Abu Bakr Effendi

rdf:langString Abu Bakr Effendi

rdf:langString Abu Bakr Effendi

rdf:langString Abu Bakr Effendi

rdf:langString Bayānu ddīn by Abu Bakr Effendi, published 1869 was one of the first books translated into Afrikaans

rdf:langString c. 1814

rdf:langString Bayānu ddīn by Abu Bakr Effendi, published 1869 was one of the first books translated into Afrikaans

rdf:langString Sheikh

rdf:langString Sheikh Abu Bakr Effendi (1814–1880) was an Ottoman qadi sent in 1862 by Sultan Abdulaziz at the request of the British Queen Victoria to the Cape of Good Hope, in order to teach and assist the Muslim community of the Cape Malays. His year of birth has often been mistaken to be 1835. Effendi was from a Sayyid family which originated from Mecca and migrated into Abbasid then Sejuk territory. Abubakr was born in the Ottoman Province of Shehrizur. He is a Sayyid, direct descendant of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad through Zayd ibn Ali, son of Imam Zayn al-Abidin. Other imams in the Cape were mostly teaching the Shafi`i school of Islamic jurisprudence; he was a follower and the first teacher of Hanafi school, for which he also established a madrassa in Cape Town. He gained notoriety in 1869 after ruling that rock lobster and snoek, two staple foods in the Cape, were sinful (haraam). He has often been mistaken for being a Shafi'i on the basis of him being a Scholar of the 4 schools of Sunni Islam, and being able to issue religious edicts according to each one. His ancestors and children practised the Hanafi school of thought. He died after contracting malaria from reportedly travelling to Dera Mozambique, after having made several major contributions to Islam in South Africa. He introduced the fez for men, as well as reinstating the hijab for women. More importantly, besides his role as teacher he also published the Arabic Afrikaans "Uiteensetting van die godsdiens" ("Bayan ad-Din", or "The Exposition of the Religion") in 1877.