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Shaykh Yusuf Al-Khalwati Al-Maqassari has made his mark in Southeast Asia as a heroic figure who fought valiantly against the Dutch. However, it was his position as a Sufi shaykh that catapulted him into prominence. Before and during his period of exile, the shaykh wrote a number of important texts on tasawwuf (Sufism) that have circulated among and influenced many of his companions and students. In this article we have translated three short treatises that had been attributed to him. Although none of them was written whilst he was in exile at the Cape of Good Hope between the time of his arrival there in1694 and the time of his death in 1699, he was able to disseminate its contents to members of the nascent Cape Muslim community who had come into contact with him.

South Africa’s Cape Muslim religious leaders creatively contributed towards the formation of Afrikaans linguistics, an issue that the South African academia seemed to have ignored and overlooked. By the beginning of the 20th century, the literary output of these religious leaders developed to form a unique genre of literature; a genre that is popularly referred to as “Arabic-Afrikaans” within the South African linguistic circles. Achmat Davids (1939–98), who may be regarded as the doyen of “Cape Islamic Studies,” was among a handful of scholars who devoted much of his time to study carefully this type of literature. As a consequence of his labour, he produced one of the most significant contemporary works in South African linguistics. This review essay reflects upon the importance of Davids’ path-breaking and invaluable study, which was recently co-edited by Hein Willemse and Suleman E. Dangor.

Making South Africa’s Muslims creatively visible. South Africa’s Muslims have generally been well represented in different sectors of the society over the years. Since the arrival of the forefathers such as Shaykh Yusuf al-Makassari (d.1699) at the Cape, Muslims viewed themselves an integral part of the soil. During both the colonial and apartheid areas, however, they—as a religious minority—were depicted and portrayed by the creative artists such as painters, photographers and writers rather negatively. Gabeba Baderoon’s book Regarding Muslims is a critical study that highlights how Muslim representations moved from the margins to the centre and from the picturesque to the menacing. This review essay this reflects on the contents of this invaluable and informative text.