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'These kariahs complain about everything' It started in the women’s section. Slowly all the heads dropped. Then, as the maulana’s story unfolded, the men too began looking down in shame and embarrassment. And that was pretty much how the jamaah at Masjidul Islam in Brixton, Johannesburg stayed until the khutbah began. Maulana Cassim Fakude had just completed his pre-khutbah talk. But, unlike the usual maulana lecture which condemns people to hell and tries to make them feel ashamed for having been so condemned, Fakude did not need to try any such condemnation. Sitting on the minbar, he simply described a series of events during his recent hajj and repeatedly asked what it meant to be a Muslim. His story began with his arrival in Madinah and ended with his wife’s death a few weeks after their return to Joburg. After the jumu’ah prayer, the pavement outside the masjid, where the post-jumu’ah debates usually take place, was abuzz. Clearly, in this masjid where maulanas are not the usual Jumu’ah speakers, this maulana had made a huge impression. So huge that people admitted to having felt ashamed, embarrassed, angered and to have shed a tear or two. Some congregants even insisted that a meeting be set up to investigate the reasons for Fakude’s experiences and to make accountable the people responsible. Fakude’s getting ready for his hajj had been, like for most people who have the opportunity, a dream come true. He and his wife Sumayah had been convinced that God had blessed them when they were told of the sponsorship. It seems that in some ways the dream turned into a nightmare. Madinah, Fakude said, was wonderful – apart from the fact that the accommodation he had been promised had not been booked, a minor obstacle compared to the elation of being in the city of the Prophet (s). In Makkah, things started going wrong. Fakude’s group had separated by gender, with women and men sleeping in different rooms. On the first day in the Aziziyah hotel, Sumayah heard some other women in the room conversing in Urdu. Having spent some time with her husband in Pakistan where he had studied, she knew Urdu pretty well. ‘Why did they have to put us in the same room as a kariah,’ began the conversation. The rest of the dialogue followed the same drift. The women complained bitterly that they had to sleep together with an African woman. As the discussion progressed, Sumayah became increasingly upset and began crying, not letting on to the others that she understood their talk. After a few hours, the stress caused the pregnant woman to start bleeding and she was taken to hospital where she later suffered a miscarriage. That night, however, in a men’s meeting – where Fakude was present – a young man raised the issue of the ‘sister’ who had been badly treated by the other women. The mufti who led the meeting responded in Urdu: ‘These kariahs complain about everything. Even when they are at the doors of jannah (paradise), they will complain.’ Fakude objected but was told by the mufti that he was there to perform his hajj and he should not concern himself with other issues. A few days later, in Mina, another humiliating episode. The person serving the meal went from person to person dishing out the food. But he skipped Fakude and went on to the next person. The bewildered maulana then noticed that the person had also skipped two Malawians in the group. When the Malawian shaikh enquired, he was told he had to wait. Only after all the Indian men were served, were the Africans given their food. Fakude told his downcast audience how humiliated he and his wife had felt at the treatment they had received, how disgusted they had been at the behaviour of their fellow Muslims. Repeatedly, he quoted the word used in reference to him, his wife and other Africans: kariah, that Indian word used to insult Africans with. Without realising it, Fakude wielded the word like a weapon of shame that stabbed repeatedly at the congregants in this mosque which has a reputation of being ‘progressive’. Amazingly, most of the attacks against his dignity during the hajj were not from those who might be regarded as ‘ordinary Muslims’, Fakude said, but from those who regard themselves as ‘ulamā, with titles like ‘mufti’ and ‘maulana’. Sumayah fell ill after her miscarriage and never recovered, dying shortly after their return home. After the Jumu’ah prayer, some members of the masjid committee suggested a meeting be held between Fakude, the South African Hajj and Umrah Council and some of the guilty ‘ulamā to ensure that such situations do not recur. One African man, a regular congregant of Masjidul Islam, irritatedly responded: ‘We have had enough meetings. We have been having meetings about this since 2000. And nothing changes. What’s the use of another meeting?’ He was not the only upset person. Most congregants were disgusted and angry. Whether Fakude’s experiences, his description of those experiences and the anger it generated will make any impact on the situation of racism within the Muslim community is not certain.
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