distances to attend services.

The removal of many Muslims from the old District Six was a big blow to Islam, but it served to spread the religion to other suburbs in the course of time. In parts of Athlone, notably Surrey Estate and Rylands Estate, big Muslim communities developed. Many new mosques were built over the years as the Muslims progressively bought up property. The Group Areas legislation contributed probably more to the geographical spread of Islam in the Cape than any other factor. In the 1950s Muslims were still living in a concentrated area, in District Six and a small part of the old Bo-Kaap.

Correction and Aid from Abroad

With the focus of so many church leaders on the government’s policy of yesteryear - either defence or opposition to apartheid - correction was definitely needed. Even the evangelical churches had no eye for the Muslims in their midst. The unspoken tradition that one should not speak to Muslims about religion, won the day. A void was left in the Christian outreach to Cape (Coloured) Muslims after Ds. Davie Pypers had gone to the Indian suburb of Rylands Estate in 1967 and even more so when Ds. Chris Greyling became an academic. The move of Anglican Bishop George Schwarz from the parish of St. Philips to Bonteheuwel in 1970 deprived Islam virtually of a clear missionary challenge. Occasional outreach efforts by Pastor Gay at Bethany (District Six) and Bo-Kaap made little impact on Cape Islam. Together with the lack of missionary activity of other ‘Coloured’ churhes, the limited outreach to Cape Muslims did not appear to have any effect.

Help from abroad was needed and it came as an answer to prayer. In England prayers had been offered for many years. These prayers for the ‘Cape Malays’ - as the Cape Muslims were erroneously called - came into focus after the publication of an article about South African Muslims in 1925 in the Muslim World, by Dr. Samuel Zwemer. (He was arguably the greatest missionary of all time to the Middle East.) It seems that his challenge to the Keswick Convention in England about ten years earlier spawned prayer for the Cape Muslims. This intercession was mentioned to Gerhard Nehls by Lionel Gurney, the Director of the Red Sea Mission at the time when he and his family had to leave Johannesburg because of health reasons. Nehls became the new pioneer of the outreach to Cape Muslims.

Some divine correction also took place when Kathy Schulze from the USA came to help as a physiotherapist on the Moravian Mission Station Elim in 1973. She remained in South Africa after her engagement on the mission station. She was hereafter touched by God’s Spirit when she visited the Heidebeek, the YWAM base in Holland. In Cape Town she soon started to minister with Scripture Union in the pioneering days of multiracial camps. During that time she got a burden to start praying for Cape Muslims.

When the Nehls couple saw Bo-Kaap at the beginning of 1975, it called forth a resonance in their heart. In other parts of the country God raised workers, amongst others an English speaker John Gilchrist and an Afrikaner, Fred Nel. They started missionary work called respectively ‘Mission to the Muslims’ and ‘Eternal Life Outreach’. Together the missionaries gradually spread the need of a ministry to the Muslims.

Missionaries among Muslims in the last Quarter of the 20th Century

The major missionary effort to reach out to Muslims this century happened more by chance. God moved in his own special way when the German missionary Gerhard Nehls came to South Africa as a missionary of the Bible Band in 1954. He soon noticed the unreached Muslims in Johannesburg. When they were challenged for health reasons (of his wife Hannelore) to leave Johannesburg in 1974, God answered their prayer for guidance, directing the Nehls family to Cape Town. When they were on home leave in Europe, Lionel Gurney of the Red Sea Mission had suggested to them out of the blue that they should pray about coming to Cape Town. Gurney also mentioned that Christians in Britain had been praying for sixty years for a missionary to go the Cape Town ‘Malays’, as the Cape Muslims used to be called.

When Gerhard and Hannelore Nehls saw Bo-Kaap at the beginning of 1975 on an orientation trip, it clicked immediately. They were called to minister to the Muslims of the Mother City. Soon the focus of their ministry as Bible Band missionaries changed. Thus even during their work at UWC (University of the Western Cape) and at the Porter Reformatory School, the Muslims were constantly at the back of their minds. They thus hoped to get recruits for the Muslim Evangelism at the evening Bible School, which they held in Thornton Road, Athlone. This became the first of many disappointments at getting local Christians interested to reach out to their Muslim compatriots.

In due course a new mission enterprise, Life Challenge, was started as a subsidiary of the Bible Band. At that stage the couple knew little about Islam because very few books were available. Cape Town started to be a blessing for the Islamic world as Gerhard learnt about the religion mainly from two Capetonian Muslims. Ischak Abrahams and Muhammad Noor Moses were his teachers as he started on the new adventure.

Uli Lehmann, a German who had been in South Africa already, joined the Nehls family at an early stage of their ministry. For a few years they were the only two full-time missionaries to Muslims at the Cape. They were joined in 1981 by Walter Gschwandter, who had been refused a visa for mission work in Pakistan. From 1984 the team concentrated on Muslim Evangelism. Life Challenge merged with SIM (Society of International Ministries) in 1986.

Through his research and publications Nehls became a worldwide reknowned apologist and through the sharing of his vision in Europe, other German-speaking missionaries soon joined him at the Cape. The Steiners, Steinbergs, Müllers and Maurers were some of those who came. Some of the missionaries who started off at the Cape, went to work in other countries like Malawi, Côte I’voire and Kenya. Thus Cape Town has already been a blessing to the African continent in this way. Manfred Jung and Horst Pietsch with their wives Friedruch and Monika respectively, became a part of the German-speaking mission force. Renate Isert joined the fray after she had been forced to leave Liberia because of the war there. Heinrich Grafen joined Life Challenge in ??, working alongside YMCA at the University of Cape Town. Christof Sauer and his wife Andrea completed the German-speaking Life Challenge contingent, joining the club in 200?

The Indifference of the local Churches

Long before spiritual mapping was recognised as a tool for evangelism, Gerhard Nehls used a demographic survey from the University of Stellenbosch in the late 1970s. In this survey the areas of Salt River and Bo-Kaap was seen to have become major Muslim areas with more than 95% of the population. Nehls argued that he and Uli Lehmann, who had been his only missionary assistant at the Cape at the time, would never be able to reach the 180,000 Muslims which there were at the Cape at the time. They should try and involve the churches. Salt River had the advantage of having different small fellowships of Christians. But the churches as a rule were disinterested or indifferent. The pastors gave the impression that they cosidered their own church work as a matter of prime priority. Outreach to Muslims did not fit into this picture.

Superficially it does not seem as if even a dent in the Muslim strongholds of Bo-Kaap and Salt River had been made by the end of the 20th century. The door-to-door method had proved to be less effective, as was the later strategy to get individual churches interested in Muslim outreach. A good solution still has to be found. The net result is ‘corpses’ all over the Cape Peninsula - Christian co-workers who had been disillusioned after the lack of success. During the period of faithful sowing and ploughing the seemingly infertile soil, many of these workers have to be regarded as honourably wounded. In spite of years of toiling in the Muslim strongholds of the Cape Town City Bowl, these areas seemed to have become even more Islamic. Yet, Bo-Kaap started ‘lighting up’ in the millennium.

The team outreach -coming predominantly from the St. James Church in Kenilworth under the leadership of John Higson for the work among the drug addicts of Salt River, ground to a halt after a few years although that church had vibrant prayer groups at the time.

One reason for the lack of success was probably the indifference of the local churches and another the general lack of knowledge of spiritual strongholds and its effects at that time. In the 1980s only few Christians expected the local Muslims would be so resistant to the Gospel. Also worldwide there was a general dearth of awareness with regard to the need of spiritual warfare. On top of it, the issue itself got a bad name through the one-sided interpretation when it was publicised, notably by the late John Wimber. Some believers regarded power encounters using signs and wonders as the only possibility of dealing with strongholds at this time. The notion that it can also be done by persistent, persevering prayer (Luke 18,1), somehow got lost. Furthermore, in some circles it was regarded as the monopoly of the Charismatics, thus simply not done by Christians from the mainline churches. The ensuing inability to apply the principles of spiritual warfare thus also contributed to an unsatisfactory situation from a missionary point of view. Missionaries and co-workers became depressed, because they had insufficient prayer covering.

More Evangelistic Mistakes

With the preponderance of German-speaking Europeans, the approach of SIM Life Challenge became too academic for some of the local workers.[57] On the other hand, the German pioneer was quite sad that what he had impressed on his workers before he left the Cape for the Reef was not implemented. He had stressed what he called ‘broad casting’ - tracts and literature - as a prerequisite for ‘deep casting’. After the departure of Nehls to the Rand and almost simultaneously, the Gschwandtner family (for Kenya) rivalry among missionaries started to develop in the early 1990s.

Unwittingly churches and missionaries played into satan’s hands through a spirit of competition: divide and rule had been one of his favourite tactics through the ages. The lack of discipling of new converts from Islam is something else which has been hampering the evangelistic effort to a great extent. Deficient discipling of Christians - also on the part of pastors - proved to be a major stumbling block. Muslims who turned to Christ e.g. at evangelistic tent campaigns, were not followed up. A few exceptions confirm the rule. Fuad Solomons, who changed his name to Greg, came to the Lord at the Athlone Stadium with his mother and other siblings under the ministry of Billy Graham way back in 1973. At the same venue and at Valhalla Park many Muslims - clearly discernable by their scarves and fezzes – indicated their decision to want to follow Jesus under the ministry of Reinhard Bonnke. Very few of these new converts are known who are still serving the Lord.

Many of these converts were not taught that following Jesus and being a Muslim are mutually exclusive. Furthermore, the Muslims ostracised ‘murtats’ (apostates from Islam) increasingly in the 1990s. Since then every potential convert first counted the cost. The churches did not receive them warmly either.

Other Nations get on Board

Dave Foster, after an orientation visit to the country in the early eighties, came with his wife Cathy and their children from Canada to work in Durban under the auspices of Africa Evangelical Fellowship, the mission agency which developed from the vision of Andrew Murray. Dave Foster, John Gilchrist and Fred Nel joined forces in 1983 under the umbrella of CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims), which later held annual conferences for all co-workers as well as a leadership consultation once a year. Significantly, one of the founder members of CCM was Gloria Cube, a Xhosa-speaking female, started with Muslim outreach in Bo-Kaap as preparation for missionary work with Africa Evangelical Fellowship.[58]

‘Chance' also played a role in the recruitment of missionaries from other countries. David Jun and his family came from Korea to work initially as a missionary to seamen after he had worked on one of the OM ships. Later he also operated as a Muslim outreach co-worker of SIM. Alain and Nicole Ravelo, respectively from Madagascar and Reunion, came as Bible School students to Cape Town, ending up as Life Challenge co-workers and later working with TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission) workers. The author, returning to the Cape from Holland with his German-born wife and children, were originally earmarked to become Western Cape representatives of WEC (Worldwide Evangelisation for Christ) when they sensed a call to minister to Cape Muslims.

As time went on, one could discover that all this was somehow supernatural, that it was not chance that people from so vastly different countries converged on the Cape. This was the answer to prayer, inter alia the saints in England who had been praying for the Cape Muslims for many decades. But the battle was still far from won by the turn of the millennium. In fact, Islam was still gaining ground visibly. Even former White residential areas were starting to become Islamic. Muslim Evangelism was not giving the impression of making any impact. The churches were generally still as disinterested or indifferent to reach out to the Muslims and in some quarters an air of fear of the Muslims was even spreading. The confident sound from an Islamic conference in Tripoli in 1995 to see Africa Islamised by the end of the century - including a major move to utilise the South African infrastructure, did not sound so preposterous at the time. In the Sunday Times article the conference proud stated that they had the money to do this.

The international component of the mission work at the Cape continued to expand over the years. Orlando Suarez from Mozambique, who came to study at the Baptist Bible College, ended up as a SIM co-worker linked to the Westridge Baptist Church in Mitchells Plain. From Canada, Egypt, Korea, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Taiwan and the USA labourers joined the full-time staff for loving outreach to Muslims in South Africa. Short-term workers from different countries have been assisting over the years, notably sportsmen and -women. Christians returning from countries that are closed to mission work like Iran and Afghanistan joined the fray, notably in the area of prayer. The bulk of all associate missionaries and co-workers at the Cape have rightly been local believers, unfortunately very often however without the support from their pastors and churches.

Attempt at Correction

Rosemarie and I were initially expected to have an emphasis on missionary recruitment. However, we initially sensed an affinity to minister to street children. Soon after our arrival, the Lord guided us to an involvement with the Cape Muslims.[59] One of our aims at that time - 1992 - was a correction of the competitive spirit, which we discerned among the local missionaries. This was partly achieved by working together at a children’s club inter alia with Marika Pretorius, a South African worker linked to SIM and helping TEAM missionaries with convert care by providing transport for the meetings at their home in the Cape Flats suburb of Southfield. The networking became especially practical through the initiative to join forces in the training of prospective missionaries to Muslim countries at the Bible Institute of South Africa. This started as an initiative to bring teaching on Muslim Evangelism at the Bible Colleges at the Cape, a project during which Manfred Jung and I joined forces. An exciting partnership developed at the course of January 1999 when local churches started sponsoring believers from other African countries.

Gerhard Nehls, the old Cape missionary pioneer, did not sit still even after his retirement from active mission work in 1997. In conjunction with Trans World Radio, he became the mastermind behind a video series, Battle for the Hearts, using the most important Islamic apologists of our day. Although already in his early seventies, he also delved into the modern electronic technology, starting to create a database of important books on Muslim evangelism on CD Rom. The video series that was finally produced with the aid of various Christian experts on Islam, disseminated a lot of knowledge to Christians about Islam.

A Training Ground for South African Missionaries

The work in the Cape townships also served as a training ground for South African missionaries. Workers who have been operating and trained in the Cape are now serving in European countries, in the Middle and the Far East. Through the offices of David Bliss of the Andrew Murray Centre in Wellington, the Western Cape had been leading the mission scene of the country for many years. The Bless the Nations conferences were soon operating in tandem with student weeks on many Afrikaans tertiary campuses. In the latter half of the 1990s this was done in conjunction with Love Southern Africa. This annual mission conference - which was followed by different short-term outreaches - was started in Wellington and later decentralised. Over the years the number of South Africans working as missionaries in Muslim countries grew.

Martin Heuvel and Bruce van Eeden were instrumental in bringing the vision for missions to the ‘Coloured’ churches. Van Eeden set up the Great Commission Conferences to that effect. Similar conferences were organised annually by Paul Manne and his Frontier Life Ministries. An indigenous evangelistic and church planting effort called Kingdom Ministries started under the leadership of Pastor Alfie Fabe when the Cape Town City Mission decided to let its churches become independent from its charity arm. In the black townships a vision for mission has still to take off. Frontline Fellowship, which initially operated in countries on the borders of South Africa, has been very active in Sudan, supporting the persecuted Christians there. The latter issue, viz. the support for the persecuted, has been the domain of Open Doors, which focused on Muslim countries after the collapse of Communism.

The first mission agency making use of a missionary from a Muslim country here at the Cape was Light to the Nations, which was started up by Elisabeth Thomas, (formerly Bolligello), a graduate of the Cape Evangelical Bible Institute (CEBI) in Athlone. She was instrumental in creating a base for Shaheed Waris, a missionary from Pakistan. Waris linked up with Straatwerk, a local evangelistic agency with strong historical links to the DRC Church. The ministry was especially blessed in the outreach to refugees, ultimately resulting in a few people coming to the Lord including a Muslim lady from Rwanda. We took her into our Disiclling House

The Start of an innovative Township Bible School

The Cape School of Missions commenced in 1987 innovatively as a video school - the Urban Missions School. Martin Heuvel started the one-year programme in his home in Belhar with ten of his congregants. The following year they moved to the projector room of a cinema in Ravensmead, which became a prayer room. Subsequently they bought the building, which later became the Fountain Christian Centre.[60] When a few students of the Urban Missions School wanted to continue their studies, it was decided to start the Cape School of Missions.

Until 1994 Martin Heuvel was the principal of the Cape School of Missions. He was succeeded in 1995 by Rev. James Selfridge, an Irish missionary of the Metropolitan Church, who led the teaching and proceedings there. At that Bible School outreach to Muslims played a more promintent role than at other Bible Schools of the era. Meinrich Grafen of SIM Life Challenge and Nimrot Rajagugkguk, a WEC missionary from Indonesia, taught at the school, when they relocated to Grassy Park briefly. Ultimately the school was disbanded and merged with the Bethel Bible School in 2004.

Evangelism in Trains

One of the most successful efforts of evangelistic outreach to Muslims over the years has been the ministry of train evangelists. Many converts from Islam reported that the real challenge came to them from these preachers as they were travelling to and from their places of work. Evangelistic campaigns and open-air services accounted for inroads into Islam. Yet, the effect was not very deep because the Muslim intellectuals and the influential sectors of Islam were not impacted. There were also negative responses to the preachers that were sometimes quite insensitive and offensive. Conversions also happened through individuals and denominations like the City and Docks Missions that became well known for their evangelistic outreach. From the former denomination Bruce Duncan and the Kadalie clan and from the latter one someone like Walter Ackerman became known in Muslim circles.

Open Air and Stadium Outreach

In the 1980s many Muslims - easily recognisable with their fezzes and scarves - responded to the call to go forward as an indication of their decision to follow Christ e.g. at the Athlone Stadium and the big tent in Valhalla Park with Reinhard Bonnke. Yet, the effect was all but nullified because of the scourge of evangelistic work at the Cape, viz. the lack of proper follow-up and the absence of the discipling of new believers. Only a few converts from Islam of that campaign are known to have continued in their newfound faith.

In May 1998 Bonnke was back in the Cape, this time with a campaign on a football stadium in Mitchell’s Plain. Open-air services likewise accounted for some converts from Islam. By August 1998 sections of Islam were readily starting to accept defections from their ranks. This was notably the case when gangsters turned to Christ. When Dave Fullard, a former gangster and drug addict - who had been ‘unearthed’ through the hospital ministry of WEC - courageously testified at an open air rally in Mitchell’s Plain in August 1998, many easily discernable Muslims not only attended, but even applauded him.

A critical note has to be added with regard to some of the evangelistic meetings. Occasionally people were regarded as converted after simply putting up their hands, without any indication of remorse and repentance and all too often without any discipling and follow up. Much damage has been done to the cause of the Gospel this way. Many have back-slidden not of their own doing, but because the evangelism had been so shallow in the first place. Real aberrations of evangelism sometimes took place, like when men were required to wear a jacket and a tie to enter a tent at campaigns in the townships!

The Jesus Film

A special ministry, which has been used around the globe with much success, was the well-known Jesus Film, which had been produced and distributed by Campus Crusade. Based on the Gospel of Luke, the film depicts the life of Jesus Christ. Mr. Drake, a Cape Christian who evangelised with films, obviously also had the Jesus Film in his repertoire. He used various films in the townships in the open air, using a system with mirrors to project the film from a vehicle. His system was adapted and used with our VW microbus in Bridgetown, Hanover Park and Mitchells Plain in 1993 as a joint venture of WEC International and SIM Life Challenge.

The next time the Jesus Film was used, Campus Crusade came into the picture. The film was shown in the Woodstock Town Hall as part of the already mentioned mission week in 1994 with students of the Baptist Seminary. Also in 1997 the film was shown at the same venue. Furthermore, the Jesus Film had been shown in different prisons through Ian Duthie and the offices of Campus Crusade.

The latest effort was that of American missionaries who got funds from their home denomination, to have hundreds of video’s prepared for distribution in the Cape townships.

Impact of Messianic Prophecy

When I mentioned the Messianic prophecy of Isaiah 60 that referred to the two eldest sons of Ishmael and the 'camels of Midian' in a Messianic context as part of a devotional in our Friday lunch hour prayer meeting, the Lord used that to start calling Gill Knaggs into the mission to the Muslim world. The Isaiah pericope was an encouragement to me to expect Muslims to come to faith in the Lord in a significant way. (We had started praying for the Muslim world as part of an Open Doors call to do it for ten years.) Gill was merely attending our prayer meeting on a one-off basis. But this set her in motion to pray about getting involved in full-time mission work. Soon Gill was used by God to get not only the Muizenberg YWAM base but also the mission agency in South Africa generally more interested in the Muslim world. Concretely, an interest developed for Egypt, where the mission group started to network with the Coptic Church via the links through Mike Burnard of Open Doors.

Global Ramifications

Gill Knaggs went on to become one of the first students of Media Village that had been started by Graham and Diane Vermooten in Muizenberg, a ministry linked to Youth with a Mission. The founders, Graham and Diane Vermooten, committed their ministry to train believers for media work and also to tell the stories of God around the Globe. Gill wanted to make a documentary of our ministry at that time as a part of her practical work. Looking back, we are quite happy that it did not materialise. It could have jeopardised our sensitive ministry at a moment when it would have been quite dangerous too, if the footage had come into the wrong hands. Her documentary on Robben Island that was subsequently used on the ferries to and from the renowned island, may have assisted to put Media Village on the map.

In later years the Media Village DVDs and stories would carry the story of Transformation Africa and the Global Day of Prayer around the world.

Increase of Gangsterism and Drug Addiction

A clear side effect of apartheid was an increase of gangsterism and drug addiction. The dislocation of the Coloured communities because of the Group Areas Act in the 1960s and 1970s created a major problem. Gangsterism - which had already been known in District Six - grew almost exponentially in the new townships when people were uprooted from stable residential areas. In his contribution ‘Violence and Social Life in Cape Town in the 1900s’, Robin Hallet concluded already in 1980: ‘For many of its inhabitants Cape Town has degenerated into an extremely violent and dangerous place in which to live’ (Studies in the History of Cape Town (UCT 1980) Vol.2, pp. 130). Another few decades on, this is even more of a problem. In the list of murders per thousand inhabitants (Hallet, 1980:130) - from information given in Parliament in 1978 - Epping (including Elsies River), Retreat, Manenberg and Bishop Lavis (including Bonteheuwel) head the list. These are exactly those townships where people had been dumped due to group areas legislation. The leadership of these gangs has often been in the hands of Muslims. A case in point is the famous Staggie twins. The family was forced to move from the respectable suburb of Diep River to the township of Manenberg in 1971. Over the years they became mighty drug lords with international links. During the 1980’s the apartheid regime assisted the gangsters covertly. Chris Ferndale, who can be regarded as an expert on gang affairs, referred to an ‘alliance’ between the gangsters and the police (The Cape Argus 15 August, 1996, p.11). The gangs would report clandestine anti-apartheid operations, with the understanding that the police would turn a blind eye to their illegal activities. The police connivance with the gangsters and drug dealers (the latter two groups often overlapped, but the drug lords also included businessmen with overseas connections) created an immense problem. Amongst other vice, guns und drugs were ‘recycled’ by corrupt policemen. By the 1990’s the situation had become almost like anarchy.

God stepped in after the situation got completely out of hand in the township of Hanover Park in 1992, using a police sergeant Everett Crowe to usher in Operation Hanover Park (see p.??).

Efforts to minister to Gangsters and Prisoners

Great impact was also made through evangelistic efforts in the prisons. Johaar Viljoen, who had won over many Christians to Islam, came to faith in Jesus in the prison of Caledon. His conversion in 1992 - which was a demonstration of the power of prayer - shook many Islamic inmates who regarded him as their imam. Viljoen know the Bible fairly well as well as the literature of Ahmed Deedat, who was his hero. Before his conversion in the Caledon prison, Viljoen frustrated the evangelistic efforts of Christian workers there. Three of these workers decided to take him on through prayer and fasting. When Viljoen studied the Bible - in order to fight the Christians even better - he was bowled over by a comparison between the narration of the near sacrifice of Isaac and the Qur’anic version.

Compassion paid dividends when AEF (Africa Evangelical Fellowship) missionary Jenny Adams started corresponding with a befriended prisoner, Jonathan Clayton. They finally got married while he was preparing for the Baptist ministry. The mission to prisoners got a major push by them as a couple from the Strandfontein Baptist Church. Clayton did sterling work trying to get more unity into the efforts of a plethora of churches which minister to the inmates of Pollsmoor prison. In 1999 he became a prison chaplain.

At one of their services at Pollsmoor on a Saturday morning in 1997, the prisoners were challenged by a visiting missionary as the preacher, to see Rashied Staggie, the (in)famous Muslim drug lord, as the equivalent of Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector. Jesus looked up to Zacchaeus in a double sense, giving dignity to the reviled and hated little man upon whom everybody else looked down. Society at large should still learn to see gangsters and drug addicts - and even groups like PAGAD - as potential missionaries and evangelists if they would start to follow Jesus radically.[61]

Shona Ali, a Seventh-day Adventist Christian and former Muslim, won general appreciation for her work in the gaols country-wide. After being terribly abused and beaten, Allie caused many Muslim eyebrows to rise when she honestly mentioned her conviction in a mosque that Jesus is indeed the Son of God and that he died on the Cross for our sins.

One of the most prominent from the gangster world from recent years to be used in prisons extensively was Eric Hofmeyer. He has done stalwart work in Pollsmoor prison for years since 1998. As a former gang leader it was not extremely difficult for him to win the trust of both employers and gangsters. A few of the former inmates of Pollsmoor could be placed into some form of employment, an important start to their rehabilitation in normal society. To find employment for people with a criminal record remains an uphill battle. A recurring problem was that many of them got back-slidden once they had money in their hands.

An Area where Islam lost Adherents

Thus gangsterism became an area where Islam lost adherents. Many had turned to Islam when they discovered that occult aid was real for protection and for getting mild sentences for serious crimes. Eric Hofmeyer summarized his life as ‘a disaster changed by the Master and now serving him as a pastor.’ He has been counselling hundreds of gangsters in the massive Pollsmoor prison with quite a few of them came to Christ.

Even on the countryside prisons have been impacted, e.g. at the youth prison near Wellington where a number of young Muslims are voluntarily attending the Bible studies. The Soon correspondence of WEC International, under the leadership of Pam Forbes, was another source of reaching many prisoners all over the country. Furthermore, clergymen from different denominations have been going regularly to Pollsmoor. All the work will turn out to be having minimal effect unless more attention is given to the social dimensions, especially employment. The follow-up of ex-prisoners has really to be attended to. Unfortunately many inmates, who decided to follow Jesus while in custody, have returned to their old criminal lifestyle after their release.

Many a gangster and criminal was challenged and influenced towards change when they listened to the testimonies of others who have come to a living faith in Jesus as their Lord. A deficiency is that Cape churches have failed to open their doors in warm welcome to these new believers. Abuse of the tag ‘born again’ has made potential employers wary to employ former gangsters.

In a related move, a former police agent, Chris Horn, started a movement that he called Gangsters for Jesus. Towards the end of 1998 and throughout 1999 many a gangster - quite a few of them were Muslims - turned to faith in Jesus. Horn planted a church in Delft, one of the new townships, which had become more known for crime and violence than for anything else.

A famous Cape Drug Lord hospitalised

Through the late 1990s, twenty-two bombs exploded, killing and maiming hundreds of men, women, and children who happened to be in the path of this nameless cruelty. Ordinary citizens became fearful, numerous lives were lost. As chaos ruled the streets, the Church continued to pray more earnestly once again.

In March and April 1999 dramatic things happened in quick succession. Rashied Staggie, by this time a famous Cape drug lord, was shot and hospitalised. Staggie made the news headlines from his bed in the Louis Leipoldt Clinic in Bellville through his public confession of faith in Jesus Christ. Once again, the Cape was setting the pace in the aftermath of the violence by extremists, which might eventually prove to have paved the way for the possible ultimate demise of Islam as a political force.

Eddie Edson, a pastor from a poor community in Mitchells Plain and a former gangster, had first-hand experience of conditions as he lived in the heart of the troubled areas. He had not only been gathering pastors to pray every month, but he had also started to disciple gangsters. Believers started to pray with a new fervour and determination, intentionally turning to God in prayer, attempting to access the powers of heaven for the transformation of South Africa and all of Africa.

A Drug Lord shot and killed

On Easter Sunday 1999 one of our co-workers called us, telling us that Glen Khan had been shot and killed. The Mitchells Plain gang leader and drug lord whose wife had been a secret Christian believer for some months, was assassinated on Easter Sunday - only a few days after he had committed his life to Jesus as his Lord. The next morning we rushed to Mitchells Plain to assist with the funeral arrangements because a crisis had arisen. The Muslim family was claiming to have the corpse for an Islamic funeral that was to happen within 24 hours! The young widow - still a secret follower of Jesus - insisted that he should have a funeral from the Shekinah Tabernacle where he made that commitment under the ministry of Pastor Eddie Edson.

The new babe in Christ gave a powerful

message to the packed church

When ‘Brother Rashied’ was called up to give a tribute at the funeral service, it caused quite a stir because the media had evidently been tipped off that the changed drug lord would be there as well. Almost overnight he had become a celebrity of a different sort. The new babe in Christ gave a powerful message to the packed church. Many were listening outside to the service that was relayed via the public addressing system. The funeral audience included a significant contingent of gangsters. Staggie, who had been avidly reading the Bible in the preceding weeks, challenged his followers present, quoting from Scripture that the Lord was the one to take revenge: ‘My kom die wraak toe’. He emphasised: 'We are not going to retaliate!' Coming from someone who had virtually escaped death after an assassination attempt, the message could hardly miss the mark.

As a sequel to the conversion of Rashied Staggie, the trickle became a little stream. The churches were now presented with a new challenge of converts from Islam. The follow-up and discipling of the new babes in Christ has been and still is the Achilles heel of all evangelism at the Cape. Perseverance remains a challenge for all new initiatives.

Renewed Interest in the Lives of Gangsters

The Glen Khan assassination was divinely used to bring churches together, not only for prayer, but to some extent also with a vision to reach out to Muslims in love. Following Khan’s death, some churches showed renewed interest in the lives of gangsters. Pastor Eddie Edson discerned the need to disciple them, starting a programme of special care for gangsters who wanted to change their life-styles.

The attempt to assassinate Staggie ultimately marginalized PAGAD, the criminal extremist group which had tried to eliminate him. Two-and-a-half years later Al Qaeda, a similar group based in the Middle East, became a household name worldwide through the twin tower disaster in New York on September 11, 2001. This incident highlighted the violent roots of Islam in an unprecedented manner. These two events definitely dramatically slowed down the growth and expansion of Cape Islam during the 1980s and 1990s.

The gang war spawned a significant increase in evangelistic ministry, notably at Pollsmoor prison. After operating from Tygerberg Radio, the sister Afrikaans station of CCFM in its early days, the Pentecostal Pastor Christopher Horn started working with gangsters who had turned to Christ. He subsequently became the main chaplain in the police force for the Western Cape.

It was evident that the Holy Spirit was at work. Supernatural visitations came to the fore in March 1999. A Muslim woman phoned CCFM after she had various visions of Jesus, receiving instructions from the Lord to read portions of the Bible that very clearly related to her life. Soon thereafter she accepted Christ as her Saviour. The phone-in programmes of Radio CCFM and the sister Afrikaans station, Radio Tygerberg, proved very effective. A number of Muslims, as well as converts and secret believers were phoning in. Elsa Raine, the CCFM worker responsible for the prayer ministry, faithfully passed on to us all Muslim-related calls for follow-up.[62] A very special result was when a Muslim lady, Fazleen, who had phoned the station in 2003, could be ministered to. Valerie Mannikkam, a missionary from WEC, proved her worth in the discipling of Fazleen. The new convert later also became a co-worker, responding to the calls of Muslim enquirers.

Other Compassionate Outreach

Evangelistic work on the streets of the city over the week-ends at night, which started as a minstry under the leadership of Ds. Pietie Victor and the auspices of the (White) Dutch Reformed Church called Straatwerk, the long-standing outreach effort of the Dutch Reformed Church to night clubs, prostitutes and homosexuals, came into its own in recent years. The image of an all-white DRC work has changed, especially when they started using premises at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church and the Koffiekamer at 108 Bree Street below the (‘Coloured’) St. Stephen’s church. In a sense this revives the close co-operation of the churches in the 1840s. With its close proximity to Bo-Kaap, these two churches - along with other churches, which co-operate in the prayer for the city - could still play a pivotal role in the spiritual breakdown of the nearby Muslim stronghold.

Straatwerk expanded their work to domestics, vagrants and street children. The cell church concept got a special dimension when the organisation bought a home in Woodstock for the homeless where NT principles for communal living were put into practice. That a few churches work alongside the Dutch Reformed Church in this project, makes it a demonstration of the body at work on behalf of the poor and needy.

Beth Uriel in Salt River, which became a predominantly Muslim residential area, has been a ministry to street children and youths for many years. Various churches of the area combined in the project Loaves and Fishes, where homeless have been accommodated at a nominal rate. A fairly successful attempt at job creation was launched at this institution. The premises of Loaves and Fishes initiative became the venue for a monthly ministers’ fraternal at a prayer breakfast.

Social work occurred from the St. Monica’s Maternity Home in Bo-Kaap by Rosemarie and me towards the end of 1992. As a rule the German-born wife got access to the hearts of Muslim women when she mentioned that her husband was born at that institution. Maria van Maarseveen, a nurse and midwife, studied at the Africa School of Missions. She came to do her Bible School practical in 1997 with the WEC missionaries in Cape Town. Here she expressed a desire to join their full-time team, coming in August 1998. She was soon well received in many a Muslim home in different parts of the Peninsula.

In conjunction with Dr. Henry Dwyer, a part of the WEC team started ministering in Groote Schuur Hospital. Via the HCF (later the named changed to Hospital Christian Care), especially during the time when the movement was led by René Phala, who had a warm heart for the Muslims, there was networking in the prayer ministry, especially during Ramadan when the 30 Day Muslim Prayer Focus booklet was used.

The different other ministries of compassion in the Cape, like Alcoholic Victorious, The Ark in Westlake, Total Transformation and Trailblazers all had Muslims going through their ranks at one stage or another. Various agencies like Youth with a Mission (YWAM) have been reaching out in love to street children. At the ‘Beautiful Gate’ in Muizenberg, spear-headed by a Dutch YWAM missionary couple, Toby and Aukje Brouwer, a few Muslim kids have been impacted. A major problem of the bulk of these institutions is that churches have never really owned the vision. It remained the responsibility of individuals. Another valid critical note is that the evangelistic work with the down and outs have been very uncoordinated, making it very difficult for churches without any compassionate outlet, to respond regularly. (The occasional gifts - e.g. at Christmas time - is not very effective in terms of structurally changing things).

Visitors to the Cape

At the sending of prayer teams to different spiritual strongholds in 1997, a team from the Dutch Reformed congregation Suikerbosrand in Heidelberg (Gauteng) followed the nudge of NUPSA to come and pray in the Mother City.

A team from Heidelberg

(Gauteng) pray in Bo-Kaap

This was spiritually significant because Heidelberg had once been the cradle of the racist and right-wing Afrikaanse Weerstandsbeweging (AWB). That the AWB town was sending a team to pray for Bo-Kaap, might have hit the headlines had it been publicised! But all this was undercover stuff. This was transpiring at a time when PAGAD was still terrorising the Cape Peninsula. The Bo-Kaap Islamic stronghold was not geographically situated in the 10/40 window, but Bennie Mostert correctly discerned that it was the case ideologically. It had become a Muslim bastion because of apartheid.

Moravian Hill hosts a strategic Meeting

As part of this visit from Gauteng, a prayer meeting of confession was organized for November 1, 1997 in District Six, in front of the Moravian Church.[63] Sally Kirkwood not only had a vision for the desolate District Six to be revived through prayer, but she also informed other intercessors about the event. With some of them like Richard Mitchell we would have precious fellowship in the time thereafter.

4. The Situation at the Beginning of the New Millennium

Our Friday lunch hour prayer meeting became the start of yet another venture in 1996 after a believer from the northern suburbs, who had been a regular participant in the beginning of these prayer meetings in 1992, popped in again one day. He challenged us, referring to the many French-speaking Muslim street traders from West Africa, who had been moving into the city: ‘Have you ever considered doing something about bringing the Gospel to them?’

I had been impacted myself while in voluntary exile in Holland when a brother there challenged me to be more loving and compassionate toward the apartheid regime, after he had read my manuscript Honger na Geregtigheid. Apart from that, I always had a burning desire to return to my beloved country.

When we returned to South Africa in 1992 I hoped that I could serve foreigners in a similar way as that in which I had been blessed in Europe.

The Stranger at our Gates

In the meantime Louis Pasques, who was raised in an Afrikaner environment, had become the senior pastor of the Cape Town Baptist Church in 1996. He had become a regular participant at the Friday prayer meeting in the Koffiekamer and he also speaks French.

A public confession was made

on behalf of Afrikaners for the hurts

meted out to people of colour

When Blacks started attending the Cape Town Baptist Church increasingly and because of a brave sermon in which Louis Pasques made a repentant confession on behalf of Afrikaners for the hurts meted out to people of colour during the apartheid era, a few White people left the church. This triggered the gradual change of the complexion of people attending the church.

The night club work and the work among French-speaking foreigners got aid from abroad when Freddie Kammies and his German wife Doris, who had worked inter alia among street children in Toronto (Canada) under the auspices of Operation Mobilisation, joined the WEC team in Cape Town at the end of 1997. Freddie hails from Q’ Town, a township of the Athlone area. The couple linked up with Straatwerk. Prostitution has also become a major problem to the Cape Muslim population, notably in Woodstock and Hanover Park. Subsequently this vice has also affected previously protective communities like Bo-Kaap. Christians who ministered to a few of them, e.g. a group under the leadership of Marge Ballin, have now ministered lovingly to many of these prostitutes.

The start of a compassionate ministry to the children of the Hard Livings gang in Tafelsig, Mitchells Plain, looked promising. Not only was Ayesha Hunter bravely sharing via CCFM radio, but she was also running a soup kitchen for the children of the notorious gang. She gave them a new name of which they are quite proud: Heaven’s Little Kids. A drug lord, the late Glen Khan, was sponsoring the project anonymously while he was being challenged and ministered to. He was assassinated shortly after his conversion. The ministry seized at his tragic death.

Outreach to Foreigners

When we started to pray about the possible outreach to foreigners at our Friday lunch-hour meeting, God surely used these occasions to prepare Louis Pasques’s heart. When the destitute Congolese refugee teenager Surgildas (Gildas) Paka pitched up at the church, Louis and his wife Heidi sensed that God was challenging them to take special care of the youngster. One weekend Louis and Heidi had their parents over for a visit. They asked Alan Kay, an elder and the administrator of Cape Town Baptist Church, to provide accommodation to the destitute teenager. Gildas captivated Alan’s heart. This was the beginning of an extended and unusual adoption process. One thing led to the other until Alan Kay not only finally adopted Gildas, but he also got more and more involved in compassionate care of other refugees. Soon the Cape Town Baptist Church became a home to refugees from many African countries. Gildas and our son Rafael, became quite close friends.

Allain Ravelo-Hoërson (T.E.A.M.) played a big part in establishing the ministry among Francophone Africans at the church, along with other missionaries who had been working in countries where French is the lingua franca. Allain ministered there faithfully from 1998 to August 2001, when he and his wife left to study in London. He was supported by Ruth Craill, an SIM missionary, who had ministered in West Africa. She played the piano and took care of providing meals after or before the services. Moreover, the weekly Bible studies held in the Ravelo-Hoërson home for several years helped to strengthen that ministry.

Many a homeless person was transformed by the

power of the Gospel

The Koffiekamer, once rejected as the venue for a 24-hour prayer watch, suddenly became a major channel of blessing when an Alpha Course was started there. A special role in the effort towards transformation in the city was accorded to it when many a homeless person was transformed by the power of the Gospel, and prayer meetings for the city started at that venue on every last Wednesday of the month. This is where we had increased contact with Vlok He would become one of our stalwart intercessors at the Cape Town Central Police Station.

A positive Change towards Refugees

The attitude of Whites in the Cape Town Baptist Church hereafter gradually changed positively towards refugees. Before long, quite a few refugee-background Africans started attending our churches services, especially when special ones in French were arranged monthly and later twice a month, as an effort to equip the Francophone believers for loving outreach to the Muslim French-speakers from our continent. The word spread quite well, so that in due course also other churches started opening their doors to refugees.

The need for refugees to get employment was the spawn for the English language classes at the church to be revitalized. This inspired the offer of free English lessons to many of these refugees, ultimately leading to the resumption of English language classes at the church as an aid to help refugees find their way in the city. The simultaneous need for a discipling house for Muslim converts and a drug rehabilitation centre gave birth to the Dorcas Trust. I hoped that the city churches could take ownership of these ventures. (That turned out to be easier said than done.)

Relationship Evangelism

Door-to-door evangelism was for many years the standard procedure in the outreach to the Muslims. To this end many means have been used, e.g. questionnaires and tracts like the Story Teller series. Horst Pietzsch (SIM) was the brain behind many a questionnaire and Manfred Jung was the main motivator and compiler of the tracts. Both are German-speaking SIM missionaries.

Informal friendships as a way of reaching out to the needy and the lost have taken on various forms. At different venues skills and handcraft have been taught to the needy as a possibility towards earning an income, but also in many other ways the threshold of the Gospel has been lowered. Thus Shaun Waris, a Christian from Pakistan, who has been in South Africa since 1994 and who started working under the auspices of Light to the Nations, has been giving cricket coaching at a (former) White school which is also attended by many Muslim children. Kevin Williams, a police captain of Kensington and a few others were challenged by the need of alternative recreation for the youth to the drug scene. They started football clubs to keep the youngsters off the streets. A ministry spearheaded by American missionaries using Basketball, was similarly very effective. As a spin-off of this ministry a regular outreach took place on Saturday mornings at the Cape Town Baptist Church in 2001.

This congregation, challenged by the presence of many refugees living in the flat next to their church, used language classes as a loving outreach. The foreigners and other City residents were given the opportunity to share prayer requests. Relationships were forged during hospital outreach, e.g. from St. Monica’s Maternity Home and Groote Schuur Hospital.

Other Joint Ventures

In the Bo-Kaap Muslim ladies have been jogging, swimming and walking with born-again Christian peers.

What started as a friendship to a Muslim lady who was living in Tamboerskloof, who had been married to a Swiss doctor, developed into Rosemarie attending a ladies craft group in Bo-Kaap. The contacts made here became the inspiriation to start Jamiela Groups later. Renate Isert, a missionary from SIM Life challenge joined them. The idea subsequently went national.

Afrikaner ladies with links to SIM worked alongside the Dutch Reformed Church of Rylands in the outreach to children in Pelican Park. One of them, Marika Pretorius, was also working together with other missionaries in this ministry in Hanover Park and Salt River before she left for Germany to work among Kurdish children. When the Doulos, a ship of Operation Mobilisation (OM) was in the Dry Docks of Cape Town for a lengthy period in 1993, a few of the OM short term workers were also involved in the evangelistic outreach at Hanover Park and other areas.

A promising venture in Hanover Park in 1992 - a combined effort of WEC International, a local church and students from two different Bible Schools as a part of Operation Hanover Park - petered out. A much improved situation followed with the ministry to children and teenagers at the Alpha Centre of Hanover Park, which had been strongly funded by World Vision. The work was later continued by a worker with links to YWAM. Gospel seed was sown into many a Muslim heart.

In 1995 a missionary joint SIM/WEC venture started with a prayer walk in Salt River. Marika Pretorius was pivotal to get the children’s ministry at the Burns Road Community Centre off the ground after a holiday club in the June holidays. When Pastor Eric Hofmeyer, a former gangster, moved to this venue on behalf of the Cape Town City Mission at the beginning of 1998, a new low-key evangelistic thrust started. Through his involvement in the Salt River community, which is heavily affected by drug addiction, many a Muslim opened up to the Gospel as they were being counselled. Because Hofmeyer had been a reputable weight lifter - a South African champion and seventh in the world in his weight division - the centre was also used for training in this sport as well as for Karate. Hofmeyer also worked closely with the sports ministry SCAS, gaining entry into many schools. Even institutions of learning, which have Muslim principals, gladly invited Eric and his multi-racial team as they ministered to young drug addicts.

The major blemish of the children’s outreach in the different areas has been the lack of the local churches to get involved. In one case where interest was shown initially, the missionaries were only seen as a vehicle to swell their own numbers and not out of genuine concern for the children. In another instance the endeavour of the missionaries was hailed as work of the local fellowship and regarded as a substitute for getting involved themselves.

Networking between various Agencies and Churches

Gerhard Nehls and a few other role players founded CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims), a networking organism of different mission agencies, churches and individuals in 1983. A result of this networking was MERCSA (Muslim Resource Centre of South Africa), which co-ordinated literature for Muslim Evangelism. The co-operation of different mission agencies became especially practical through the initiative to join forces in the training of prospective missionaries to Muslim countries. This started as an effort to bring teaching on Muslim Evangelism to the Cape Bible Schools and Colleges, a project in which SIM and WEC joined forces. Dr. Roger Palmer of the YMCA and a board member of the Bible Institute of South Africa (BI) vocalised his vision of getting a centre for missions at BI. I had already been in discussion with Manfred Jung of SIM to get such a venture going after phoning various Bible schools to find out what was being taught on Islamics. At a church service in District Six with Patrick Johnson, a prominent WEC leader in 1994, Dr. Roger Palmer of the YMCA approached me, vocalising his vision of getting a centre for missions started at the Bible Institute of South Africa (BI). (Roger Palmer was a board member of BI.)

After Colin Tomlinson, a missionary from MECO (Middle East Christian Outreach), returned from the field, the BI venue was secured. Differences about the teaching of ladies led to the TEAM missionaries leaving the initial envisaged set of lecturers. That could thankfully be recified later.

The first course started in January 1996. The date of the course was later changed to the middle of the year with missionaries from different agencies participating as lecturers.

The Muslim Prayer Focus

The annual distribution of the Muslim Prayer Focus for intercession during the month of Ramadan became a common effort by CCM members in 1996. Bennie Mostert of the National Movement for United Prayer in Southern Africa (NUPSA)[1], who had introduced the booklets in South Africa, wanted to cease the effort for that year because of financial constraints. The ministry leader of SIM, Manfred Jung, who had latched onto the vision, took the initiative to have the booklets printed in Cape Town. Jung was also the driving force in rallying SIM missionaries and co-workers to have extended times of prayer during Ramadan instead of the weekly outreach. They were especially blessed in January 2000. When they met on a Monday evening they experienced a special burden to pray that the perpetrators of the PAGAD killings would be brought to book. They were elated that it looked as if justice would run its course when one could read the next day that three of the PAGAD leaders have been arrested.

Start of new Facets of Ministry

At one of the first Friday lunch hour prayer meetings of early 1996 Freddie van Dyk, a believer from the Logos Baptiste Gemeente in Brackenfell, joined us. At this Friday lunch hour prayer meeting we prayed about our vision to get into the hospitals to visit people outside of the regular visiting hours. Freddie mentioned a training course in pastoral. When we followed up this information, it resulted in Rosemarie attending such a course, along with other befriended ladies. Dr Henry Dwyer, who headed up the pastoral work at the hospitals in the Cape, was an old friend of mine from our connections in the VCS, the student Christian movement in the 1960s.

Rosemarie was quite impressed by the commitment and quality of the participants at the course. One of the ladies aired the bright idea of having a teaching course in Muslim Evangelism at the same venue in Lansdowne. However, we made a terrible mistake with the name given to the course, calling it ‘Sharing your faith with your Muslim neighbour’. That would have serious repercussions.

The hospital ministry, led by Rosemarie and June Lehmensich, had interesting ramifications. At the Groote Schuur Hospital[2] she and June especially started visiting the cancer ward. A very special case occurred when we heard about a patient, Ayesha Hunter, who had undergone surgery. Rosemarie understood that she had more or less been sent home to die. This sort of situation was of course happening quite regularly from time to time in the cancer ward. What a very special surprise it was when we heard about her a few months later at one of our Friday lunch hour prayer meetings. After following this up, she subsequently became a valuable co-worker, notably as a radio presenter via CCFM on one of the programmes that we started in 1998. Maria van Maarseveen, a Dutch missionary WEC colleague, continued leading this ministry, faithfully and perseveringly supported by Nur Rajagugkguk, an Indonesian colleague. The latter continued with it until January 2017 when she and her husband returned to Indonesia.

A stalemate Situation

The various mission agencies have been frustrated through the lack of interest by the churches. The churches on the other hand felt offended when the perception was prevalent that the para-church organisations were only after their money and robbing them of their most committed members. This stalemate situation was addressed at the GCOWE conference in Pretoria in July 1997. Remorse and repentance started a new move, which is already bearing fruit in many parts of the country (and the world).

By far not everything was perfect in mission work. Cape Town has been no exception, e.g. with regard to the paternalistic attitude of personnel from overseas. Thus, when a local convert from Islam wanted to get involved with outreach to children, she was given to understand that she was entering the domain of the missionaries from overseas.

One of the special features of the outreach work of the last decade was the networking between the various facets of the mission work. Marge Ballin facilitated the venue of the Friday lunch hour prayer meeting at the Shepherd’s Watch, at 98 Short Market Street in the city. At that time – in 1992 - Pastor Snyman of the Ark Mission was the owner. They had a ministry to the destitute and psychologically afflicted. Ballin was leading a ministry to prostitutes and homosexuals on behalf of YWAM at that venue. The lunchtime prayer meetings, which had been a Capetonian tradition, later also spread to other institutions in the city and at this venue on the other days.

Local Believers in Outreach

Johan van der Wal, a Dutch born Christian, a Methodist lay preacher and businessman, was one of the prayer warriors at the Friday lunch hour meeting at the Shepherd’s Watch for quite a long time after its inception in 1992. He was the simultaneous link to the work of Beth Uriel, the ministry to street children in Salt River, as well as the connection to the ministry to the drug addicts of the same suburb. His secular boss at the time, John Higson, led that ministry from the evangelical St. James Church of Kenilworth as a co-worker of SIM.

When the Shepherds’ Watch was sold, the connection to the St. Stephen’s Church brought Hannes van der Merwe of the Koffiekamer into the picture. Hannes van der Merwe became a regular prayer warrior at the Friday lunch hour prayer meeting. With quite a few vagrants at his Sunday meetings - which are connected to a meal - his own ministry reached into the Bo-Kaap in a compassionate tangible way. In due course this ministry was going to impact vagrants and refugees of the mother city in many a positive way, notably at District Six Shelter and at the Moira Henderson House in 2003.

WEC and SIM networked in producing tracts - biographical material of Muslim background converts. The tracts were printed with the neutral name Witness Action.

Interesting networking occurred through the presence of missionaries and Christians from Southern Asia, which led to outreach to nationals from that part of the world. In due course a ministry ensued from the Cape after a convert from a Muslim tribe started participating in a radio ministry to her people in the Far East.

Outreach to Students

Elisabeth Robertson, one of the initial prayers at the monthly (originally fortnightly) Bo-Kaap prayer meeting, was the connection to Jewish Messianic believers. This resulted in a monthly prayer meeting for the Middle East, where intercession for Israel and Muslim countries was held including prayer for missionaries working in these countries.

Evangelistic work on the campuses of the tertiary institutions by the student Christian groups which merged after the apartheid separation in 1965 (SCA, CSV and VCS), to a lesser extent the YMCA but especially the work of His People may still see new missionaries in due course from an Islamic background going out of this country. The link to local missionaries among Muslims was forged after one of the members of that church had attended the two-week intensive course for prospective missionaries to Islamic countries at the Study Centre in Kalk Bay in 1996. His People Ministries discerned that their evangelistic methods were causing tension between Christians and Muslims, especially on the UCT campus. This was aggravated by the strong presence of the radical Islamic group Qibla, which was also operating on the campus. In August 1998 they called me to come and help them to break down the unhealthy tension on the campus between evangelical and radical Muslims. This resulted in negotiations for the training of students in non-threatening low-key evangelism, which however got off the ground very slowly. Some promising inter-action ensued on the UCT campus, but this ground to a halt in the wake of the 11 September event of 2001, whereafter the Muslim students did not dare to show friendship to Christians too overtly.

Efforts in the Central Area of the City

Over the years a few ministers recognised that the nucleus of the fight in the spiritual realms occurred in the central area of the city. This became increasingly evident, e.g. through the influx of Nigerian and other foreign drug peddlers. Originally Woodstock had been the drug hub of the Peninsula, moving to Sea Point in recent years. A morally clean area like Bo-Kaap was affected as the drug addicts and prostitutes defiled many young people. The squatters who moved into the area was another bad influence, bringing with them alcohol and drugs.

During a prayer walk by students of the Baptist Seminary in 1994 - part of the already mentioned mission week - an inhabitant of Woodstock mentioned Pastor Tait and his fellowship. The missions week was also the run-up to close co-operation between this fellowship and the minute Baptist fellowship which had no pastor as yet. A student from Zambia, Kalolo Molenga, one of the participants in this week from the base of the Cape Town Baptist Church, was preaching in Woodstock occasionally until the adventurous Edgar Davids was called as their full-time minister. The notorious suburb hereafter slowly changed its religious complexion towards the end of the decade, when the epicentre of drug peddling and prostitution moved to more lucrative areas for their respective trades like Sea Point. The tiny local Baptist Church under the inspiring and pioneering Pastor Edgar Davids, who died in March 1998, ably assisted Pastor Tait and his fellowship.

Individual churches have also played a significant role in the conversion of young Muslims. The charismatic movement - especially those of the Pentecostal brand - has seen many additions in 1998 from the ranks of Islam, notably the Fountain of Joy Assemblies of God in Woodstock When Pastor William Tait started there in 1989, the area had become completely Islamic, albeit not in a way about which Muslims were proud. Christians were leaving the ‘sinking ship’ as gangsterism and prostitution took the area by storm. It had become the drug centre of the metropol. The minute fellowship staged early morning prayer on week days, starting at 5 a.m. It is not surprising that the church, which literally grew out of the modest beginnings, soon included a few converts from Islam.

The stalwart work of the former gangster Eric Hofmeyer, who moved to the Burns Road Community Centre in nearby Salt River at the beginning of 1998, further eroded the Islamic stronghold. Along similar lines the little fellowship in a former shop on the Main Road in Woodstock led by Henry Davids, played its part as a foil to Muslim dominance of the area. A ‘seven-eleven’ tent campaign took place in Walmer Estate for (7-11) October 1998, supported by local churches under the auspices of the Vredehoek Apostolic Faith Mission Church. Walmer Estate is a residential area, which had been completely islamised in the wake of apartheid legislation. The impact of the campaign in Walmer Estate was impaired when the support of the few churches in District Six and Woodstock was not enlisted properly. It was nevertheless a blessing when the church decided to continue the effort as an open-air campaign after the tent had collapsed due to the strong South Easter on the first evening. Two Muslims committed their lives to the Lord at the campaign. In June 2000 the Assemblies of God congregation under the leadership Pastor William Tait staged a Bible Study series on Qur’an in the light of the Bible.

The Response of the Church and Missions to Gang-related Activities

The first attempt to reach drug addicts structurally happened more or less by chance. After asking for another residential area to do their door-to-door outreach as an SIM co-worker - after the frustrating lack of any progress in Lansdowne - Salt River was allocated to John Higson. No outreach work had been done there for a few years prior to that point in time. During a second week of prayer for the area, they were confronted with the major drug problem of the township-like suburb. This was the start from the evangelical Kenilworth St. James Church of an outreach effort among the drug addicts of Salt River under Higson’s leadership. The actual outreach was stopped in 1995.

Over the years drug addicts and gangsters came to Christ incidentally. Former gangsters like Eddie Edson even became pastors. In recent years quite a few from Muslim background became followers of Jesus. Till the early 1990s there was no targeted endeavour to reach the gangsters with the Gospel. Some of them came under the sound of the Gospel, e.g. occasionally at open-air services. Pastor Alfred West - who had to wait for twenty five years to marry his (‘Coloured’) wife because of the racial laws of the country - was a brave White evangelist who was mightily used by God to stem the tide of gangsterism, notably in Bonteheuwel in the 1980s. In his open-air campaigns he confronted the shebeen owners (illegal alcohol peddlers, operating from their homes) and dagga (cannabis) smokers. A special side effect of his work was a missionary prayer fellowship, to which amongst others the missionary Walter Gschwandter (SIM Life Challenge) came from time to time. This resulted in quite a few of Pastor West’s group getting trained in Muslim Evangelism and becoming involved in regular weekly outreach.

Rosemarie and I were confronted with the problem of drug addiction very soon after our arrival in January 1992 when Christian friends complained that their drug addicted daughter had been forced to become a Muslim. After the young woman had made some sort of commitment to Jesus, the missionary couple could not find a single institution in Cape Town where she could be rehabilitated and counselled. The couple sensed a demonic connection when our vision for a drug rehabilitation centre came to an abrupt temporary end. This happened in September 1993 after we had been deceived and conned by a very gifted drug addict, who was fluent in Zulu and Xhosa, apart from being well versed in Arabic.

In August 1992 a police officer in the crime-ridden township of Hanover Park, Sergeant Everett Crowe,[3] approached the churches to help them because the police could not handle the situation any more. Under the leadership of Pastor Jonathan Matthews, who was linked to the Blomvlei Baptist Church, the Operation Hanover Park (OHP) was formed. This movement - mainly using combined prayer with Christians from different churches as a reply - gave temporary reprieve for the inhabitants. According to local inhabitants, Christmas 1992 was the most peaceful in the history of the notorious township. A ministry to gangsters under the leadership of Dean Ramjoomiah developed. He grew up in a gangster set-up.

Things augured well for the future in Hanover Park. Unfortunately the disunity of the churches and the lack of perseverance - after Pastor Matthews, the motor of OHP, decided to concentrate on private studies - caused Operation Hanover Park to peter out into oblivion. Gangsterism is as rife there as ever before. An important lesson in ‘spiritual warfare’ came through: unity in the Spirit had to be maintained if Christians want to be successful against the forces of the enemy. A renewed effort to unite in the fight against a new drug ‘produced’ at the Cape called Tik in 2005, likewise failed.

PAGAD comes on the Scene

PAGAD was initiated by Rev Clohessy, the Roman Catholic priest of Manenberg at the time, when the conditions in his township became well-neigh unbearable to the local people. He had to withdraw when he discovered that some of his companions in the new organisation were prepared to go to extreme measures like the public burning of a drug lord. On Saturday 17 August 1996, satanists broke alleged into the Uniting Reformed Church in Lansdowne attempting to arsonize the building. A one evening per week course was to have started at this venue on the 27th of August 1996. It had been unwisely named ‘Sharing your faith with your Muslim neighbour’. With the arson attempt occurring only two weeks after the Salt River execution, the frightful possibility of a Lebanon scenario challenged the Christians to get their act together. A wave of prayer followed, after which we decided to put out a Gideon’s fleece. It was decided to test the waters at the famous but ill-fated St. James Church which had been attacked in July 1993 as a possible venue for the course, instead of cancelling the course outright.[4] The name of the 10-week course (one night per week), which eventually did take place at the St. James Church in Kenilworth, was changed to ‘Love your Muslim neighbour’. In 1998 the name was changed yet again to ‘My Muslim neighbour and me’. The spiritual warfare from the side of satan was conducted in the ‘Coloured’ townships especially through the inter-related threesome drug addiction, gangsterism and prostitution. The last two decades these vices proved the ideal bridge head for satanism, causing massive havoc and misery.

Are we perhaps in Lebanon?

A Lebanon-type civil war scenario became quite real. Many people at the Cape feared that the gangsters might hit back with a vengeance. A meeting for church leaders and missionaries was organised at the Scripture Union buildings in Rondebosch, followed by a wave of prayer by evangelical Christians. Christ-centred drug rehabilitation was also suggested. However, when the crisis subsided, pastors simply resumed building their own ‘kingdoms’.

Spiritual strongholds became a focus of prayer drives. Pastor Edson from Mitchells Plain and intercessors launched a convoy of vehicles from different churches from 1996 on the last Friday of each month. The prayer drive of July 1996 started at the strategic Gatesville mosque. (This was the same venue from where a fateful PAGAD car procession started out a week later. The latter procession left for Salt River on August 4^th, the date of Rashaad Staggie’s public burning.

The prayer drives only had a short lifespan. Another initiative of Pastor Edson, which lasted much longer, was the monthly pastors’ and pastors’ wives prayer meetings. Yet, it took years before the racial divide was bridged, and even then these prayer meetings still never really took off multi-racially. Nevertheless, they prepared the soil for the start of the spiritual transformation of the city.

From Cairo to the World!

Sandwiched between the two above-mentioned processions that left the Gatesville mosque, a church service in the Moravian Church of Elsies River in the northern suburbs, was to have world-wide ramifications. Mark Gabriel shared his testimony in that church at a combined youth service on Sunday evening, 28 July 1996. This event added a new dimension to the Cape Muslim ministry effort. Gabriel’s printed testimony had just been published in South Africa under the pseudonym Mustapha with the title Against the Tides in the Middle East. (Mark Gabriel was previously forced to flee his home country where he narrowly escaped assassination.) Within a few days, the booklet which contained his story was in the hands of a Muslim leader. Maulana Sulaiman Petersen correctly suspected that Mark Gabriel had contact with local missionaries. Threateningly he enquired after him on Wednesday 31 July. (Mark Gabriel was doing the practical part of his Youth with a Mission (YWAM) Crossroads Discipleship Training School with us at this time.)

Mark Gabriel was forced into hiding

Reminiscent of the situation when Martin Luther was taken to the Wartburg castle for safety,[5] Mark Gabriel was forced into hiding. The televised Staggie 'execution' by PAGAD as a part of the national news on 4 August reminded Mark Gabriel of Muslim radicals of the Middle East. He now started with significant research of jihad (holy war) in Arabic Islamic literature, finishing his manuscript in 2001 in Orlando (Florida, USA), where he had moved to in the meantime. The September 11 event of that year made Mark Gabriel's book on the topic a best-seller when it was published at the beginning of 2002. It came out under the title Islam and Terrorism. That book became a major factor in the exposure of the violent side of Islam.

Subsequently the book was translated into many other languages. Arguably it exposed the intrinsic violent nature of Islam like no other book before it. If there were still any doubt, the violence perpetrated by Al-Queda in Afghanistan and elsewhere - along with that of Al Shabbab and Boko Haram in East and West Africa in recent months - brought a crisis in many a Muslim heart. The brutal ISIS terrorists ushered in a movement in 2014 in North Africa which brought the religion in greate disrepute.

Negative Influences for Islam

Dicky Lewis, who became a missionary with AEF in 1995, grew up with many of the gangster leaders. Through his involvement in community structures, Lewis had won the trust of many a gangster and drug lord. The crisis that followed the PAGAD eruption of August 1996 presented the churches with a challenge, a wonderful opportunity to impact the problem areas of the Cape townships. With the danger of a Lebanon scenario very real - everybody was just waiting for the gangsters to hit back with a vengeance - a meeting for church leaders and missionaries was organised at the Scripture Union building in Rondebosch. Here the suggestion was put forward to organise a mass prayer meeting on the Athlone Stadium. Drug rehabilitation where Jesus is central was also suggested. The Bet-El centres which had proved so successful in Spain, served as a model. Those who have themselves recognised the harmful effect of drugs, find it nevertheless very difficult to get rid of the addiction. Yet, drug addicts around the world have in the meantime experienced the liberating power of a personal faith in Jesus.

When the crisis in the Mother City subsided, pastors simply continued with the building of their own ‘kingdoms’. A year later, in November 1997, the gang war erupted once again. This time TEASA (The Evangelical Alliance of South Africa) called a meeting at the Baker House in Crawford. It was suggested to form a core group to get negotiations underway between PAGAD and the gangsters. Locally, churches would initiate monthly inter-denominational prayer meetings. However, none of the nice-sounding resolutions aired at that meeting was perseveringly implemented (At that stage PAGAD was however quite headstrong, not willing to talk to anybody).

The start of an informal settlement near to the ’Kraal' of Bo-Kaap plus a weekend 'taxi' service to bring teenage girls as prostitutes to the sailors in the docks over week-ends from the mid-990s brought immorality, drugs and alcohol into the religious stronghold in ways that undermined spiritual power.

Converts from Islam

1992 was the year when prominent Muslims started to come to Christ at the Cape, surely as a result of the 10 year of prayer. In that year two staunch Muslims professed their faith in Jesus, two who would make a significant impact on the Cape scene. Johaar Viljoen was an imam, who had brought many Christians to Islam. He came to Christ after he started comparing the Bible and the Qur’an. Esmie Orrie was the other person. Initially she was very fearful but as the time went on both of them got increasingly bolder. Other converts from Islam like Zane Abrahams, Achmed Kariem and Majiet Pophlonker gave valuable advice to Ashley and Rosemarie Cloete who were new to the changed Cape Muslim situation.

In October 1992 Allain and Nicole started with a group of converts in their home in Southfield. The vision had developed to have little cells like this all over the Peninsula. Adiel Adams, at whose house in Mitchell’s Plain a monthly WEC prayer meeting had taken place, was gradually brought into the ministry to converts, initially in Hanover Park. There Norman Barnes, a convert who in earlier days had been a gangster and drug addict, led the prayer group of the City Mission congregation.

The use of converts from Islam only really got off the ground when the Friendship Ministries was launched in 1994 under the leadership of Adiel Adams. He had been a Christian for many years since his conversion as a teenager under the ministry of Scripture Union. In due course the testimonies of local converts would start shaking Cape Islam. The publishing of some of their testimonies in Afrikaans and English by WEC in 1995 under the respective titles Op Soek na Waarheid and Search for Truth[6] brought home the message that Muslims do find peace through faith in Christ. Christians at the Cape had hardly been aware of the persecution and ostracism which local converts were experiencing when they leave the Islamic religion. This changed to a considerable degree when the believers with a Muslim upbringing started to share in different churches all around the Peninsula and even on the countryside.

A new dimension was added to these experiences when the testimony of a converted former sheikh and lecturer from the Al Azar University of Cairo - using the pseudonym Mustafa - was published in South Africa in 1996 under the title Against the Tides in the Middle East. Three assassination attempts in Johannesburg and a veiled threat in Cape Town towards the end of July 1996 made it necessary to hide the Egyptian Christian temporarily. The PAGAD public ‘execution’ of August 4 of that year took the attention away from him. When the second edition of his testimony booklet appeared in 1997, it seemed as if Cape Islam was taking him in their stride.

Secret Believers come out of Hiding

Increasingly converts were making a bold stand for their newfound faith. The radio programmes via CCFM - using local converts - gave a significant push for Muslims to turn to Christ and for secret believers to step out of hiding. Ayesha Hunter, one of the presenters, who came out into the open after seven years of being a secret believer, was harassed, threatened and offered a bribe to return to Islam. Testimonies of local converts from Islam, in the form of tracts and as cassettes used in taxis, started to make a significant impact on the Muslim community of the Cape.

Accusations of racism within the Tygerberg radio station brought the evangelical witness in the northern suburbs in disrepute, but it never reached dangerous proportions. It did seem to have the effect however, that the station opened up more to have people of colour on the airwaves. When various ‘Coloureds’ and former Muslims started sharing their testimonies via this station, many critics were silenced.

Radio work could perhaps be rated amongst the most effective evangelistic tools at the Cape at that time, possibly second only to the ministry in trains. The radio evangelistic outreach to Muslims achieved its success in the wake of the insecurity and crisis that followed the PAGAD ‘holy war’ after 1996. Many Muslims started phoning the two Christian radio stations of the Cape, which were perceived to co-operate harmoniously. At the beginning of 1999, a convert from Islam who had been relatively obscure between 1994 and 1998 bounced back with a vengeance. Dean Ramjoomia, who had been used so powerfully in Hanover Park among the gangsters in 1992/3, got the vision to become a full-time evangelist among the gangsters, started attending a Cape Bible School in January 1999.

In June 2000 Ayesha Hunter miraculously survived after she had been thrown out of a overcrowded and irresponsibly speeding taxi on the middle lane of a wet N2 highway. This by itself could have killed her. Mysteriously, the car coming from behind, which would have driven over her, had to stop suddenly. It was evident that satan was threatened by her testimony. This was the second time in just over a year that she survived an onslaught on her life. The previous time a man standing next to her at a bus stop was shot from a passing car. She had also been severely harassed after the funeral of Glen Khan, a former Muslim gang leader, who came to faith in Christ just before he was assassinated on Ester Sunday, 1999. She had witnessed to him and his wife who had become a secret follower of Jesus prior to that.

Counterproductive Islamic Moves

The relative success of evangelistic efforts in the second half of the 1990s could be attributed in part to ‘own goals’ by the Muslims. The general Christian indifference about the spread of Islam was temporarily checked through the newspaper report of an Islamic World Conference in Tripoli in October 1995. The intention to make South Africa Islamic, stating that the Muslims have the money to do it, was verbalised and publicized. It soon became clear that this was no empty threat. The assistance of the Libyan State President Muhammad Khaddafi and other oil states was made practical through the provision of Islamic literature in African languages and mosques built in the Black townships. The widely reported visit in February 1996 of Louis Farrakhan, a high profile Afro-American Muslim, further brought the message home. That it happened during Ramadan was just the tonic for Cape Christians to pray in an unprecedented way. Since then, conflicting reports were published about the intention of Muslims - e.g. by the radical Qibla faction of PAGAD - to start the islamisation of South Africa in the Western Cape.

With two competing radio stations of their own, ‘Radio 786’ and ‘Voice of the Cape’, the unity of the Ummah, the Islamic fellowship of which Cape Muslims were so proud, got a serious blow. More and more it became clear that the PAGAD issue was basically a fight about the import of drugs, which was all too often carried out at the expense of innocent civilians. The Cape Muslim community is definitely not proud that the Mandrax tablets were mainly manufactured in Pakistan, a Muslim country.

The gradual expansion of Islam into former White suburbs is another move which may turn out to become counterproductive. In Plattekloof/Panorama, a request to build an Islamic centre was turned down by the local authorities, but they could not prevent the start of a madressah there and at a recreation centre in Melkbosstrand on the West Coast. But also the ‘Coloured’ community became upset by the perceived imperialist tendencies of Islam. The PAGAD scourge was contributing in a big way to the swing of the public mood against the Muslims. The hate-love relationship, which had existed in the apartheid days when the government was seen as the common enemy, developed into a situation where it became common to have a negative attitude to the religion at large. The main reason was that family members got estranged because of marriages to Muslims.

The Start of the ideological Demise of Islam?

In a strange set of co-incidences Ahmed Deedat, the man who almost singly started the ideological resurgence of Islam in South Africa, was possibly the man to usher in the ideological demise of the religion. With his disrespectful speaking and writing of Jesus, he had already created internal disunity. Deedat was not widely acclaimed in Cape Town at all, although Islamic adherents admired him worldwide. Through the cunning editing of videos, the impression was spread that Deedat had thrashed the likes of Josh Mac Dowell in debate. The widely reported moral failure of Jimmy Swaggart, with whom he also crossed swords in public debate, was grist on the mills of the Deedat’s Propagation Centre. And even over Anis Shorrish - who had basically inflicted a defeat on him on August 7, 1988 in Birmingham (UK) - he had the upper hand in South Africa. The famous ex-Muslim had to run for his life when angry Cape Muslims wanted to slaughter him at a public meeting in the suburb of Wynberg in 1990. Through a back door Shorrosh had to flee.

The confident tones from an Islamic conference in Tripoli in October 1995 to see Africa islamised by the end of the century - including a major move to utilise the South African infrastructure - was vocalised by a personality from the Deedat clan. It was well-known that the Deedats had been receiving big money from the Middle East via the Islamic Propagation Centre. But hardly any Christian perceived the Tripoli announcement as a real threat to the Gospel in Southern Africa. The prospect only hit home a few months later when Louis Farrakhan, an Afro- American Muslim visited the country, getting good media coverage. The appeal to the Black masses was evident as he appeared on TV together with President Nelson Mandela. In two ways his presence and the wide media coverage proved counter-productive for Islam countrywide. That he kissed Winnie Mandela in public offended many Muslims, causing a lot of discussion and disunity.

On the other hand, Farrakhan’s visit spawned an unprecedented wave of prayer by Christians. Whereas the Church had been fairly indifferent about the outreach to Muslims until that time, things changed almost overnight. Although Ramadan was almost over by this time, there was suddenly a big demand for the annually distributed prayer booklets. That time was one of only two occasions when there was such a clear demand for the 30 Day Prayer Focus. (The second time was in 1999. That time the South African version of the booklet included an insert on answers to the prayers of 1997.)

Islam suffered another blow at the Cape at this time. The advantage of the presence of Louis Farrakhan for the spread of Islam among the Black Community was all but nullified when the Islamic funeral practice of not allowing women to go to the cemeteries became known. Among Blacks - where ancestor veneration is all too often intertwined with their religion - this was just a bit too much. Many Black women returned to their previous faith.

In May 1996 Deedat went just one step too far with his arrogance. Christian clergymen of Durban, requested him to retract remarks in an offensive large advertisement in a local newspaper. If he would not apologise, he would have to reckon with God’s wrath.

True to his reputation, Deedat refused to do anything of the sort. Promptly he was knocked down by a stroke. An instance of divine wrath would have been a logical conclusion. But even after his partial recovery he gave no indication of remorse, let alone regret. Almost promptly he was felled, remaining in a condition which resembled a coma for many years, completely out of action, until his death in 2005.

Attrition was the cause for further losses to Cape Islam when in 1997 and 1998 some of their heavy weights died. Adam Pheerbhai, Maulana Sulaiman Petersen, Muhamed Ajam and Achmat Davids were well respected Muslim leaders who could not be replaced easily. Further evidence of the demise of Islam was a nasty quarrel between competing Islamic radio stations in the Cape and public disputes about the public speaking of women. The latter issue actually came already into the open in February 1995 after a powerful woman speaker from abroad was allowed to address the audience in the Claremont mosque. In the ensuing row angry gangster-like Muslims were brought in to give the mosque authorities a rough time. Gangsters were brought in from Manenberg and Hanover Park. This caused a major furore at the mosque.

Bewilderment as the Side-effect of PAGAD

The major cause of Islamic bewilderment was the side effect of PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs) since August 1996. Many breathed more easily when it seemed as if Ganief Daniels, a respected policeman and a Muslim, was getting things under control with his Operation Good Hope. The cause of disquiet shifted to the gangsters in 1999 when rape appeared to have become rife. With cases reported in the City Bowl and other formerly former White areas plus the simultaneous spiralling of AIDS, Christians from all races were forced to wake up. A brave Muslim lady who contracted AIDS after marrying a refugee, brought a taboo into the open. Prayer meetings against the crime were organised in different parts of the Peninsula.

Superficially Islam is still growing at the Cape, with visible signs like the continueing buying up of property including the spectular sale of the former Cape Evangelical Bible Institute in 1997. The purchase of the headquarters of the Jubilee Church in 1999 by Muslims was strategic. The impression was gained that the Christians were running away from the Muslims who were moving into the area. Ideologically however, the writing appears to be on the wall. The religion as such is here to stay, but it seems to be only a matter of time before the deception, on which it is based, will be exposed. How long this will take, depends on the urgency with which Christians would tackle the matter through prayer.

A significant indication of a possible demise of Islam is the marked increase of converts from Islam worldwide the last few years. In this country this became audible, as many of them have been witnessing boldly to their faith in Jesus via the community radio stations. At the Cape this happened via Radio Tygerberg and Radio CCFM. The latter radio station broadcast the testimonies from new believers in Jesus who came from different backgrounds. Quite a few of these people, whose lives were changed when they came to believe in Jesus, have their origins in Islam. On the radio CCFM programme Life Issues, two converts from Islam, Ayesha Hunter and Salama Temmers (later Badrunisa Laatoe and Feriaal Warren) even share a programme every Thursday morning. Country-wide many listeners were impacted as Fatima Abdul, likewise a believer with an Islamic background, challenged Christians to a Jesus-centred life via Radio Pulpit.

The PAGAD saga seemed to halt Islamic gains on all fronts as it became very of much an embarrassment to Cape Muslims. In the second half of 1999 the religion started to recover slowly from the bad publicity when controversy arose around the change of the name of Bo-Kaap. When a group tried to get the area renamed to ‘Malay Quarter’ on heritage day, 24 September, a storm of protest resulted, many seeing a bad reminder of apartheid in the move. In the spiritual realm it seemed as if the grip of the stronghold was losing its power. Other religious groups and races were welcomed back by many Muslims.

Doctrinal Excesses hamper the Spread of the Gospel

Only the last decade or so it has been acknowledged - and not even generally as yet - that occult forces are at work, which hamper the spread of the Gospel. ‘Spiritual warfare’ as such had been completely neglected or unknown in many up to about a decade ago. Of course, here and there the example of Hur and Aaron in the Bible might have been noted. Their keeping Moses’ arms aloft, was often taught as a model of intercessory prayer. Occasionally lessons were taken from the battle of Gideon against the Midianites. But it was hardly emphasised that the ‘sword of Gideon’, which brought such awe in the camp of the Midianites in the end, turned out to be a torch. In biblical context the Word is the (two-edged) sword (Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12). Furthermore, Psalm 119:105 describes the Word as a light and a lamp.

Doctrinal excesses have also been hampering the impact of the Word. This also happened in recent years, notably through the so-called Toronto Blessing and Prosperity Theology. With regard to the former it should have been clear that the animal sounds - which are also found in Hinduism, have no biblical foundation. With regard to the one-sided prosperity teaching, one of the pioneers in South Africa, Pastor Ray Macauay repented publicly of it, but this did not filter through properly after the damage had been done. In another excess, after the neglect of praise in mainline churches in earlier days, some churches started to emphasise ‘worship’ in a one-sided way, neglecting the Word and its proper exposition.

The Ministry of Prayer at the Cape

The resumption of a ministry to the Cape Muslims the second half of this century was a result of prayer after Christians in England had been burdened to pray for this people group for many years. It became concrete when Rev. Davie Pypers prayed with two other minister colleagues for the Bo-Kaap area after he had become the minister of the St. Stephen’s church in 1956. From oral reports of Life Challenge workers of yesteryear like Neville Truter, who later became an SIM associate missionary, the work was accompanied from the start by an emphasis on prayer. For many years Muslim Outreach at the Cape and SIM Life Challenge were almost synonymous. The mission continued with an annual prayer initiative during Ramadan when they usually stopped their actual door-to door weekly outreach. This practise waned in January 1998 when Ramadan coincided with the summer holidays. A further decrease in this regard occurred in December 1998. Renate Isert, a German missionary who had to leave Liberia because of the war there, initiated a prayer chain. All matters and problems related to the Muslim outreach wouldbe shared and prayed for. However, the prayer chain functioned only for a very short period.

Until about two decades ago spiritual warfare was regarded as a modern fad. Things changed dramatically when the results of prayer became known. The effect of seven years of prayer for the Soviet Union, to which Open Doors had invited, was there for everyone to see. The crash of Communism got its major impetus from the crashing of the Berlin Wall in 1989. This was preceded by mass prayer rallies at different churches, notably in the East German cities Leipzig and Dresden. Yet, one has to put some question marks to the demonstrative appeal of those prayers. Edgardo Silvoso (Argentine) and Tom White (US) presented papers at the Spiritual WarfareTrack workshop of the Lausanne II Congress in Manila in 1989. The outcome was the founding of a Spiritual Warfare Communication and Referral Network. Since then Peter Wagner and others have developed this further and a spate of books followed on that topic. The run-up to the Gulf War (in 1991) spawned the call of the mission agency Open Doors for ten years of prayer for the Muslim World in 1990. With the increased awareness of spiritual warfare in Christian circles, the power of occult strongholds has also been recognised more and more.

When we came to the Cape in 1992 we endeavoured to emphasise prayer, initiating prayer walks in Bo-Kaap, Woodstock, Walmer Estate and Salt River. Regular prayer meetings focused on the prime Muslim stronghold of Bo-Kaap. The weekly Friday lunch hour prayer meeting became the catalyst for many initiatives. The meeting itself was initially mooted by Achmed Kariem, a convert from Islam who had attended the fortnightly prayer meeting in the home of Cecilia Abrahams, the widow of a convert from Islam in Bo-Kaap. This was actually a resumption of the prayer meetings which had been conducted by Walter Gschwandtner, SIM Life Challenge missionary before he left for Kenya.

Start of Friday Prayer Meetings

Achmed soon suggested that we should start a prayer meeting on a Friday at lunch time when the Muslims attend their major mosque weekly service. This could be implemented very promptly through the mediation of Marge Ballin, a YWAM missionary, who was involved with evangelistic work in the nightclubs. Without much ado we were allowed to make use of the ‘Shepherd’s Watch’, a former funeral parlour in Shortmarket Street where the Ark Mission was now conducting services and caring for a few mental patients. It was an added blessing when we heard that missionaries in other parts of the world were also starting to do this.

Of the early regulars at the new Friday prayer meeting we had Alain Ravelo from Madagascar and Johan van der Wal, who originally hailed from Holland. We had met Johan van der Wal and his wife Maaike in our home church in Holland a few months before we came to South Africa. Both Alain and Johan had been in the country for some length of time. Alain had been part of a group that met regularly, praying for the country when apartheid was still rife. He also had a vision for networking. Soon hereafter Arina Serdyn, an Afrikaner, joined us after she had retired from teaching. She was one of the best examples of networking, soon linked to our children’s work in Hanover Park while still having close links to the Ravelo’s who are linked to TEAM. Simultaneously she was a co-worker of SIM Life Challenge.

Berenice Petersen was another Muslim background believer who worked at Truworths was also another regular prayer warrior of the first hour at Friday lunch time.

The venue of the weekly prayer meeting at the ‘Shepherd’s Watch’ (98 Shortmarket Street) had to be changed to the Koffiekamer in the basement of the historical St. Stephen’s Church in Bree Street when the building was sold. The Bo-Kaap prayer meeting in Wale Street was later changed to a monthly meeting, where intercession for the Middle East, for Jews and Muslims, was the focus.[9]

Linked to the countrywide Prayer Movement

The Missions Commission contact that was forged with Jan Hanekom of the Hofmeyr Centre and SAAWE in Stellenbosch turned out to be quite strategic. Through him I got linked to the countrywide prayer movement. Jan Hanekom was a spiritual giant of South African missions and the prayer movement. (He was prayerfully preparing entry into Bhutan as a tent-making missionary when he died suddenly a few years later after contracting some mysterious disease.)

Local Christians joined in as Jan led a group to pray at the Islamic shrine of Macassar. The group interceded at the shrine of Shaykh Yusuf, the Muslim leader generally acknowledged to have brought Islam to South Africa. At this occasion we were encouraged to concentrate on uplifting Jesus. This was not done in a spirit of condemnation. We prayed that people will experience more of Jesus' love for them. Over twenty years later on 21 April 2017 I was reminded of this occasion while we were driving northwards to attend the cataclysmic event in Bloemfontein with Angus Buchan.[10]

At so many other ‘battle events’ I suggested subsequently to the prayer warriors to join me in singing Jesus, we enthrone you, we proclaim you as King...

A Breakthrough in the spiritual Realm

Something significant happened on that day of intercession at the Islamic shrine. The ‘martyr seed’ – the son of Rev Ali Behardien, a Dutch Reformed minister who had come from Muslim background, who was killed - might have played some role in the spiritual realms as well. Together these factors may have signalled a breakthrough in the heavenlies. Individual Christians started showing more interest in praying for Muslims, although in general, the churches remained indifferent.

A new brand of convert from Islam emerged nevertheless, people who were bold and willing to suffer ostracism and persecution for their faith in Jesus Christ. One example is Esmé Orrie. For a long time after her conversion in July 1992, she was very fearful and suspicious. However, from the mid-1990s she started to testify boldly in churches and on the radio. (On 10 March 2000, listeners to the CCFM Christian radio station were invited to react by telephone to the programme God Changes Lives after she shared her testimony.) On a memorable Wednesday morning, 22 March 1995, we baptized five converts who had come from Islam, including two connected to our ministry. At that occasion we also heard about Johaar Viljoen, who had won over many Christians to Islam in his Islamic hey-day. (This former imam came to faith in Jesus in the prison of Caledon. His conversion in 1992 - a demonstration of the power of prayer - shook many Islamic inmates who regarded him as their religious leader.) Johaar Viljoen hereafter also shared his conversion story in churches fearlessly, in spite of quite a few threats.

A Cape fellowship ushered

in spiritual dancing, using

visible artifacts in worship

A link to the Cape Flats township intercessors existed through the fellowship in Greenhaven which was led by Mercia and Vincent Pregnalato. This couple held the fort in an area that was becoming Islamic at an alarming rate since the late 1980s. They also ushered in spiritual dancing, using visible artifacts like flags as part of worship. This spread in due course to audiences throughout the country.

My own connection to the countrywide prayer movement was expanded when I met Gerda Leithgöb. She had introduced the use of research for prayer in South Africa in different cities. I promptly invited her as the guest speaker - along with Ds. Davie Pypers - for a prayer seminar in Rylands Estate in January 1995 that focused on Islam.

Prayer Drives and Prayer Walks

The intermittent prayer at the Tana Baru Kramat with its view over the harbour, included intercession against drug abuse and prostitution emanating from the Cape Town Docks. Often there was the request that God would make the city a blessing to the nations even as the ships leave our shores. Therefore it was regarded as a special answer to prayer when a regular contact with Kurt and Thea Schönhoff came to pass after they had joined the outreach to the ships in the harbour. They augmented the Biblia Team and Koreans who had already been active there for many years. Kurt joined the City Bowl pastors’ prayer meeting in 1998, where one could praise the Lord from time to time for Bibles, which were reaching the nationals from the most diverse countries.

Muslim strongholds also became a feature of prayer drives, which were launched by intercessors from different churches on the last Friday of every month in 1996. The drive of July 1996 started at the Gatesville mosque. This was the occasion when a influential drug lord, Rashaad Staggie, was burnt publicly. This event catapulted his twin brother Rashied and co-gangleader, into prominence.

The 10-week teaching course ‘Love your Muslim Neighbour’, the first of which started in the St. James Church in September 1996, emphasised prayer as part and parcel of ‘spiritual warfare’. The nature of the ‘warfare’ was highlighted even before the course started when satanists were purported to be behind the arson attempt on the proposed venue, the Uniting Reformed Church in Lansdowne.

June Lehmensich, who had done the pastoral clinical training with Dr. Dwyer as well as the ‘Love your Muslim neighbour course’ at St. James Church, became a pivotal figure as she spread the vision for prayer, taking it right into the Provincial chambers and the national Parliament. She was simultaneously the personification of faithfulness and perseverance, as well as a link to a prayer group with a long tradition at the Cape Town City Council. She took over the helm there from Kay Shackle on the latter’s retirement. For many years it was a lonely road. All too often Kay Shackle (and later June) would be there with only one other prayer warrior and sometimes all on her own.

At the occasion of the sending out of prayer teams to different spiritual strongholds, a team from the Dutch Reformed Church Suikerbosrand from Heidelberg (Gauteng) came to pray in Bo-Kaap. This visit coincided with an occasion of confession on November 1, 1997 in District Six on a gravel patch near to the former Moravian Church. At this occasion the ceremony closed with the stoning of an altar that had probably been erected there by satanists or other occultists. In September 1998 it was announced that the former inhabitants of District Six would be able to move back.

Muslim Prayer Focus

Bennie Mostert of NUPSA was arranging the annual countrywide distribution, making sure that the vision of countrywide prayer for Muslims once a year was guaranteed. The annual distribution of the Muslim Prayer Focus for intercession during the month of Ramadan became a common effort by CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims) members after Bennie Mostert of the National movement for United Prayer in Southern Africa (NUPSA), who had introduced the booklets in South Africa, wanted to cease the effort for that year because of financial constraints. Manfred Jung from SIM latched onto the vision, linking with us to have booklets printed in Cape Town. The launch of the 30-day prayer focus booklets took place in the historic St. Stephen’s Church of Bo-Kaap in November 1997. The prayer effort at Ramadan had a definite impact, slowing down the dynamic growth of Islam at the Cape.

A citywide prayer effort - where churches across the Peninsula were initially requested to cancel their evening services on Sunday 19 April 1998, almost floundered after a bomb threat by someone on behalf of PAGAD. The meeting on the Grand Parade continued on a much smaller scale, including confession for the sins of omission to the Muslims and the Jews. The in-official renaming of ‘Devil’s Peak to ‘Disciples Peak’ and regular prayers at Rhodes Memorial fitted into the pattern of spiritual warfare. These venues have been stronghold of Satanists. The mass march to the Parliament on 2 September 1998 in response to the perceived attack on community radio stations was followed by a big prayer event on Table Mountain a few weeks later. The prayer day - this time to rename the peak ‘God’s Mountain’ - was called on 26 September 1998. A few thousand Christians prayed over the city from Table Mountain. The event spawned a new initiative whereby a few believers from different backgrounds started coming together for prayer on Signal Hill every fortnight on Saturdays at 6 a.m. Christians from different churches thus demonstrate the unity of the body. This prayer occasion was a significant strengthening of the monthly prayer walks/drives in the City Bowl. Also on Tygerberg, at the Paarl Rock and on the Constantia heights, early Saturday morning prayer meetings - an initiative of Pastor Eddie Edson of Mitchells Plain, occasional all-night prayer events started, one each on 25 June and 15 October 1999.

There were indications that the church were at last also slowly awakening to its responsibility towards the Muslims, who still form the prime unreached group of the Cape in terms of the Gospel, to share the good news in a culturally acceptable and relevant way. A forty-day fast from Easter Sunday to Ascension Day 1998, also included days of prayer and fasting by a few churches in the City Bowl. This was spearheaded by Rev. Louis Pasques of the Cape Town Baptist church, who definitely also had a vision to reach the Cape Muslims in love. After trying hard since September 1995 to get a ministers’ prayer group going in the City Bowl, this weekly meeting gained ground slowly after the 40 day April-May 1998 prayer effort. At the beginning of the new millenium the church in South Africa had however not yet regained its

Manenberg was the township, which depicted the change in the religious climate in 1999 more than any other. An off-sales liquor distribution centre, the Green Dolphin, changed hands dramatically when it became a church, the name Green Pastures being suggested by a resident. Even more spectacular was the turn-about of Die Hok, the former headquarters of the Hard Living gang, which became a church. Rashied Staggie, the renowned former drug lord, became one of the preachers. Muslim tongues were likewise rolling after the courageous testimony of a Muslim convert from Manenberg on radio CCFM in July 1999 when she openly shared her experiences of persecution. She had almost been disinherited and evicted from her house in 1998 because of her stand for Christ.

The Manenberg spiritual evolution got countrywide prominence through the TV programme Crux on 25 July 1999. To many it was a revelation to see the change in Rashied Staggie. Up to that point in time also many Christians were still very sceptical about his conversion.

The Battle of the Airwaves

The differing factions of Cape Islam have their favourite radio stations. However, influential shaykhs like Sa’dullah Khan of the Gatesvilles mosque have been operating on both stations. Yet, for many Muslims Radio Voice of the Cape is still perceived to be in competition with Radio 786. The two Islamic stations were sharing the same frequency.[11] At some stage the rivalry got to such a frenzy that telephone lines were cut. In the mid-1990s, Radio 786 had virtually become the voice of Qibla, the radical faction of Cape Islam.

The reports about the teaching via Radio Islam in Gauteng on how Muslims should beat their wives - along with the headstrong attitude of the Radio station spokesmen about it after October 1997 - scored another own goal, harming the Islamic cause country-wide. This was followed by controversy around the use of female presenters.

At the GCOWE (Global Conference on World Evangelisation) conference in Pretoria in July 1997, Avril Thomas, the directress of Radio CCFM (Cape Community FM) had been challenged to use the station more to reach out to Cape Muslims. She phoned me, offering airtime for a regular programme to this end. Up to this time we had only asisted with the giving of advice and teaching to the ‘prayer friends’ of the station who had to speak to those Muslims who phoned in at CCFM, formerly Radio Fish Hoek. Ever since the 1994 Jesus Marches and the effort to work towards a prayer network in the Peninsula, there had been contact with Trefor Morris, who was linked closely to Radio Fish Hoek. A series on biblical figures in the Qur’an and the Talmud were transmitted towards the end of 1997. After a gradual increase by CCFM of occasional programmes geared to address the Cape Muslim population, we felt challenged to start utilising the CCFM offer to use the medium on a regular basis.

In the meantime, a prayer warrior offered her services to CCFM in 1997. The lady had been engaged to marry a Muslim before she became a believer in Jesus as her Lord. She had already been linked up with us, hosting a prayer group for Muslims at her home in Muizenberg for many years. She had some previous experience in writing scripts for commercial writing. Soon the prospective missionary was ready to write the scripts for Ayesha and Salama, two followers of Jesus with an Islamic background. At a meeting on 7 January 1998 it was decided to start with a regular programme via CCFM, making use of the two converts. On the same day Radio Voice of the Cape published their intention in the Cape Argus to use a convert from Christianity. Voice of the Cape possibly thought they had an ace, publicising widely that they were starting with the use of a female convert from Christianity as a full-time presenter.

The precedent created space for CCFM radio to follow suit with less fear of PAGAD reprisals if they would use converts. Ayesha and Salama soon hereafter started presenting a weekly programme, beginning with the theme ‘woman of two faces’. Gradually many women started responding with phone calls, thus giving evidence that the radio programmes were making a deep impact. Life Issues, the women’s programme on CCFM on a Thursday morning went from strength to strength. Independently from CCFM, the related station Radio Pulpit, which broadcasts countrywide, also started using a convert from Islam.

Mass March to Parliament

A white paper in Parliament on 20 August 1998 was perceived to contain a veiled threat: the closing down of community radio stations. The ill-fated government white paper on public broadcasting - whatever its original intention - resulted in a mass march to the houses of Parliament on Wednesday, 2 September 1998. The perception could not be removed sufficiently that the government wanted to regulate the airwaves in such a way that the freedom of religious broadcasting would be severely curtailed. For the first time thousands of Cape Christians from different races and denominations marched in an unprecented unity. One of the banners proclaimed ‘United we stand’, a wry reminder of PAGAD’s main slogan.

It was followed by an unprecedented protest reaction from the side of the public which seemed to be slowed down by the bombing of the Planet Hollywood Restaurant at the Cape Town Waterfront on 25 August 1998. What the purpose of the perpetrators was, is completely unclear. It did result in even more confusion in the Muslim community as leading Muslims like the academic Dr. Ebrahim Moosa went on television announcing that he would be taking his family overseas.

The PAGAD actions may not have had the intention of harming of the Muslim cause but the public statements of leaving the country - albeit temporarily - may have created the effect of leaving a sinking ship, especially when the Cape Times announced a week later that Sheikh Sa’dullah of the Gatesville mosque was also leaving the Cape shores.

Shortly hereafter, Radio Voice of the Cape suffered a big blow when two of their leading personalities, Achmat Davids and Sansu Parker, died on consecutive days. A new programme of testimonies by CCFM started in January 1999 which regularly included converts from Islam. I recruited and interviewed those whogave their testimonies. The Rev. Richard Mitchell, a pastor of the Full Gospel Church, the first presenter of the programme, was born and bred a Hindu. Later he turned to Islam during the ‘struggle’ for democracy in the country. While being in prison because of this opposition to the government of the day, he discovered that Jesus is the only way, the truth and the life.

The sound waves came into play in yet another way in November 1998, when a development agency could not settle their differences with a mosque in Northpine in the northern suburbs of the city. The general public was disturbed by the intrusion of the minute Muslim minority through a mosque there, when a drawn-out conflict between a development agency - Garden Cities Incorporated - and the mosque came into the open because of the amplification of the minaret calls to prayer (Cape Argus, 5 November, 1998, p.5). The complaint against the amplification of the minaret call could hit Cape Islam in a very sensitive nerve. The athaan, the call to prayer, is perceived as standing in direct relation to the salat, the ritual prayer five times a day.

A Night of Power

From time to time local concerts from Islam who became followers of Jesus, shared their testimonies on the CCFM programme, which started in January 1999 called God Changes Lives.[12] That Christians from Indonesia and Pakistan spoke on the programme might have created a stir in many a Muslim home. The impact of God Changes Lives was neutralised by the competition from a simultaneous favourite Afrikaans television programme called Pasella, an old Malay word for something given extra, free of charge.

The next round of the battle raged at the end of Ramadan when Richard Mitchell and his family had to rush to Durban for the funeral of his mother-in-law. The stand-in presenter was more than equal to the task. He had been the reader of the original series on Pointers to Jesus, the one-off series on biblical figures occurring in the Qur’an and Talmudic literature.

A mini crisis developed when the testimony of Majiet Pophlonker, an Indian convert from Islam, was planned to co-inside with the Islamic Night of Power on 15 January 1999. The convert was understandably uptight because a police agent, Bennie Lategan, who had been investigating PAGAD and the drug lord gang leaders, had just been shot and killed in Mitchells Plain the previous day. Parts of his testimony about the persecution he had to endure - including his near assassination - which could have enraged Muslims, could be deleted just before the transmission. The powerful testimony was bound to impact Cape Islam, coming only a day after Ayesha Hunter had given a part of her story on the ‘Life Issues’ programme.

Another dimension came into play at this time. Radio CCFM needed more space. Within days after the public announcement of a day of prayer for this need, a building was bought in Muizenberg. Provision of the finances was spectacular, clear indication that God was in the move. The new venue is located in an area, which had become Africo-Cosmopolitan in the wake of many refugees and others from the northern parts of the continent who had moved into the suburb. In fact, the hall of the building was later used for services in French and attended predominantly by French-speaking Africans.

Satanic Deception and a Backlash

Islam staged a major coup when the old Dutch Reformed Church in Taronga Road was bought from the Jubilee Church when it was still known as the Vineyard Church, to be used as a madressa. The 1999 loss hit evangelical Christianity of Cape Town, following the 1997 sale of the Cape Evangelical Bible Institute (CEBI) in Athlone as the Cornerstone Christian College had been called previously.

The World Parliament of Religions from 1-8 December 1999 became a spur for churches to get some idea of the spiritual threat on the country. It soon became clear that the uniqueness of Jesus was under attack. Dr. Henry Kirby, a medical doctor who has close links with YWAM, joined Brian Johnson who had been targeting the New Age movement in the late 1980s. A prayer event in District Six on 27 November 1999 brought together a broad spectrum of Christian churches, which in itself was a memorable occasion.

The role of drugs has still not been acknowledged sufficiently in spiritual warfare. For centuries the scourge of alcohol as a drug obstructed all church and evangelistic work at the Cape. The roots of cannabis (dagga) abuse goes back many centuries. The Khoisan bartered cattle with Arab traders in Mozambique for the plant which they chewed before they got to learn to smoke it with a pipe.

Many new converts to Jesus became backslidden spiritually over the Christmas period when the increased consumption of alcoholic beverages took its toll. In due course Muslims took to drugs in a similar way as they saw Cape Christians abuse wine. Mitchell’s Plain Muslims have strikingly been quoted as saying - in an effort to excuse their drinking of wine at Lebaran (Eid-al-Fitr) -’It is mos our Christmas!’

When the ANC came to power in 1994, all religions were given equal status. Increasingly occult elements became fashionable, witchcraft was accepted uncritically and even Satanism was regarded by some as just another religion. That people had to be ‘sacrificed’ (i.e. murdered) in the process by Satanists, was uncritically taken on board. The poor argument used was: so many people are also killed in political and other forms of violence, so what! A spokesman of the South African Council of Churches went even so far as to state that Satanism is a matter of personal conscience. The pervasive negative influence of the TV with the poisoning of young minds proceeded unchecked; violence, extra-marital relationships and sex are depicted in many films as ‘normal’, thus encouraging promiscuity. From some pulpits homosexuality was even covertly encouraged.

The prayer initiatives displayed significant strides in terms of church unity. The distribution of a video by George Otis on the transformations of four cities was a major catalyst for citywide prayer, after it had been shown in the Lighthouse Christian Centre on 15 October 1999 at a night of prayer. Transformation of Communities, led by Reverend Trevor Pearce, saved the Cape Peace Initiative (CPI) after it had come into disrepute. Some clergymen were unhappy that the CPI had been speaking to PAGAD. At a half night prayer meeting on the Grand Parade, an event, which was organised on short notice, the unity was restored. The same weekend two Dutchmen, Pieter Bos and Cees Vork, representing the prayer movement of Holland, joined local Christians in confession for the sins of the forefathers and in praying against satanic strongholds in the Peninsula.

There were indications that the Church in South Africa was awakening to its prime responsibility towards the Muslims, who still form the prime unreached group of the Cape in terms of the Gospel.

Attacks on the Islamic Pillars

The prayer at Ramadan had a definite impact on the slowing down of the expansion of Islam at the Cape. This was especially evident in the eating in public by Muslims and the season of pilgrimage, which constitute two of the pillars of Islam. Exactly during the month of fasting over the festive season of 1999/2000 an unprecedented heat wave hit the Mother City. Scores of Muslims went to the beaches, something unheard of in previous years during the Islamic fasting month. There many of them ate publicly. The eating in daytime happened previously during the Islamic month of fasting at the Cape usually only ‘onder die kombers’, i.e. secretly. However, Farid Esack ridiculed the farcical aspects of the fast under the heading ‘and the truth shall set you free’ (Esack, 1999:53), which is actually a biblical quotation. While teaching in Pakistan (of all countries!), he was astounded by the response to a question which he put to his class: of 18 students 3 fasted regularly, five occasionally and the rest did not fast at all. What a difference this was to the example, which had been set by Imam Abdullah Haron, whose fasting came close to the biblical teaching of fasting. He fasted on the 29th, 30th and 31st May 1961 in protest against the government to let country become a Republic, without consulting people of colour before this decision. Haron furthermore taught: ‘Fasting as prescribed in the Holy Qur’an and practised by the Prophet Mohammed is a medium to prepare man spiritually to face the onslaught’ (Haron, 1988:204). By inviting others to join him in using fasting as a political tool, Haron however contradicted the teachings of Jesus.

The drop of the Rand as a currency in 1998 and the collapse of the Islamic Bank in 1998 (and the Fidelity Bank at the end of 1999), created major problems for would-be pilgrims. The country of Indonesia - traditionally the biggest supplier of pilgrims to Mecca was still reeling under economic problems. Thus a second pillar of Islam was under attack, along with forest fires which raged for days in big parts of that country.

Support for Converts

The accommodation of converts from Islam who have been ostrasised and threatened by eviction became an acute problem in the second half of 1998. The Dorcas Trust was formed with initially three churches of the Cape Town City Bowl with the purpose of creating an infrastructure to help those who became destitute because of their faith in Jesus. The intention all along was that converts from Islam would support each other mutually. The aid of the churches was initially only minimal.

Friendship Ministries - formed in 1994 - was a later version the New Life Fellowship of Life Challenge and TEAM’s monthly meetings since 1992, where converts from Islam met for fellowship and teaching. Johaar Viljoen, a former imam who came to the Lord while he was in prison, was drafted into the core group of Friendship Ministries towards the end of 1995. The work deteriorated when the quarterly meetings of Friendship Ministries became mere showpieces whereby converts gave their testimonies to a majority Christian audience.

In the wake of the PAGAD saga, the mutual support of converts from Islam expanded under the dynamic Ayesha Hunter. The Lord had supernaturally healed her, after she had been sent home from Groote Schuur Hospital in 1997 when they could not do anything medically. Hereafter she was encouraged to drop her cover, after having been a secret believer for seven years. She linked with the WEC missionaries when a weekly radio programme via CCFM was planned. The weekly programme, which started in February 1998, turned out to be a major catalyst for the conversion of Cape Muslims and for the encouragement of secret believers with an Islamic background to come into the open. The fellowship of the support groups also impacted the drug scene when two women who had been married to drug peddlers were taken up into the fellowship. One of them - who had been a drug user herself - soon experienced a burden to reach out in love to those whom she had misled.

4. THE SITUATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

I should mention at the outset that this chapter is written in mid-2015. An autobiographical bias is almost unavoidable because I attempt now to recall things from memory and glean information from other manuscripts as well as personal notes and emails.

In the democratic era of South Africa Muslims received a boon with an over-representation in all three tiers of govermenance at the Cape - way above their proportion of the population. In addition to that, Cape Town was highly favoured as a destination for new inhabitants from Muslims from the rest of the African continent.

Abuse of the Halaal Logo

In the 20th century Muslims have turned the halaal logo on products into a lucrative business.

The ‘halaal-tax’ which is exacted from the consumer in South Africa is used for various purposes such as the construction of mosques and for Dawah (Islamic propaganda and evangelism). Manufacturers recover certification fees indirectly from the consumer by means of a surcharge or royalty added to the price of their products. A Turkish believer, a MBB, picked up the issue in 2012 to alert believers to the rather absurd situation whereby Christians are contributing towards the expansion of Islam.

Outreach to Foreigners

In October 2003 my wife had a strange dream cum vision in which a newly married couple, clad in Middle Eastern garb, was ready to go as missionaries to the Middle East. Suddenly the scene changed. While the two of us were praying over the city from our dining room facing the Cape Town CBD, a massive tidal wave came from the sea, rolling over Bo-Kaap. There was something threatening about the massive wave, but somehow we also experienced a sense of thrill in the dream.

In the aftermath of this strange dream it seemed as if the Lord was confirming a ministry to refugees and other foreigners. In November 2003 we baptized a Muslim background refugee from Rwanda. Shortly hereafter, the Lord also brought to our attention various groups of foreigners who had come to the Mother City, including a few from a Chinese minority group.

Student Outreach

David Jun…. Korean students. Judy Tao

In the new millennium Jurie Goosen started to minister lovingly to foreign students, linking up with Uli and Heidi Lehmann. (On earlier years the Lehmann couple had been ministering in Bo-Kaap under Gerhard Nehls.)

International Initiatives impacting the Cape

A group of intercessors from America visited the East German village of Herrnhut in 1993. The group included a believer from St Thomas, the island to which the first two missionaries left in 1732. That group experienced a sovereign outpouring of God’s spirit as they prayed in the prayer tower of Herrnhut. This could possibly be seen as the beginning of the modern wave of prayer that swept around the world since then, especially since 1999.

One of the most pronounced prayer expeditions ever was the repentance for the Crusades that had been perpetrated against Muslims and Jews. This took place from 1996 to 1999, exactly 1000 years after the actual happening. The initiative was launched in Cologne, and took prayer teams on the three main routes where the Crusaders left their bloody trail throughout Europe, Asia and the Middle East. At this time a challenge came to the Western Cape Forum of CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims) to repent publicly for the guilt of Christians to Muslims. After a long drawn-out discussion, no decision was taken, but the seed was sown. The seed appeared to have started germinating by November 2003 in Paarl at the National Leadership Consultation of CCM.

In March 1997 a group from England came to pray in repentance for the sins of England at the location of Anglo Boer War concentration camps in South Africa. In 1998 a prayer team with international intercessors took a trip from Matopos in Zimbabwe to Cape Town to pray again around the issue of Cecil Rhodes and Freemasonry.

Something very remarkable happened in 1999 in England when Peter Craig challenged young people in England to pray non-stop for 30 days, asking the Lord for this generation of young people to come back to God. It began as the vision of a local church in England based on the model of Count Zinzendorf in Herrnhut in the 18^th century. Bennie Mostert and Daniel Brink attended a conference led by Tom Hess in Jerusalem, bringing the message back to South Africa. In September 1999 this new challenge commenced in South Africa as 24-hour prayer watches.

A Special Month of Prayer

“Sooispit” - the turning of the soil - for a prayer room in the Western Cape took place on February 9, 2000. Charles Robertson, a Christian businessman with a heart for prayer - along with his wife Rita - generously donated resources towards a venue for the work of NUPSA in the Western Cape. The premises in Bellville were earmarked to be a 24-hour prayer room for intercessors from the whole continent. Daniel and Estelle Brink were called to lead the NUPSA initiative to get the 24-hour Prayer Watch off the ground at the Cape. That this was spiritual warfare of a high degree became evident when Daniel Brink became critically ill shortly after commencing in his new function. The Lord touched and healed him in answer to the prayers of many intercessors.

The unity of the body of Christ became visible at a mass half-night of prayer on 18 February 2000 on the Grand Parade, organized at short notice. On the same weekend two Dutchmen, Pieter Bos and Cees Vork, representing the prayer movement in Holland, joined local Christians in confession for the sins of the forefathers and in praying against satanic strongholds in the Peninsula.

Four thousand Christians from a wide spectrum of denominations gathered on the Grand Parade. Denominationalism, materialism and other evils in South African society in which the church had played a role in the past, were confessed. In a moving moment just before midnight the two Dutchmen, Pieter Bos and Cees Vork - representing the prayer movement of Holland - joined local intercessors in confession for the catastrophic contribution of their forefathers to the evils of Cape society. (The Holy Spirit had ministered already in 1994 to Cees Vork to come and pray in Cape Town, imploring him to confess the sinful roots of his ancestors around slavery. Bos had been doing intensive research into the slave trade.)

A prayer network had grown towards a preliminary culmination in the half-night of prayer on the Grand Parade. Since then, prayer events proliferated countrywide through the 24-Hour prayer watches and revival prayer attempts. Here the electronic media played a big role.

A prophetic Move in District Six

Ever since our prayer at the Moravian Chapel of District Six on November 1, 1997, we sensed that God might have a special purpose with the former slum area, where I had spent a bulk of my childhood.

Murray Bridgman, a Cape Christian advocate, sensed God’s leading to perform a prophetic act in District Six. He had previously researched the history of Devil’s Peak. Along with Eben Swart, Bridgman provided some research that encouraged Dr Henry Kirby to lobby Parliament to change the name of Devil’s Peak to Dove’s Peak. (Duivenkop had been an earlier name.) Kirby’s role as the prayer coordinator of the African Christian Democratic Party resulted in a motion tabled in the City Council in June 2002. The motion was unsuccessful, fueling suspicion that satanists also had significant influence in the City Council.

On June 1, 2002 Susan and Ned Hill, an American missionary couple, joined Murray Bridgman and his wife as they poured water on the steps of the Moravian Hill Chapel in District Six, symbolically ushering in the showers of blessing that we prayed would come. Forcefully the message was confirmed that Messianic Jewish believers should be invited to join in the prayers of welcome to the foot of the Cross, to those who intended to return to the former slum-like residential area District Six. This is still the vision although Muslims have started moving in at a rate that gives the impression that they intend making out of District Six another Bo-Kaap.

The Net thrown wider

I had already felt myself challenged to attempt to get a City Bowl prayer watch started in the first half of 2004 when I landed in hospital for an operation after I had contracted prostate gland cancer. The unity of the Body of Christ, believers in the crucified and risen Saviour, had always been very much on my heart. We believed that the prayer watch movement could be a decisive vehicle to make this more visible - to be used as a powerful means to take the city for God. Soon we were serving (Uyghur) Chinese and Somalians in loving ways. The latter group in Mitchells Plain stretched our patience. We stopped teaching English to the Somalians after a few months in mid-2005 when it became apparent that they resented being taught by Christians.

My cancer diagnosis turned out to have another effect. Rosemarie challenged me with regard to my chaotic research and writing activity. I had many unfinished manuscripts on my computer. 'What would happen if something happens to you? All that work would be in vain', was her wise counsel. The testimonies of a few Cape Muslims had been on my computer already for about two years. Some of them we had printed as tracts. The result of Rosemarie’s prodding was that Search for Truth 2 could be printed within a matter of weeks.[13]

Input from the Far East and West Africa

A national from Togo, married an ex-Muslim medical doctor from China who belonged to the Muslim Uyghur tribe. He was studying in the Far East when he got to know her. She is one of the first to come to faith in Jesus Christ from her tribe. Originally challenged by an African Christian fellow student, she converted in 1986. After lecturing in Japan, the Togo national accepted a post as professor in Engineering at the University of Cape Town, coming to the Mother City in the year 2000.

A national from Indonesia had been working in Hong Kong before her marriage as a missionary. There she met and befriended the Muslim-background Uyghur believer. The Lord used the friendship to birth in her heart a burden for the Uyghur people. For nine years she prayed for the unreached people group without seeing any spiritual movement as a result. But God works in mysterious ways when she came to Cape Town after her marriage to a fellow Indonesian. Here she met her Uyghur friend again and revived their friendship.

When Bejing was accorded the Olympic Games for 2008, England and the USA were no longer the top countries for learning English. The 11 September 2001 event of New York affected the popularity of those countries for Muslims to learn English adversely. From 2003 individual Uyghurs came to Cape Town to study and especially to learn English. A few of them were impacted with the Gospel. Hardly anyone of them had seen or read a Bible before they came to South Africa. Two students from that tribe were ultimately baptised in Cape Town in 2005.

Jesus had appeared to both of them in a dream.

Impacting Asians

The video version of The Passion of the Christ, plus English lessons to Chinese people who were coming to Cape Town in numbers of consequence, was the run-up to a very fruitful ministry to a hitherto unreached, Asian people group, the Uyghur.

The conversion and baptism of two Uyghur Chinese in the first quarter of 2005 was very special, the result of divine intervention, but also a special answer to prayer for the Indonesian Christian who had been praying for many years for that tribe and now she found some of them in Cape Town.

In 2005 our team received a special boost when a Chinese background US American, joined us for a year. Here the Lord gave her compassion for two teenage Asians because they had no family present. She assisted a Korean female student with English. Soon enough this also included Bible Study until the Korean student also came to know Jesus as her Lord and Saviour. Subsequently she joined a Cape Korean church where she later started teaching in the Sunday School.

The Resumption of English Classes

We sensed that God might be sending a wave of people to Cape Town from Muslim countries. We should get ready to send young missionaries to the Middle East when it opens up to the Gospel. Since the start of the Arab Spring that started on 25 January 2010 in Egypt, this has become more concrete and urgent than ever.

Already since 1996 refugees from various African countries had been coming more and more into our focus. Many refugees have been empowered after having learned English at the Cape Town Baptist Church.

English teaching to foreigners in a small fellowship on the corner of Dorp and Loop Street on Saturday afternoons where Gary Coetzee was the pastor, turned into a double blessing. There we could not only help a few new sojourners in our city, but we also soon got a link to the nearby Boston House on the corner of Bree and Church Streets. We supplied learners from the ranks of refugees and Green Market Square traders for their TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) students.

A special Chain Reaction

That God works in mysterious ways was of course known to us. A special version of it happened when we conducted a ten week teaching course on Muslim Evangelism at a church in Brackenfell. There appeared to be no immediate success in people joining us as co-workers. Yet, a few of the participants were deeply impacted. Among the participants there were for instance Johan Groenewald and his wife. The Groenewald couple took the message to the rural village of Eendekuil where he found a willing ear in Chris Saayman, the Dutch Reformed minister.

Prayer walking one a month was another method used to break down strongholds of the deceiver at the Cape. A few Christians joined from as far afield as Melkbosstrand and Eendekuil. Results might not have been spectacular, but the gradual lifting of a spiritual heaviness over the Muslim stronghold Bo-Kaap could already be discerned after a few months. A breakthrough there has however still to transpire.

When we were still wondering whether it was feasible to go ahead with plans to have a week of prayer in the City Bowl at the beginning of February 2005, Trevor Peters, who prayed with us at St Andrew’s at a half-night of prayer, phoned me. This was just the nudge I needed, just as my own faith in the matter started to wane.

At the monthly prayer for the City on Saturday 8 January (2005), it was decided to press ahead with another week of prayer from 30 January to 6 February as a next step towards the goal of a 24-hour prayer watch in the City Bowl. Trevor Peters, who had contact with Rev. Angeline Swart with regard to the use of the former Moravian Hill manse as a venue for a drug rehabilitation centre, was to find out whether the venue was available for the week of prayer. Our friend Beverley Stratis, who has a prayer burden for the city that stretched over decades, was requested to get in touch with police Superintendent Fanie Scanlen, to see if a room in the Central Police Station in Buitenkant Street was available as an alternative plan.

One thing led to the next within a week, until it was finalized that the week of prayer would be held at Moravian Hill. This would be followed thereafter with weekly prayer at the Central Police Station. Superintendent Scanlen put at our disposal a room called Die Losie, a former Freemason lodge in the complex. This was a significant step.

As we were interceding in the third story board room, I suddenly saw the Tafelberg Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) diagonally opposite me. I was reminded that this was the church from which Dr Koot Vorster, a DRC minister, the brother of a Prime Minister and a high-profile Broederbonder, operated. I had heard that he was the person responsible for certain requests to the government of the day, such as the one to get the prohibition of racially mixed marriages on the statute books.[14] When I vocalised my discovery up there in the ‘blue room’ of the police station, I was asked to pray for that church. I knew I had to express forgiveness in a prayer once again. In my heart I sensed hereafter release from some secret grudge which I had still been harbouring inadvertently. It was very special to me when Dr Chris Saayman, formerly the DRC minister of Eendekuil, was called to Tafelberg DRC at the end of the following year.

The near Demise of Cape Muslim Outreach

The arch enemy was however still very much at work to counter our prayer efforts. The first years of the new millennium saw the near demise of Cape Muslim outreach. Nowhere was this more clearly visible than with the SIM Life Challenge team. What had been a major force in the mission to Muslims at the Cape when a strong German-speaking contingent came to almost a complete stand still. Internal squabbles led to their leader, Manfred Jung, who had been the driving force of the ministry for more than a decade, leave to join Africa Inland Mission. Renate Isert returned to Germany in retirement, Horst Pietzsch and his wife Monika left for Germany with their youngest son and Heinrich Grafen went to minister in Port Elizabeth.

The outreach to foreigners brought some casualties on the missionary front. That we had a vision to get more foreigners into our Discipling House ultimately led to the resignation of the house parents there. The start of Friends from Abroad also caused tensions between us and our mission leaders. This ultimately led to our resignation from WEC International in mid-2007.

Missionaries from the Third World

A special feature of the new millennium was the increase of missionaries from what used to be called third world countries. Whereas long term missionaries from traditional missionary-sending regions such as Europe and North America dwindled, Korea started already to send them across the world in the 1990s. Alain and Nicole Ravelo, respectively from Madagascar and Reunion, remained at the Cape after graduating at the Bible Institute of SA in Kalk Bay in 1982 as the first students of colour of that institution. They subsequently did a one-year internship with Life Challenge in 1983 before starting the Muslim Outreach department at Youth for Christ,, later working with TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission). Orlando Suarez from Mozambique was the only person from an African country reaching out to Muslims at the Cape operating from Mitchells Plain in the 1990s for any length of time while he was studying at the Baptist Seminary, returning to his home country after graduating. Dr David Jun from Korea operated predominantly in the northern Suburbs before returning to his home country where he became a mission leader, the president of FAN (Friends of All Nations).

Friends from Abroad takes off

Through Pastor Theo Dennis we linked up with Ds. Richard Verreyne, pastor of the Soter Christelike Gereformeerde Kerk in Parow. Pastor Deon Malan and his wife Iona, a couple with mission ministry experience in North Africa and Rochelle Smetherham-Malachowski had become members of the core team of Friends from Abroad (FFA).

Already since 2003 we had switched the focus of our outreach to foreigners. Teaching English to the newcomers seemed the obvious area where we could serve them. With our previous experience of outreach to Cape Muslims, it flowed naturally that foreigners with an Islamic background would get much of our attention. Although we had only a few workers at our disposal, a wide variety of foreigners soon came under our ministry and over our door step - from Chinese students to refugees from various African countries.

Some of the English language refugee-background learners were ultimately served via a bead necklace workshop. Others were invited to Bible Studies on Saturday afternoons.

Christians Respond to Xenophobia

The xenophobia, discrimination and corruption at the Refugee Centre of the Department of Home Affairs soon came to our attention. When we discerned an opportunity to invite the body of Christ to serve the foreigners in a loving way at the Foreshore premises of the Home Affairs at Customs House in 2007, we bumped into one disappointment after the other. Apart from Straatwerk, two ladies from the German Stadtmission - who assisted for a few weeks - were the only believers to come and assist. In the Weekend Argus of November 3, 2007 it was reported that a Zimbabwean refugee died of starvation on the streets of the Cape Town CBD. Even though the facts in the report were not quite accurate, the death of Adonis Musati ignited a flood of goodwill. Gahlia Brogneri, an Italian-background Christian, became God’s instrument to launch the Adonis Musati Project. Through this endeavour she started to care for the refugees outside the Department of Home Affairs’ Foreshore premises in a holistic way. The Adonis Musati Project would assist many a refugee the next few years. Gahlia Brogneri recruited many volunteers to get involved in the Adonis Musati Project. They assisted the refugees in finding accommodation and employment. They also helped to get people on training courses that included security and fishing.

Home Affairs Rambles

The move of their premises of the Refugee Centre to Maitland augured well in terms of service delivery. We were very happy that the level of corruption at this government department here at the Cape appeared to remain minimal initially. We prayed that clean governance might prevail. Prompt response to a letter of concern from our side encouraged us after we had noticed things starting to deteriorate again – including stick wielding by security officials. In due course we could also serve the waiting sojourners at the Maitland venue again in a holistic way. Disappointingly, that came to a stop by order of the management after a few months.

A special missionary Tool

At the CCM Partnership consultation in 2008 we received copies of a DVD with five testimonies of believers from Muslim background with subtitles in English. This turned out to be a very special missionary tool. We used the DVD More than Dreams the first time when we had a Cameroonian, one of our English language students over for a meal. When I heard that his home language was Hausa, I remembered that this was the language of one of the testimonies on the DVD. We had on-going contact with him. In due course he became one of our additional sons and daughters.

He was one of the first with whom we started Discovery Bible Studies. (The term we however learned only later.) We were blessed to have two French speaking short term missionaries of Operation Mobilisation in Cape Town to assist us with the translation. The devout Phillipe Brobecker from France became quite a favourite among the African traders.

Foreign Students at Cape Universities

A few Asians, including Koreans and one from Taiwan, studied at the theological faculty of Stellenboch University. Also from other countries missionararies who had ministered here at the Cape got doctorates here in South Africa, inter alia Andreas Maurer from Switzerland, Christof Sauer from Germany, Abraham Jun from Korea and one from Indonesia. Professor Christof Sauer and Dr Cobus Cilliers, a South African pastor who had been involved with Muslim Outreach for many years, started lecturing at the theological faculty of Stellenboch University.

No Sign of Revival Rather by chance we saw a poster of a Muslim-Christian debate to be held in Sea Point on Friday 11 December, 2009. I discovered in the next few days that hardly anybody known to us who was involved with Muslim Outreach, knew of the debate. I decided to write emails to invite pastors and prayer warriors to a special prayer meeting, stating that Muslims usually rock up in big numbers at such occasions - especially keeping in mind the proximity of Sea Point to Bo-Kaap. In my email to local pastors I furthermore proposed that we should not engage in competition or rivalry in terms of numbers attending the Sea Point event. I also wrote: ‘Instead, we would like you to encourage your church members who would like to attend, to come with a loving and prayerful attitude and definitely not seeing Muslims as enemies of Christians or Jews.' The debate did not provide fireworks in any way, but God seemed to have the last word. The electronic projector got stuck while it beamed a slide on the screen of the victorious Jesus standing there with a dove above him, reminding all and sundry of His baptism, where the divine voice proclaimed: 'this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.' It was there on the screen for many a minute.

Modern Jihad Methods

At an Islamic conference in Abuja, Nigeria, a new strategy was set out to bring Africa into the Islamic fold completely. Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa would be targeted as strategic countries in the West, East and South of the African continent. Somalians brought a new version of jihad into play in 2009. Pirates received millions of dollars from the ransom for ships with valuable cargo on board that were sailing past their coastline. The revenue was partly used for the expansion in Kenya, e.g. for the building of mosques in that country. In Nigeria churches were burned and insurrection stirred up between Christians and Muslims. Around the centrally situated city Jos, retaliation of certain Christians played into the hands of Islamists, leading to the killing of scores of Christians in the first months of 2010.

At the Cape Islam expanded quietly, e.g. through the use of petrodollars and the flexing of economic muscles. In the Gatesville-Rylands residential area the Muslims already boasted the biggest mosque at the Cape and a massive Islamic educational institution. In recent times the minute Christian presence took a big blow when the former manse of the Indian Reformed Church was bought up by Muslims. They eagerly spread the rumour that they would buy up all the churches of the area. On another page, Somalians bought up shops, also penetrating into the CBD.

On Wednesday 19 May 2010 Rosemarie came back from their bead jewellery workshop, she shared that her African ladies said almost in unison that xenophobia is increasing once again. They have even been harassed in trains and threatened. They would be attacked and killed after the World Cup. This was scary stuff. I was reminded how the bishop of Johannesburg, Desmond Tutu warned the government of the day in vain of the anger amongst the youth in 1976. The warning was not heeded, leading subsequently to the tragic Soweto massacre of learners. I immediately took the message to the opening of the Global Day of Prayer Conference in the Cape Town Convention Centre on 19 May 2010, sharing it with Barry Isaacs. I was thankful to hear that a TV report mentioned that these threats were also uttered in other parts of the country.

In answer to prayer and due to the alert and persistent actions of Anglican Catholic Bishop Alan Kenyon, the threat could be defused. He got the task force of President Zuma involved. Foreigners supplied the number plates of three cars that disseminated inciting pamphlets in the Black townships. These cars could be tracked to addresses in Grassy Park. This was possibly another PAGAD-related attempt to destabilize the country towards preparing the soil for an Islamic jihad.

At the moving opening ceremony of the Global Day of Prayer Conference on Wednesday 19 May, 2010 the South African flag was nailed to a big cross in a prophetic act. Prior to this, three leaders prayed in repentance and confession respectively on behalf of the Khoi, indigenous people of South Africa, the Black tribes that arrived later in Southern Africa and for the Afrikaners and the other nations who arrived subsequently. The whole evening was bathed in an atmosphere of contrition and remorse. Humanly speaking, the scene was set for a mighty move of God's Spirit. Seed was sown for the spiritual renewal of the African continent, that might become a light to the nations. A second theme running through the drama on the stage was a fire - revival fire to be lit. At the closing ceremony a prophetic word through came that God had released his angels to assist in bringing about transformation.

Rosemarie and I were privileged to sense a snippet of the divine work behind the scenes after I had received an invitation to a meeting the following day where we would meet Brasilian policemen who attended the Global Day of Prayer (GdoP) Conference. Jane Flack, a devout prayer warrior who had been leading intercession at the Hout Bay Police Station, had met these Brasilian policemen at the GdoP conference. On Saturday morning 22 May 2010, the Brasilians had with them a moving video produced by our very own YWAM-related Media Village in Muizenberg and Kalk Bay, that depicts how the city of Sao Paulo was transformed through prayer. At the same occasion I also heard of a Christian strategy meeting the following Saturday. I took the bull by the horns to remind the policemen present how their Western Cape leader pre-empted a major catastrophe in 2008 after the increase of xenophobic violence.

Sadly, our attempt to get the DVD to be viewed by members of the Central Police Station in Buitenkant Street via Captain Tania de Freitas, remained unsuccessful to this day. After Brigadier Goverder, a Hindu who was open to divine intervention at the station, had taken over as station commander in the beginning of 2012, he did however take the DVD, indicating that he wanted to have a look. This fed our hopes that it might still be shown to the other policemen of the station as well.

Cape Pioneers of the Church Planting Movement

At the beginning of the new millennium the City Mission discerned that the emphasis on welfare projects and the good name they won through the various ministries, had not been without a cost: their earlier focus on church planting had fallen away and new leadership was not coming through. Charles, the son of the City Mission pioneer Fenner Kadalie, left the more traditional confines to start work on farms in the Philippi area. His wife Val became the directrix of a church planting movement that grew out of their new focus as they searched for men and women of peace. Defining a church planting movement as a church that has planted at least 100 new churches through three generations of reproduced new fellowships in two years, the movement New Generation and their covenant partners has seen many new fellowships started in various African countries throughout the continent. But also in South Africa itself, through the sacrificial ministry of David Broodryk and from here throughout the continent, new multiplying 'simple churches' mushroomed. In the movement ably led by the dynamic David Watson, the phrase 'home church' became a misnomer because the groups met in all sorts of venues in the market place and on different days of the week. The strategy was to pray for a 'person of peace' who already had access to some group of unevangelized people in the community that could be reached, evangelised and later discipled.

After Peter Snyman had taken over as the main pastor of the Lighthouse Christian Centre, the

group, under the ledership of Charles and Val Kadalie, took upon themselves the challenge of the Somalians in Bellville. This did not last very long but some research by Africa Inland Mission missionaries in 2012 (??)

World Cup Outreach

The football World Cup of 2010 afforded us a unique opportunity to impact the nations. During a visit to London we had been inspired by OM missionary colleagues who operated there with a literature table. Ahead of the Global event we procured hundreds of tracts in many languages. We finally received permission to set up a literature table on Green Market Square. We also had many copies of More than Dreams, a tool that God had been using to speak to many a Muslim around the world. This DVD contains the dramatized testimonies in five different languages with English subtitles. We had been using it a lot already quite profitably. Just prior to the big event we had also received copies of the More than Dreams DVD that had been dubbed into French and Arabic.

One of the highlights of our World Cup outreach was the day Algeria played in Cape Town. During the day we distributed many DVDs to the Algerian fans so easily detectible in green and white attire. What made this outreach so special was that Rochelle Smetherham, on a visit on 'home assignment' in Washington D.C. in 2012, bumped into a Syrian national there who reacted so excitedly when she saw a copy of the More than Dreams DVD. She wondered whether this was the same one about which Algerians were raving!

After Ineke Veenstra, a Dutch colleague who was linked to YWAM, had shared the Gospel during their workshop lunchtime devotion, she promptly invited Ineke to come and teach us FFA team members along with a few others at our home on Saturday 13 August, 2011. In a further teaching session, Ineke shared about Treasure Hunting, whereby the believers go out to ‘hunt’ for people about whom they had written down names, ailments and or outward appearance. We incorporated this into our Thursday outreach, especially when teams would come from elsewhere on one-off occasions. These outreaches provided the soil on which we reached many an ongoing contact.

Advocacy for the Persecuted Church

Open Doors has been operating in South Africa since May 1971. In the early 1990s the focus shifted from the Communist to the Muslim World. Mike Burnard headed the ministry for many years. When he left for Durban, Thys Visser led the Open Doors ministry at the Cape.

Mike Burnard started Incontext Ministries in February 2010. Tess Seymore, his assistant relocated to Cape Town in 2012, joining the Friends from Abroad team. Prof Dr Christof Sauer came to Cape Town at the beginning of the millennium, joining the SIM Life Challenge team. He obtained his doctorate in missiology in 2002 at the University of South Africa in Pretoria. He was appointed as an extraordinary Associate Professor for Group Practical Theology and Missiology by Stellenbosch University for the period 2011-2014.

Since 1988 he has been researching "mission and martyrdom" and has published two academic works on the topic. He is currently working on an international research project on theologies of martyrdom and has compiled a bibliography on suffering, persecution and martyrdom.

He opened a Cape Town office of the International Journal for Religious Freedom. Together with Rev. Mirjam Scarborough, a congregational minister in Sea Point and originally a Swiss national, he shared in the conceptualization of the International Journal for Religious Freedom (IJRF) in 2008 of which she became executive editor. She contracted cancer and went to be with the Lord in 2013.

New Involvement with Somalians

The next chapter with Somalians came in October 2007 via our son Sammy who had become involved in the start of a prayer room at the University of Cape Town (UCT). He had become intensely involved with the vision of a children's home along with a group of UCT students. As a result, various UCT students including Sheralyn Thomas, the daughter of John and Avril Thomas, the pastoral couple of King of Kings Baptist Church, started visiting us quite regularly.

We were not very keen to minister to Somalians as such when Rosemarie had a recurring dream one morning which seemed to indicate that we should resume outreach to Somalians. Our previous experience with some of them in Mitchells Plain in 2004/5 ended on a rather disappointing note. By October we had been linked to the All Nations International team for a few months already. They had been doing intensive outreach in Masipumelele near to Fish Hoek already for months. There a major clash between Somalians and indigenous Blacks had resulted in 50 people killed in 2006.

We learned that Sheralyn Thomas had been negotiating in the talks between Somalians and Xhosas the previous year. She furthermore told us about a believer from the East African country who had just been baptized in Bellville. I needed no encouragement to phone the pastor of the Baptist Church there. I knew he had a heart for foreigners. It turned out that Ahmed, who subsequently changed his name, had been baptized at that church on October 7. We had started with 'international Bible Study', intended as foundational teaching for new believers from the nations.

In this venture Sheralyn worked closely with Alan Profitt, who had been ministering with an imam from Ocean View for many years.

A Second Somalian?

Soon hereafter I received a phone call from Rev Mirjam Scarborough in Sea Point with regard to a second Somalian, who has been coming to faith in Christ from Islam. This sounded to me too good to be true. I had serious doubts whether this was genuine. After further checks and balances, we decided to let him sleep in my office. (Marthinus Steyn, a missionary colleague who was on leave of absence from our previous mission agency, was living with us for a few months, teaching English to foreigners from an internet facility.) We saw this co-incidence as a special divine gift because Marthinus speaks - next to a few Western languages - also Xhosa and Arabic.

The English of our new Somalian brother was still very poor. Thus it was special to have Marthinus available, who could communicate via Arabic. During the next few days we could not only convince ourselves that he was sincere, but we could also witness how his English improved and how he grew spiritually.

At the beginning of 2008 we had the special situation of discipling two Somalians simultaneously.

The eruption of xenophobia a few months later would lead to a situation whereafter the Cape was not regarded as safe. However, we subsequently also ministered on a weekly basis at a refugee camp on the former Wingfield Military Air Base in Wynberg.

Impact from Turkey

Brother Marko, the founder and director of EGEIRO Ministry, an MBB from Turkey, came to South Africa in 2008. Here he was soon troubled by the Islamic expansion made possible through funds acquired via the halaal proceeds on food, beverage and other goods. His organization EGEIRO Ministry has done some of the earliest and extensive researches regarding the nature and strength of halaal trade in South Africa. Brother Marko has trained many churches, especially DRC congregations throughout the country on the topics of Islam, Islamisation, halaal trade and Muslims evangelism. Brother Marko's team also founded Christian Friendly Products - a Christian non-profit organization - (http://christianfriendlyproducts.com/index.php) as Christian alternative to halaal trade. Currently, besides heading up EGEIRO Ministry, Brother Marko also serves at South African Theological Seminary as a lecturer on Islamics.

Satanic Backlashes

We must have angered the arch enemy at least to some extent at this time. Some of the main Cape evangelical role players experienced the one or other form of attack at the beginning of 2012. It seemed to me no co-incidence that it was touch and go or I was eliminated personally in the night of 30/31 January 2012. This happened a few days before a Transformation Africa event that was scheduled for Saturday 4 February at Rhodes Memorial.

A completely blocked main artery should have taken me out. But God had fore-stalled this attack on my life. A few days prior to this, He gave to Beverley Stratis, a good friend of us and a faithful intercessor, a picture of me while she was praying, with some darkness and confusion surrounding me. That was her clue to include intercession for us especially the next day.

About two weeks later Erika Schmeisser, an intercessor who attended our Saturday evening fellowship regularly, came up to me to tell me her experience because she heard that I had a heart attack. At that time she woke up from a massive pain in her chest. She immediately knew that this was from someone else and that she must intercede. This highlighted Isaiah 53 to me in a special because doctors and nurses were so surprised that I had no need for tablets for pain in the chest region. Also the physician who sent me to hospital for an EKG initially was very surprised that I drove to her myself with the low pulse that she had felt.

The result of the heart attack was a reappraisal of our activities, which would include much less driving but also taking more time to work on manuscripts which had been waiting on completion.

We continued to hope and pray that the Church at the Cape might grasp new chances to get out of its complacency, indifference and lethargy to reach out lovingly to Muslims, Jews and those foreigners from the nations that are already in our midst.

Political Ramifications

The visit of Pastor Umar Mulinde to the ROTOP prayer breakfast on Wednesday 26 August had political ramifications. His visit happened only weeks after the Marikana platinum mine disaster that rocked our country with dire economic ripples. Pastor Umar dared to highlight in his talks the speech of a Deputy Minister, in which South Africans were discouraged to visit Israel. This speech on 12 August 2012, was followed by a disaster where 38 mine protest workers were shot dead by the police.

Pastor Mulinde warned South African Christians, encouraging them to oppose the anti-Israel stand of the government. The warning has basically gone unheeded, albeit that the Church has generally been more positive in support of Israel and the Jews.

New Outreach to Somalians? In the second quarter of 2011 Tesfaye Nenku, a pastor from Ethiopia, joined us for the practical part of his All Nations CPx training. During our outreaches in the city we had been meeting believers from Ethiopia who belonged to a congregation in Bellville that we wanted to visit for some time. When Tesfaye shared that he had preached in that church in 2010 and that he had the phone number of the pastor, it was the most natural thing to connect and arrange a visit for Tuesday 17 May, 2011. For the same evening I had a meeting scheduled with local believers linked to Metro Evangelistic Services (MES), a group of local believers of Bellville with whom we had been connected since 2009.

The events of Tuesday 17 May 2011 brought some excitement. That afternoon a pastor of an Ethiopian congregation in Bellville shared that his congregation had just decided to make June the month for outreach. They wanted to get out of their inward-looking isolation. For the same evening I was scheduled to attend a meeting with the MES folk in Bellville. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the agenda was completely focused on the outreach to the local Somalians. Pastor Tertius Bezuidenhout reported rather despondently of their efforts to use sports in bridging the cultural gap and how the Al Qaeda-related Al Shabaab had succeeded effectively to counter their endeavour to reach out lovingly to Somalians. The presence of Pastor Tesfaye Nenku and the fresh information which we could bring from an Ethiopian fellowship, changed the atmosphere significantly. In the aftermath of this meeting, it was decided to have combined prayer meetings once a month with the Ethiopian fellowship. Our joy turned however to be premature. Cultural differences regarding the prayer meetings turned out to be a big challenge. We continued our efforts to engage Ethiopian and Eritrean believers, later rather half-heartedly when the response was so poor. We still believed that this could be strategic for loving outreach to Muslims at large. A new encouragement followed in the first half of 2012 when AIM did research among Somalians in Bellville and thereafter creating a team under the leadership of Gloria Cube, a local Xhosa missionary with many years ministry experience in different places.

Treasure Hunting

From different sides we heard of Treasure Hunting as a new method of evangelisation. We decided to get some teaching about it when a Dutch volunteer joined the ladies at the FFA 'bead workshop in August 2011. After two training sessions, we started applying some of the teaching, doing Treasure Hunting. In the course of the next few months we had some exceptional experiences doing this. We were not surprised at all that we met folk from Bo-Kaap 'by chance' in the city from time to time as 'treasures'.

The Treasure Hunting developed into a situation which really brought pariticipants quite a lot of fun as they evangelised. We did this especially when groups came to join us, such as young believers from other countries via the YWAM base in Muizenberg.

An unprecedented Networker

Dr Abraham Jun got his doctorate at Stellenbosch University. He turned out to be an excellent networker, making contacts throughout the Cape Peninsula with pastors and inviting various missionary colleagues to assist in offereing teaching courses in Muslim Evangelism. He persevered even though the response was far from encouraging.

Visit of Pastor Youssef Ourahmane

In December 2012 Dr Ernst van der Walt invited folk via an OM connection to hear what God was doing in Algeria. At various occasions Pastor Youssef Ourahmane, a former Muslim, narrated how over the last 30 years there has been a revival in that country. Before 1980 the number of born-again followers in Algeria could be counted. There are now over 100, 000 believers in the country. He has personally seen Imams, Islamic scholars and terrorists come to Christ. In 2006 the Algerian government brought in a law that stated no evangelism of any kind would be allowed and commanded several churches to close down. The churches refused to obey the government and said “You had better build more prisons because we are not going to do what you are commanding.” Since 2006, because of the persecution of Christians, the church has grown faster than before and the Algerian government has come to understand that they will never be able to stamp out the church. Recently the Algerian government said to the church “You must train your pastors!!!” and the government has given permission for a Bible Institute to be set up.

At the various events during the first days of March 2013 that they addressed, Pastor Youssef and his wife did not only share these facts but they also told us their secret. Through a fasting and prayer chain the change came about. We took up the challenge to get a fasting and prayer chain going that would impact our ministry significantly. Within months we had two committed believers from Bo.Kaap. These were however expatriates, respectively from Sudan and Zimbabwe. At a meeting with Pastor Youssef Ourahmane a believer form that country came into the ambits of our ministry. The conversion stories of these three plus those of a few others with whom we got into contact since 2012, have just been published in a booklet called Into the Light.

A Movement with MBBs and Messianic Jewish Believers?

At an LCJE conference event with Pastor Umar Mulinde, an MBB from Uganda in August 2012 in Kednilworth, we had the biggest number of both MBBs and Messianic Jews present in one meeting.

We used the visit of the couple from Algeria to challenge a few Muslim background followers of our Lord to organise an evening in Mitchells Plain. We were encouraged when the overwhelming feeling was that the occasion should be repeated with regularity. To implement the intention was a great challenge however

Jack Carstens and Cecilia Burger organised a meeting for Messianic Jewish Believers on 20 April 2013 in Brackenfell. This was the first time that such an event took place in Cape Town, with 40 of them attending. We invited a few MBB individuals. Our vision of a movement of reconciliation of the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael was thus fed in this way. It would take another three years until an event with significant impact along these lines would transpire. David and Jonathan Foundation and Emet Ministries teamed up to emphasize God’s love and compassion for Isaac (the Jewish people) and Ishmael (the Arab people) at a conference in Sea Point. The Messianic pastor Manfred Nochomowitz shared his testimony with us about how Yeshua touched His life and brought him into a new relationship with Father God. He also explained how Jewish people feel about being confronted with the truth about Messiah and how to bring them the Gospel message of salvation and eternal life. Hany Immanuel, the other speaker, was an Egyptian Orthodox believer, has an endearing love for the Moslem people, having grown up with them in Egypt. Hany also explained how Jesus changed his attitude towards the Jewish people and how Manfred was instrumental in giving him a new found love for the Jewish people.

The Trickle of Converts becomes a Streamlet

It is clear that no single human agency can claim to be specially used in the recent movement to Christ from Islam at the Cape, although the support given to converts from Islam when they were ostrasized and persecuted was surely valuable. Missionaries from SIM Life Challenge, TEAM and WEC could be mentioned in this regard. This prevented many a Muslim from returning to the Islamic fold. The recent increasing trickle of converts is however the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. Usually it has been a divine combination of factors: supernatural intervention through dreams and visions, the testimony of national believers and the ministry of churches and missionaries. The convincing testimony of former Muslims was the decisive one. If any single human contribution could be singled out, it should be the courageous, committed and sacrificial stand of believers who came out of Islam. They not only braved many a storm, but they taught the missionaries from abroad many a lesson.

Converts in Ministry A special feature of the 21^st century is the dramatic increase of MBBs in ministry. They seem to be more fearless than in earlier days. Arguably one of the most innovative but effective ways of evangelism at the Cape is that of Sam and Morieda Damons in Montague Village, a new township near to the notorious Lavender Hill. Sam wrote more than a thousand satirical poems which harvested great appeal among Muslims all around the Peninsula. The friendship they harvested in this way seemed to make Muslims forget that they are supposed to isolate and ostracize Morieda, a MBB from Bishop Lavis in the northern suburbs. In due course they were able to minister to many seekers from the Muslim community.

Prayer on the local CCM Agenda

When I discovered prayer on the agenda of a meeting of the local CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims) forum scheduled for Tuesday, 13 March, 2007, I really did not expect much. When 90% of the meeting revolved around another proposed visit of Jay Smith, it merely confirmed my prejudice. Prayer was the last topic on the agenda and it confirmed indeed my assessment of that as a matter of priority in CCM. When we got to the end, I suspected that it would possibly hardly be discussed. When I was nominated to chair the Forum, I knew my answer. I could never lead a club where I did not feel myself on the same wave-length. The reason I gave for declining was however very truthful and no Jonah move: I wanted to establish Friends from Abroad that was about to be launched.

I was rather taken by surprise when someone suggested that we should have an hour of prayer before the next meeting. This was quite a new sound. I sensed that this was a divinely inspired move. Was the seed that we have tried to sow in this regard finally germinating? Even more surprising, I was asked to be the CCM prayer co-ordinator of the Western Cape. There was no way that I could decline this of course. On more than one occasion I had all but resigned when CCM as a body appeared to be rather indifferent to the necessity of intercession and confession in Muslim evangelism. Unfortunately this was rather temporary. The run-up to the World Cup resulted in personal rivalry of the worst kind. My attempt towards reconciling the two parties was interpreted as siding with the one party.

At the end of 2012 the chairperson of the Western Cape CCM cluster announced that he was stepping down. When nobody was willing to chair the cluster, I volunteered to do it for one year alone. At the end of 2013 CCM Western Cape all but dissolved. The ageing members decided to meet hereafter ad hoc as the need would arise. During 2014 until the present no CCM-related events occurred, albeit that the need for a Discipling House for males created some networking and Dr Abraham Jun continued to organise Muslim Evangelism seminars in township churches with what was dubbed the Bridge Team. The attendance at these events was not inspiring at all, but it did keep CCM as a movement at least alive.

Discipling of Seekers and Believers

The Discipling of seekers and new believers both at our home and at our Discipling House went through an interesting phase in 2013. Towards the end of that yer we were blessed when we could baptise two Muslim young men from North and West Africa respectively. It was such a blessing to witness their zeal for the Lord in spite of threats and presecution. It was quite special that the one that had been residing in Bo-Kaap when I met him. Via English teaching he came into our Discipling Bible Study. The other one was also a product of our assistance with English. Already in the run-up to his baptism displayed eagerness to get Bible School training. This we could arrange for him for 2014.

The university student who went into our Discipling House after a brief sojourn in our home was the divine instrument to assist with the discipling of a young lady who had come from drug addiction supernaturally. A seret believer from Hanover Park, who had already been baptised in March 1995, played a big part in the conversion of the former drug addict. Her son, a gangster who had attended the children’s club as a child at the Alpha Ceentre, was the boyfriend of the former drug girl from Mitchell’s Plain. The university student and the young man who went to Bible School subsequently also went for training with a view to missionary service.

A Discipling House for Males?

A flurry of male converts in 2014 brought the need for a male MBB discipling house to the fore. Various Afrikaners came into the frame. We were very much blessed when Andre van der Westhuizen, a member of the DRC Bergsig in Durbanville and a builder, took a keen interest, along with a few members of that congregation. They wanted to assist towards the erection of a Discipling House for males. When Almo Bouwer, a builder, revealed that the Lord had challenged him to build something in District Six, the venture got somehow also linked to the mountain peak name change attempt – from Devil’s Peak to Dove’s Peak - that meandered on low-key.

An injection was given to the process when it turned out that a MBB couple was in the queue there, waiting for property given to people – or their descendants - who had to leave District Six because of the Group Areas evictions of the 1960s to 1980s. This couple, Abdul and Zulpha Morris had been linked to our ministry for many years. That the City Mission also got property in District Six gave hope that God was answered prayer to thwart the agenda of Islamists – that the area would ultimately not be completely Islamic after all.

Threat of a Muslim Invasion

The gradual increase of Muslims moving into the northern suburbs that had been known as Afrikaner strongholds, came to be perceived as a threat. This co-insided with the ISIS expansion in the Middle East, along with Boko Haram and Al Shabbab atrocities in West and East Africa respectively. When HAMAS was not only invited to the Western Cape by the ANC government but also given red carpet treatment in late October 2016, the fear of a Muslim ‘invasion’ was tantamount to a wake-up call. Friends from Abroad was approached to lead teaching to congregants of different churches. With the visionary inspiration of Pastor Madishaba Moloko, a city businesswoman, a (w)holistic approach to reach all neighbours, not specifically targeting M'lims, was made in an attempt to impact a whole community. A new intiative Love Unveiled started at the Lewende Woord congregation, a Full Gospel Church in Parow. During a teaching course over six sessions more than 200 believers were taught in loving outreach to Muslims. Significant was that the participants came from 13 denominations.

Cape Malay Prayer Initiative

During April/May 2015 participants from Malaysia, South Africa and Netherlands participated in a 10 day prayer initiative to address historical issues between the Netherlands and its African and East India colonies, regarding slavery. A Malaysian representative from a Muslim background, South African representatives from Dutch, Afrikaner, Khoi, Indonesian and Malaysian background and Dutch representatives from the Netherlands participated.

Positives in the present Malaise?

We have nevertheless the right positive in the present malaise. ‘If my people humble themselves and pray ... I will heal their land’ (2 Chronicles 7:14) is still a Biblical promise.

The Middle East is ripe to be won back for the biblical Jesus. It is part of the debt of the church to correct the confusion, which our Nestorian, Coptic and Maronite Christian forefathers have caused. It was their respective fallacies - notably the calling Mary the mother of God - along with the doctrinal bickering around these issues, which prevented Muhammad and the Arabs to understand the Gospel properly. With the goodwill which our country has won, e.g. through the worldwide acclaim which the former State President, Nelson Mandela has been receiving, almost the whole world is ready to accept emissaries from South Africa. With the exposure of the lie of Islam here in South Africa former Muslims from the Cape would be well prepared to share the Gospel in the Middle East. Many of them already read Arabic (not only recite), which they have learned at madressah (the Qur’an school).

Of course, these areas must first be prayed open as it was once done with regard to the former communist world.

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Schmidt, L.R. - Ds. Dr. Helperus Ritzema van Lier, Genadendal, 1937

Schoeman, Karel - J.J. Kicherer en die Vroeë Sending, 1799-1806, South African Library, Cape

Town, 1996

South African Library - Report of the Cape Town Auxiliary Committee (to the London) Mission Society for 1847 (1848), Cape Town,

South African Library - Manuscript Collections, Council for World Mission Archives,

Inventories,

Terhoven, Ken - Breath of Heaven, Struik Christian Books,Cape Town, 1989

Townsend, Lesley and Stephen - Bokaap faces and facades, Howard B.Timmins,

Cape Town, 1977

Van der Ross, R.E. - The Foundation of the A.P.O. in Cape Town in 1903 and the founding role of Dr. Abdurahman, Munger Africana Library Notes, 22-29, Pasadena, 1975

Van Heyningen, - Cape Town and the Plague of 1901, in Studies in the History of Cape Town, vol.4, 1984 [1981] pp. ??

Vos, M.C. - Merkwaardig verhaal aangaande het leven en de lotgevallen van Michiel

Christiaan Vos, New edition of a series of letters to a friend, edited by J.Du Plessis,

Hollandsch-Afrikaanse Uitgevers Maatschappij, Cape Town, 1911 (1819).

Walshe, Peter - Prophetic Christianity and the Liberation Movement, Cluster Publications, Pietermaritzburg, 1995

Worden, Nigel - Slavery in Dutch South Africa, Cambridge University Press, Africa Studies Series, Cambridge (UK), 1985

Wright, William - Slavery at the Cape of Good Hope, Negro Universities New York, 1969,

Facsimile of 1831 edition.

Zwemer, Samuel, Islam at Cape Town, - The Muslim World, XV: 4, pages 327- 333

A Survey of Islam in South Africa, International Review of Missions, 1925

[1] Later it became known as Jericho Walls.

[2] The hospital became renowned worldwide in 1967 through the first heart transplant operation by Professor Chris Barnard and his team.

[3]Since then he was promoted to warrant officer and ??.

[4]The St. James Church massacre of July 1993 ironically caused a temporary break on the escalation of violence, which sent the country to the precipice of a civil war of enormous dimensions. Inter alia it spawned unprecented prayer all around the country, bringing home the seriousness of terrorism, which would not even stop at sacred places.

[5] From May 1521 until March 1522, Martin Luther stayed at the Wartburg castle, after he had been taken there for his safety at the request of Frederick, the Wise, following his ex-communication by Pope Leo X and his refusal to recant at the Diet of Worms. It was during this period that Luther, under the pseudonym Junker Jörg (the Knight Jörg), translated the ‘New Testament’ into German.

[6]The English version of this booklet, published by WEC International, was reprinted in March 1998

[7]A comparison of the occurrences of Gabriel in the Bible, his appearances to Daniel, Zechariah and Mary to the supernatural figure which appeared to Muhammad, shows major discrepancies. Initially Muhammad thought that God had appeared to him, but later this figure was said to be Gabriel. He is equated to the Holy Spirit in Islamic Theology. The revelations attributed to the Qur'anic Gabriel, especially those reflected in the Medinan Surah's of the Qur'an, are diametrically different to those revealed by the Holy Spirit in the Bible. Gabriel is actually mentioned by name only twice in the Qur'an and there fairly neutrally.

[8]Ali is not alone in this way of translating. The Living Bible has also been doing it quite a few times. Some modern translations have been worse in this regard, notably one that tried to accommodate Muslim readers by translating away the Fatherhood of God and the Sonship of Jesus.

[9]This monthly prayer meeting also included prayer for the Jews, those in Israel as well as those in Cape Town.

[10] Since 1992 there was a global awakening in prayer for the Muslim world. There were numerous prayer initiatives like prayer journeys and prophetic actions since then to intercede for leaders and networks, e.g. Love Southern Africa, which helped to mobilise prayer for Muslims.

[11] This changed later when both received separate frequencies as would also be the case with CCFM and Tygerberg radio stations.

[12] For this title I was inspired by a Dutch TV programme God verandert Mensen. Subsequently the title became the brand name of CCFM, ‘changing lives for good’.

[13] In the new millennium I dropped all my research and writings – in varying stages of completion - in my blog www.isaacandishmael.blogspot.com to deal with that convern.

[14]At some stage the Lord had to deliver me personally from resentment towards the Dutch Reformed Church. I had also been reading that the denomination was resisting change when the government under Prime Minister P.W. Botha was ready to repeal the law in the late 1970s. (This law had effectively blocked our possible return to South Africa.)

[1]For this study I especially used the following material:

Achmat Davids, The mosques of BoKaap, (South African Institute of Arabic and Islamic Research, Athlone, Cape Town, 1980) 'Politics and the Muslims of Cape Town' in C. Saunders et al, eds., Studies in the history of Cape Town (University of Cape Town, 1984), vol.4, pp.174-220; 'My religion is superior to the law: The survival of Islam at the Cape of Good Hope'; Kronos 12 (1987), pp.57-71; (i) Muslim-Christian relations in nineteenth Century Cape Town, 1825-1925'; Kronos 19 (Nov. 1992), pp.80-101;

Robert Shell, 'The establishment and spread of Islam at the Cape from the beginning of Company rule to 1838' (Unpublished BA Hons. thesis, UCT, 1974); 'Rites and rebellion: Islamic conversion at the Cape, 1809 to 1915' in Studies in the History of Cape Town, vol.5, pp.1-46; R. Shell, Children of Bondage, Witwatersrand University 1997 (1994);

L. Haasbroek, Die Sending onder die Mohammedane in Kaapstad en omgewing, 1955.

[2]In Shell's later major work, Children of Bondage, Witwatersrand University 1994, his position in this regard changed quite dramatically, although here and there the earlier traces come through, e.g. unsubstantiated accusations against Christian workers on p.367

[3] The aftermath of the repression worked through right into the second half of the 20th century. As part of unshackling colonialism, nominal Christians turned their backs on the religion, which they associated with the Dutch. Efforts were being made to rid Indonesia from all vestiges of Christianity, to create an Islamic state by 2002. The opposite happened.

[4]Translation of 'van Mohammedaanse ouders', Haasbroek, 1955:56

[5] A slave with the name Anton, who hailed from the Caribbean island of St.Thomas, shared the plight of his countrymen with the revolutionary Count Zinzendorf, speaking also of the need to bring the gospel to the slaves. The aristocrat was quite unconventional, daring to break with prevailing custom on the occasion of the coronation of King Christian VI in 1731, by speaking to a slave.

[6]Zuid-Afrikaansche Tijdschrift, vol.1 (1824), p.25. Translation: When people were still discussing in many parts of Europe whether slaves and heathen should believe and whether they could be taught, they had already started with that work in this Colony.

[7]Original: 'Het gedragspatroon der V.O.C en haar dienaren was niet bevorderlijk geweest voor het verspreiden van een goede reuk van het westers christendom', Enklaar, 1972:106

[8] Haasbroek, 1955:69. Translation: like leaven at the Cape people's formation.

[9]Nachtigal, 1893: n.p. (Foreword) Translation: The present generation pick the fruit of their prayers and labour, of their tears and their battle. Those were dark days when they operated... but their courageous faith was victorious.

[10]Translation: The explanations of mission work given to them gave them the idea that missionaries would be a protection against the white farmers.

[11] The Danish missionary Johann Böving, who visited the Cape in 1709 tried to urge Khoi to listen to the Word of God, but they mocked him and he left the country after a short stay (Botha, 1999:11).

[12]Lightfoot, 1900:34. We note that the church and secular authorities connived very much in the case of the Dutch Reformed Church, a pattern that was followed for many centuries.

[13] Haasbroek, 1955: 75. Translation: in no other way and under no other rules than those regarding the ordination of missionaries.

[14] Literally: ‘n gloed van oortuiging, Haasbroek, 1955: 75.

[15] In the Black DRC a further title developed, the ‘evangelist’. This had little to do with evangelism, merely a title for a preacher who was not pemitted to perform scraments.

[16] Cited by Haasbroek, p.88 literally: 'nu kunnen zij (de kinderen) in het Engelsch en Hollandsch verstaan wat zij in het Arabisch lezen en dat kunnen zij op onze scholen niet leeren'.

[17] Translation: It was almost just as difficult to bring the Gospel to the Mohammedans as to Jews in Holland. Part of the problem was the lukewarmness and indifference of the Christians in whose midst they live.

[18]Translation: (the Muslims listened) attentively...although my careless and unnecessary speaking about Muhammad could have upset the emotions.

[19]Translation: If a medical mission could be started at the Cape.

[20]Original: 'rijke oogst heb ik op mijn zendingswerk in de Kaapstad niet gehad, maar ik mag toch zeggen dat ik niet onvruchtbaar gearbeid heb'

[21]Although the motives were much more positive than in 1857 when it was decided to haave separate churches because of the 'weakness of the flesh', the move in 1798 could perhaps be seen as the start of church Apartheid. The separate seating in the Groote Kerk for slaves should be regarded as similar to the practice in the ancient Jewish synagogues where occupational groups would sit together.

[22]Papendorp was later called Woodstock.

[23]Van Niekerk F.N., Translation: who had a sufficient commant of the Malay language.

[24]Cited by Haasbroek, p.74, Translation: the most suitable means... to oppose the continuing spread... with success... should contain ... the imbueing of the principles of our blessed religion... in the Malay language.

[25]Translation: a capable and ordained missionary who has a command of the Arabic language.

[26]Haasbroek, 1955:89. Translation: the mission among slaves... must be an independant work.

[27]Abdullah ben Yussuf; or the story of a Malay as told by himself, Cape Town, Rose and Belinfante, 1295 A.H. (1877). The original title was Twijfel en Gemoedskwelling van een Maleijer in die Kaap-kolonie. I have not been able to find if a copy of this booklet. Nevertheless, it is highly improbable that Arnold translated the booklet before he came to the Cape.

[28]Through his own research Arnold showed that an Arab author, El Kindy, has pointed out more than 1100 years ago to the logical reason for this fact, viz. that Muhammad expected to rise again after three days. In Ibn Hischam's updated biography of the Islamic prophet, it is reported that Umar would not believe that Muhammed had died, but that he would be like Moses who returned after forty days when everybody thought that he had died (Hischam, Das Leben Muhammads, 1992 (1864), p.419).

[29]In his later major work, Children of Bondage (Witwatersrand University, 1994) this changed dramatically.

[30]Schoeman, Kicherer, p.38. However, Schwinn never went because there was no wagon available to take him. He returned to Germany in stead.

[31]Translation: simple descent who could not maintain themselves in the difficult situations

[32]Translation: The Dutch were often tactless and aggressive, including Van der Kemp himself, who succeeded already in making himself unpopular with the authorities and quite a few people

[33]Wilmos Oosterhof, a Dutch author, (Vrouwen van Abraham en hun invloed op de wereldgeschiedenis, Boekencentrum, Zoetermeer (Netherlands), 1994, p. 59) has very interestingly pointed out not only that the three friends of Job display a view of God which can be described as Islamic, but also that Agur and the King Lemuel, who are widely regarded as the authors of the last two chapters of Proverbs, were Arabs. Very strikingly he pointed out that an Arab has thus suggested in Proverbs 30:2-4 that God had a son: '...Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and the name of his son?' The bickering of Christians about various doctrinal issues brought Muhammad to his well-known one-sided view of God.

[34]Townsend describes the Bo-Kaap confusingly here as identical to the original 'Malay quarter', the rectangle bordered by between Dorp, Rose, Strand and Chiapinni Streets.

[35]These statistics are mentioned in Hallett: 1984 [1979]: 133.

[36] This information ws shared with me in the mid-1990s, shortly before his retirement.

[37]This information about Rev. A.J. Liebenberg is mainly taken from minutes of the sub-committee for the mission work among the Muslims in the archives of the Dutch Reformed Church, as well as a handwritten report of 1948 by Rev. F. N. van Niekerk, a colleague of Liebenberg, found at the same venue.

[38]The reference is probably to imams. It is unlikely that there were so many sheikhs or maulanas at the

Cape, i.e. those who have respectively studied in the Middle East or the Indian subcontinent.

[39]Translation: this discouraging work

[40]South Africa also knows the other extreme. The unfortunate polarisation in South Africa created a situation where (political) activism was equated with prophetic Christianity. Jesus was a prophet but nobody would describe him as an activist. Some recent publications, e.g. Prophetic Christianity and the Liberation Movement by Professor Peter Walshe, 1995 does not make this important discernment.

[41] An example of Haron’s commitment to the liberation from the apartheid shackles was when he heeded the request of his employers Rowntrees-Wilsons to stay silent about his opposition to Israel in the wake of the six day war in 1967. He accepted this compromise to enable him to retain unhindered access to the Black townships (Tayob, p. 85).

[42] After 1994, with the advent of the new democracy in the country, Islam in South Africa left this moral high ground. Revenue from other countries were used to buy up property in a big way and many mosques were built till March, 2001 when it was reported that the funding would be suspended in order to rebuild mosques in Buj, India where an earthquake had practically razed the city and surroundings to the ground.

[43]The long Surah includes Meccan and Medinan elements according to most scholars. On face value they are conflicting. Generally the latter verses are regarded to have abrogated (cancelled). the former version. According to this interpretation Surah 2:256 would not be valid: ‘...there is no compulsion in religion.’

[44] This was possibly still happening at the turn of the century. At the 2001 census the Cape Metropol had only 281,507 from a population of 2893247 owned up belonging to the Muslim Faith. A figure nearer to 400,000 would be more realistic. Even more starkly is the unreliable figure given for the New Apostolic Church, viz. 3866.

[45] Julia Forgus from the Baptist Church and Rev. George Schwarz from the Church of the Province preceded her.

[46]The reference is probably to imams. It is unlikely that there were so many sheikhs or maulanas at the

Cape, i.e. those who have respectively studied in the Middle East or the Indian subcontinent.

[47]Translation: this discouraging work

[48] Now in his 80s, NevilleTruter still ministers to Muslim people around the world via the internet.

[49] Ds. Latsky was not known to have been involved with Muslim evangelism.

[50] A comparison in this regard is Ds. Piet Bester, who did his utmost best to limit any racial tensions in Ravensmead (formerly Tiervlei) when many Whites attended his Sendingkerk congregation. The Whites used to take the front pews. In the new building which they opened in 197??, they put a notice on separate pews in the middle of the church in the middle for ‘Gaste’. Before this, the visiting Whites would sit in the front pews.

[51] The Charisma Evangelical Council in Laudium, Pretoria, under the inspiring leadership of Rev. Perold de Beer, seems to be committed to reach out to the Hindus and Muslims through friendship.

[52] The close links of the Dutch Reformed Church to apartheid structures had become an embarrassment for the gifted Rev. I.D. Morkel, the reason to break away from the denomination to start the Calvinist Protestant Church in 1950.

[53]The author was once turned away at a prayer meeting and at another occasion I was 'permitted' to stand at the back of a White Pentecostal church where a healing campaign was held by Rassie Rasmus, a famous preacher of the time.

[54]Greyling, 1976:258 Literally: “Die beeld wat daar by die Kleurlinge ontstaan het van die gemoeidheid van die Afrikaanse Kerke met die beleid van rasseskeiding.”

[55]The perception got so ingrained that the Bo-Kaap museum at 71, Wale Street hardly has a trace of the former predominantly Christian presence.

[56]I discovered personally how effective the apartheid government's machinery was. The text of a motion which was to be tabled at the Moravian Synod in the Netherlands in 1979, calling for a boycott of Shell because of their connivance with the apartheid government, disappeared mysteriously.

[57] Gerhard Nehls spontaneously took personal responsibility for this development when he read a draft of this treatise.

[58] She ministered thereafter in Mozambique, probably one of the first female Xhosa missionaries after Wilhelmina Stompjes, who worked as translator to German Moravian missionaries in the Eastern Cape. (A fuller version of the contribution of Wilhelmina Stompjes can be found in Mysterious ways of God, accessible at www.isaacandishmael.blogspot.com).

[59]We had been prepared though to reach out to Muslims when we were getting ready to work in the Ivory Coast in 1990. This was confirmed during our preparation as missionary candidates in Bulstrode, the international headquarters of WEC in 1991.

[60] This venue has a personal nostalgic touch. The shopping complex and the adjacent cinema were built on land from where the author’s family was evicted in an apartheid-related expropriation under the guise of slum clearance in 1970.

[61]I have worked this theme out more fully in the treatise A Goldmine of another sort

[62] Elsa subsequently contracted cancer, ultimately going to be with her Lord.

[63] The church complex had been declared an historical monument, and was thus spared the fate of many buildings in District Six in the wake of Group Areas legislation. It was incorporated into the Cape Technikon and subsequently used as a gymnasium and an art studio. The premises were returned to the Moravian Church by President Mbeki in 2002. Holy Trinity, a congregation related to St James Church of England in Kenilworth, used it for a few years for student outreach in the 1990s.

Isaac and Ishmael

Monday, June 5, 2017

THE CINDERELLA OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AT THE CAPE June 2017

Abbreviations

Introduction

1. EFFORTS OF THE FIRST 150 YEARS

Religious Restrictions on the Mardyckers

Islam in response to coersive Christianity

An occult Element

Racial and Religious Prejudice: A fallacious colonial View on Baptism

Missionary Endeavour in the Eighteenth Century

Baptism – a hot Potato

Rejection of Slaves, even in the Church

2. THE 19TH CENTURY – Missionary Work blossoms

Missionaries on Collision Course

Prevalent Racism

The Neglect of Religious Instruction

The Arrogance of Cape Christians

Other missionary Efforts of the early nineteenth Century

Slaves turning to Islam

A Bo-Kaap Variation of tent-making Ministry

Inter-Church Co-operation

Denominational Co-operation

Church Apartheid is born

Missionary Work among Muslims after 1850

Insensitivity to Islamic Culture

Interim Appraisal of Missionary Work

Mission Work after 1875

Rev. John Arnold, a brilliant Strategist and underrated Theologian

(Lack of) Appreciation of the Importance of Language

Deficient Preparation of Missionaries

Much ado about a Booklet

In Defence of an unfairly maligned Missionary

Adressing the whole Man

A Caricature of the Gospel

Negative Traits in Evangelism

Destruction of indigenous Culture?

Preaching and Teaching deficiencies

Prophetic Voices and Christian Action

Whites to the Rescue of Cape Islam

Government Aid

3. The Twentieth Century

The Scourge of Racism and bigoted Church Politics

Religious Dialogue

Ecclesiastic Disunity

Government Intervention

The Legalization of racial Separation

Nationals of Colour used as Missionaries?

A Power Encounter at the Green Point Track

Recognition of the Need of spiritual Warfare

The DRC Church leads the Pack in Muslim Outreach

Religious Dialogue

The missionary Work among Cape Indian Muslims

The Impact of the Apartheid Ideology on the DRC Church

Mission Responsibility delegated

Estrangement of the DRC ‘daughter’ Churches

The Involvement of the Indian Sector of the DRC

Detours due to Apartheid

Outreach by the Anglican Churches

Muslim Outreach of the Baptist Church

Outreach of other Denominations

Children’s Ministries

Problematic Missionary Methods

Missionaries among Muslims in the last Quarter of the 20th Century

The Indifference of the local Churches

Other Nations get on Board

A Training Ground for South African Missionaries

Evangelism in Trains

The Jesus Film

Efforts to minister to Gangsters and Prisoners

Other Compassionate Outreach

4. The Situation at the Beginning of the New Millennium

Other Joint Ventures

Networking between various Agencies and Churches

The Muslim Prayer Focus

Outreach to Students

Efforts in the Central Area of the City

PAGAD comes on the Scene

Negative Influences for Islam

Converts from Islam