Auwal Mosque

Auwal Mosque stands at 43 Dorp Street in the Bo-Kaap, the hillside quarter above central Cape Town in South Africa's Western Cape. It was founded in 1794 and is regarded as the first mosque in the country. Its establishment is associated with Tuan Guru, an imam and scholar from the Indonesian island of Tidore who was banished to Robben Island by the Dutch East India Company and, after release in 1793, began teaching in Cape Town. At that time public Muslim worship was forbidden, and the congregation, which included enslaved and free people from Southeast Asia, India and Africa, met in a rented building owned by a free Black woman, Coridon van Ceylon, and later formally gained the right to worship under British rule. The mosque is housed in a modest, whitewashed building that mixes Cape Dutch and Georgian proportions with later additions and was extended in the 19th and 20th centuries. The interior is a simple prayer hall, and visitors will not find grand museum displays; the importance of the place lies in its continuity as a working place of worship with a living congregation. Tuan Guru is also credited with writing a manuscript of the Qur'an from memory and with founding the first madrasa at the Cape, while his tomb is on Signal Hill at the Tana Baru cemetery. The mosque sits at the heart of the Bo-Kaap's brightly painted houses and cobbled streets, and it is often combined with the Bo-Kaap Museum and the neighbourhood's walking tours that explain the story of the Cape Malay community. Preservation is in the hands of the congregation, and the building has been maintained as an active mosque. Visitors are expected to dress modestly, remove their shoes if admitted inside and avoid prayer times, particularly Friday midday prayers. Photography of the exterior and street is welcome, but permission should be sought for interior images or worshippers. Because access is by arrangement, many visitors join local guides who can liaise with the community.