Nelson Mandela & Muslim Prisoners’ Story

In this video “Nelson Mandelas Prison Cell”, Sh. Dr. Yasir Qadh, narrates one of his visit to South Africa, on the infamous island of Robben where Nelson Mandela was jailed for about 20 years.

A little bit of history: Robben island was used throughout the years for many things: isolation of mainly political prisoners, a leper colony, animal quarantine station, and it was declared an official prison by the apartheid government in 1959, with the first prisoners being sentenced to the prison in 1961

Sh, Dr. Yasir Qadh explains how he felt while entering the cell of N.Mandela and explained that he had IKHLAS (sincerity) in his fight for freedom as well as why he definitely was a leader.

Transcription:

[…] in his own way obviously he had IKHLAS to his cause and it was a good cause he had humility you cannot be a respected leader without genuinely being that humble person to hear the stories that we heard.

Something that isn’t well-known about this island is that some of the first prisoners were Muslims who fought against the colonization of their lands by the Dutch and the British. They were sent to South Africa by the colonizers who tried to stop their influence in Indonesia, Malaysia, Africa, and India almost 300 years ago.

Transcription:

[…] and many of you don’t know this by the way you don’t have time to go into there but on that Island Robben Island there is actually a Musallah(*) and the grave of one of the first Muslim prisoners.

Robben Island was known for housing Muslim prisoners who fought jihad against the Dutch. These were prisoners from Indonesia from Yemen from other places and as soon as you enter the island and from the cell of Nelson Mandela you can see it.

[…] Nelson Mandela actually writes about this in his autobiography […] ”The long walk to freedom”, he actually writes about this. That the Muslims who fought against the Dutch they actually gave him that hope and encouragement that we are walking on the right path. Human beings cannot live as slaves; human beings cannot live as second, third, fourth class citizens.

Mandela, on his release from prison, visited the oldest mosque in Cape Town as a sign of respect for the Muslim contribution to the struggle for justice. He has always respected their fight for freedom.

For those of you who are interested in knowing more about contemporary Muslims who were imprisoned on Robben Island in the same time of N.Mandela and how they joined his cause, you can check for Ahmed Kathrada (nicknamed “Kathy” by South Africans) who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1963.

(*) A musallah (Arabic: مصلى‎,) is an open space outside a mosque, mainly used for prayer in Islam.[1] The word is derived from the verb صلى (ṣallāh), meaning “to pray”. It is traditionally used for the Eid prayers and the funeral prayers as per the Sunnah.

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