Muslim Residential Patterns in Cape Town: An Examination of the Changes and Continuities in the Cape Town Muslim Community Tasnim Motala/ MTLTAS004 A dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Masters in Sociology Faculty of the Humanities University of Cape Town 2013 UniversityCOMPULSORY of DECLARATION Cape Town This work has not been previously submitted in whole, or in part, for the award of any degree. It is my own work. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in, this dissertation from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced. November 1, 2013 Signature Removed The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University of Cape Town Table of Contents Introduction 8 CHAPTER ONE: MUSLIMS AS A DISTINCTIVE COMMUNITY 11 i. Parameters of Study 11 ii. Definition of Community 14 iii. The Muslim Community 16 iv. Identity and Conformity 23 v. Diversity of Muslim community 27 vi. Muslim Institutions in the Cape 29 vii. A Comparison and Alternate Definition of Community 31 CHAPTER TWO: THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY: A BRIEF HISTORY OF MUSLIMS IN THE CAPE FROM COLONIALISM TO THE GROUP AREAS 46 i. Muslims in the Cape: Colonialism to Abolition 46 ii. Post-Abolition Muslim Communities: Coloureds, Indians, and Malays 50 iii. Post-Emancipation Muslim Residential Patterns 57 iv. Exclusionary Muslim Communities 64 CHAPTER THREE: THE GROUP AREAS ACT 71 i. Apartheid Legislation 71 ii. The Group Areas Act 74 iii. Forms of Muslim Protest 81 iv. Declarations 83 v. Relocation and the Establishment of New Homes 92 vi. Loss of Community 99 vii. Conclusion 106 2 CHAPTER FOUR: POST-APARTHEID MUSLIM RESIDENTIAL PATTERNS 109 i. Continuities and Shifts 109 ii. Conclusion 130 CHAPTER FIVE: MUSLIM EXPERIENCES TODAY 132 i. Bonteheuwel: A Coloured Township 132 ii. Rylands: An Indian Group Area 141 iii. Ruyterwacht/ Epping Garden Village: A Historic “Poor White” Area 151 iv. Goodwood: A Middle Class White Area 155 v. Pinelands: An Upper-Middle Class White Area 161 vi. Conclusion 170 CHAPTER SIX: Islamophobia 173 i. The Struggle to Build Mosques 173 ii. Negative Reactions from Neighbours 176 iii. Residential Steering 179 CONCLUSION: A Reanalysis of Muslims as a Distinctive Group 182 Index of Islamic Phrases 194 Works Cited 194 3 Abstract This thesis examines the residential shifts of the Muslim community in Cape Town prior to the Group Areas Act, as a result of the Group Areas Act, and currently in 2013. It also explores how the Muslim community has transformed as a result of these changing residential patterns. This thesis confronts the question of where have Muslims been living in Cape Town and how have residential choices affected the Muslim community. For this thesis, I interviewed approximately twenty-five Muslim families living in Cape Town. I gathered their family stories to create an understanding of Muslim housing patterns throughout Cape Town’s later history. These families ranged in socioeconomic status, religious commitment, residential suburb, education, and political affiliation. In determining where Muslims were living, I also examined their occupations, familial and social networks, aspirations, and perspectives on the Cape Town Muslim community. In order to expand on these family histories, I interviewed key figures in the Cape Town Muslim community. These included scholars, notable historian as well as imam Yusuf da Costa, founding members of the Muslim Judicial Council, various imams and well-known Muslim political activists and civil society members. I supplemented my qualitative interviews with Census data and the results of the Cape Area Panel Study. This quantitative data allowed objective analysis of Muslim residential patterns and, in the case of the Cape Area Panel Study, provided insight into Muslim youth adherence to community norms. Additionally, I examined the locations and founding dates of mosques and Muslim schools in metropolitan Cape Town. This information allowed me to determine which areas have supported large numbers of Muslim families and at what point did 4 these families move there. Finally, newspaper archives and secondary sources provided insight into Muslim communities and residential patterns. Prior to the Group Areas Act, Muslims predominantly lived in urban areas such as the City Bowl, Woodstock and District Six, the Southern Suburbs, Strand and Simon’s Town.. While these areas had high numbers of Muslim residents, they were not exclusively Muslim enclaves. Rather, Muslims lived side by side with non-Muslims with ease and familiarity. However, their religious affiliation was a major marker of identity, and while relations with non-Muslims were strong, Muslims still formed a distinctive community in terms of their social networks, customs, and even organizations such as sports teams and civic associations. Muslims occupied a wide range of socioeconomic levels at this time, yet Muslim social circles were not divided by ecnomic class. The Group Areas Act indiscriminately divided the Muslim community into Coloured and Indian Group Areas (with the exception of Bo-Kaap which remained a Muslim-only enclave). Muslims were strewn across the Cape Flats in housing schemes which were divided by race, and in the case of the coloured population, by class as well. As a result of the Group Areas Act, the majority of Muslims were forced to live in working-class Coloured townships. A smaller number of Muslims were able to purchase homes in middle-class suburbs, such as Athlone, Belgravia and Crawford. While life in the Cape Flats was far from ideal for all Group Areas removees, those who were forced into renting schemes in working-class townships suffered disproportionately from high crime rates, lack of infrastructure, and distance from jobs. The Group Areas Act paved the way for residential economic stratification and thus divergent life experiences within the Cape Town Muslim community. While economic diversity existed within the Muslim community prior to the Group Areas Act, the statutory enforcement of segregation 5 converted class differentiation within neighbourhoods into class stratrification between class- defined neighbourhoods. With the end of the Group Areas Act and apartheid, Muslims in Cape Town fall into one of three distinct categories—those who have had the means to move to former white areas, those living in middle-class former coloured areas, and finally those who continue to reside in coloured townships. These three patterns have spawned different challenges and notions of community amongst Muslims in the Cape. Ultimately, the apartheid-era racial segregation and the subsequent desegregation in the 1990’s, transformed the Muslim community. On the micro-level, Muslims are now dispersing throughout metropolitan Cape Town, their varying residential choices affecting their sense of community in their neighbourhoods. The daily lived experiences of Muslims in Cape Town differ from suburb to suburb, as they are largely dependent on socioeconomic class and residential choices. Class and residential choices play a large role in determining their interactions with non-Muslims and their conceptions of their immediate communities. As a result, the Muslim population is less cohesive than in the past. However, on a broader scale, the notion of a Cape Town Muslim community, is very much alive. While Cape Town Muslims live vastly different lives, they still maintain that they are part of a wider all-encompassing, albeit imagined, Muslim community. Their religious identity and resultant spiritual and cultural practices, supersede racial, economic, educational, and residential differences. Although they may show different levels of religiosity, their belief in Islam creates a distinctive and unifying identity marker. The notion of a greater Muslim community in Cape Town, united by a common belief system, has largely remained the same 6 since Islam was brought to the Cape. While community dynamics have changed from the early- twentieth century, the Muslim community remains a visible part of the Cape Town landscape. 7 Introduction The Muslim community of Cape Town has occupied a visible role in the city’s history and society. However, there have been few studies which have analyzed the evolution of the Muslim community in Cape Town, from colonialism to present. This thesis examines the changes in Cape Town’s Muslim community vis a vis their residential choices. Specifically, this thesis examines where Muslims were living prior to the Group Areas Act, as a result of the Group Areas Act, and presently, nineteen years after the end of apartheid. In doing so, it also examines the nature of the Muslim community during these time periods. It examines what the Muslim community was like on the micro-scale (the suburb or neighbourhood) as well as on a larger scale (across metropolitan Cape Town). It provides a glimpse of the daily life of Muslims in a range of Cape Town suburbs—the challenges which they face, the nature of their community, their aspirations and predictions for the future. While several historians and sociologists throughout the years have studied the Cape Town Muslim community (du Plessis, da Costa, Davids, Bangstad), there has not been a comprehensive study of the Muslim trajectory in the Cape focusing on shifting residential choices and their effects on the Muslim community. Izak du Plessis, an early twentieth century writer, as well as the Commissioner for Coloured Affairs, took an interest in the Muslims of the Cape. He wrote extensively on Muslim culture in Cape Town and popularized the term “Cape Malay” to refer to the Muslims of Cape Town in his 1944 book The Cape Malays. Yusuf da Costa, an imam and a historian, has published a series of studies on the history and identity of Cape Town Muslims.