At a glance
Era 10- Dates
- 1626-1699 CE
- Who
- Scholar from Sulawesi who resisted the Dutch and became the father of Islam at the Cape
- Era
- Islam in South-East Asia & China
ProfileShaykh Yusuf of Makassar
Yusuf was born in 1626 in Makassar, in Sulawesi, and was related to its royal house. In 1644 he sailed for the Hajj and stayed in Arabia for many years, studying the Quran, hadith, law and Sufism.
He returned to serve as a scholar and adviser at the court of Banten in western Java. When the Dutch East India Company moved against Banten in the 1680s, he led several thousand fighters against them until he was captured. The Dutch exiled him first to Sri Lanka and then, in 1694, to the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa, with his family and followers.
At the Cape he gathered the Muslim slaves and exiles for prayer and teaching, and the community that grew from them became the Muslims of Cape Town. He wrote works in Malay, Bugis and Arabic. He died at the Cape in 1699.
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