Ismail Wolff ( father Sidi Abdur Rahman Wolff)
I left London for Cape Town and the Moussem of Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir As-Sufi in October 2010 in the hope of finding out about my past.
My mother and father converted to Islam with Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi before the first zawiya in Bristol Gardens was established, but they left the community in the mid-1980s, when I was about seven years old. Since then I had had little contact with people from those early years. But in the months leading up to the moussem I had begun reconnecting with a past that I had for so long ignored, but never forgotten. Heading to Cape Town was, I thought, a chance for me to speak to people who knew my parents from times gone by, to hear stories and recollections of a place and time that no longer existed. And while, in many ways I did achieve that, the journey also offered me a chance to experience something still very much alive.
This was my first ever moussem and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Having only recently come back into contact with the community it was all very new to me. The nights of dhikr were hypnotic. The voices, the faces, the light, I was swept up by it all. But I see now that the dhikr opened the door for what was to come.
The Moussem
I arrive for the first night of dhikr early. I make wudu and take some time to sit in the tranquil courtyard downstairs at the mosque, enjoying the peacefulness and solitude and the sound of the water flowing in the fountain. The day’s journey may have been simple, but in my moment of peace I contemplate the longer voyage that has brought me here. I go upstairs to pray Maghrib and afterwards, sit in the mosque and wait for the night.
As the night sky darkens and Isha approaches, the room gradually starts filling up, and the pace of people coming in quickens; the number of people doubles in the last 15 minutes leading up to the Isha prayer, perhaps 300 or more men and women now fill the mosque. The dhikr is powerful, beautiful, intoxicating. Any attempt, by me, to describe it in words would, I fear, not do it justice. I lose myself in the Wird and Qasidas. The sounds and the night of dhikr culminate in the hadra. It is organic. The hadras resonate strong in my mind from childhood. I remember clearly the feeling of the bass of rhythmic voices and breathing vibrating in my child’s chest.
But the moussem is not only dhikr. It is this gathering of brothers that opens a new window into the community for me. Who are all these people that have travelled from all over the globe to be here? I am just one story in hundreds that make up this narrative, but we recognise each other. I have spent a lot of time in solitude in this life, but I see here that in brotherhood there is something special. We are supposed to live in community. All together in the Jumu’a Mosque; there is a community of solitaries, and we achieve our solitude in community.
After the dhikr I make contact with the fuqara I was hoping to meet, people that knew my parents well, people that knew me. My intention was to do some research into the early days of the community and I hoped I could spend some one-on-one time with those who had been with the Shaykh since the early days in Morocco and London and the United States – those who had sat with Shaykh Muhammad Ibn al-Habib, Radhiallahu Anhu. As I introduce myself to people like Hajj Issa Bryce, Hajj Idris Mears and Hajj Abdullah Luongo, to name but a few, they react with kindness and curiosity. They all immediately ask about my parents, as would be expected, for they all knew each other well. It is in these exchanges that I realise I am not just there as myself, with my own intentions.
I am struck by the variety and beauty of the fuqara. From all corners of the world people have come and been united through dhikr. It isn’t just the spectacle of the “exotic”, the jalabas and turbans, it is what is underneath that grabs my attention. The light in people’s faces is clear. I feel humbled to be there – at times I wonder if I really belong. But I revel in the social nature of the event – speaking to people from Russia, from Indonesia, America, Spain, Germany, Italy, England, Scotland, South Africa – the list goes on.
After we have all eaten, I introduce myself to the Amir of Cape Town, Hajj Orhan, and ask him if he knows of a bed I can sleep in for the night. I tell him I am happy to sleep in the mosque if that is an option but he says no, “send him with the Russians”. I am introduced to Ali and Salman and others from the Russian fuqara and we agree to leave together to go to the house in Bo Kaap where they are staying.
But it’s not all new faces. Before leaving I walk over to Hajj Uthman Morrison, who is sitting with his back against a pillar. I thank him for his help in getting me here. He is kind and asks if I have met the people I had hoped to for my research. I say I have. He then asks how I found the dhikr and I say it was fantastic, mashallah. He tells me I am glowing and offers me a kind, warm smile.
As I am heading to leave, standing in the doorway to the mosque talking to Hajj Idris Mears, Shaykh Abdalhaqq Bewley walks through and stops. “Sidi Ismail, how was it?” he asks me with smiling eyes. “Wonderful,” I reply. I am among the company of the fuqara.
When it comes time to leave, after the sumptuous feast and all the socialising, mingling and endless hugging, the Russians and I set off into the night. The Jumu’a Mosque is in the centre of Cape Town and by now it is well past midnight and Long Street is thronging with drunken people and beggars and the usual clamour of a Saturday night in a big city. I follow the Russians as we glide through the revellers in our jalabas and turbans, seemingly unnoticed. I instantly like the Russians. They are fun and wide-eyed. They are on an adventure too.
We end up at a 24hr eatery opposite the Dallas College on Long Street, all the time Salman, a big, smiling and gentle man, is ensuring I am entertained and at ease. “Russians and English man, Muslims, sitting in coffee shop in Cape Town at 1am listening to Bollywood music – what a wonderful world,” says Salman. I have to agree with him.
Cape Town is, in and of itself, a remarkable city. It’s a multicultural garden set against the stunning backdrop of Table Mountain and the mountainous spine and beaches that stretches out into the Atlantic and Indian oceans. This unquestionably spiritual setting is home to over a million Muslims – and over 20 recognised karamats of Awliya. You can feel why the Shaykh is here, why the community is here.
The next night of dhikr is as sublime as the first. I feel more composed and focussed, less self-conscious. Shaykh Abdalqadir leads tonight’s dhikr and the hadra and there is a sense of importance of occasion. This is the first time I have seen the Shaykh in person. After the hadra the Shaykh addresses us all. He speaks of the importance of brotherhood and it now being a time for action, not talk.
The opening of doors
After the moussem I had planned to stay on a few weeks and speak to a number of the fuqara about the early days of the community. I also hoped to have the chance to meet with the Shaykh. I was granted that opportunity when the Shaykh invited some of the fuqara for lunch at his home in the week after the moussem. It was a Tuesday. The winds had calmed, the clouds had cleared and the air was clean and warm. On that day, the Shaykh was hosting fuqara who had travelled from Germany and the UK. We all sat on blankets laid out on the lawn at Mormaer Mansion, shaded from the sun by a grand marquee. I would say I was nervous about meeting the Shaykh, as I thought I would be, but I wasn’t.
Shaykh Abdalqadir joined us for the lunch and we all enjoyed the conversation and wonderful food – a rice dish topped elegantly with edible rose petals. Sitting on the floor and sharing these plates of food always takes me back to my childhood, when all our meals were eaten this way, whether at home or at the mosque or other people’s houses.
After the lunch was finished, Shaykh Abdalqadir took time to sit with each group and speak with each person one-by-one. Our table was last. I introduced myself and the Shaykh immediately remembered my father and asked about him and my grandparents, for they had a mutual friend in the celebrated but controversial psychoanalyst Ronald Laing.
“As Rasulullah, salallahu alaihi wasallam, said, the child is the hidden secret of the father, and you are the outcome of what is true in him, so that is very good, that is very good news,” Shaykh Abdalqadir says to me, smiling. I was here to find out about my father and my past, but by travelling outward I was indeed finding out about the “inward”, the self.
With the Moussem over I was not totally sure what I was going to do. My initial plan was to try and spend some time with people like Hajj Issa and Hajj Abdallah, as well as Hajja Zulaikha and Hajja Rabea Redpath and others who had known my parents since Bristol Gardens in the 1970s. I managed to spend time with some of them, and it was a joy to speak about theirs and my parents’ lives; stories of the past, how all of this came to be – the formative years of the community and all those in it. It felt familiar, like meeting old friends, like meeting family. I also had the pleasure of reconnecting with other children that were born into those early years in the community in London and Norwich, especially Shaykh Habib Bewley, who was one of the many that invited me into his home.
The last few weeks were a pleasure. I spent time with many of the fuqara, from England, the US and Spain, as well as many of the young fuqara from South Africa. I found their worldview compelling – the importance placed on establishing the deen, the extraordinary economic and political consciousness. I sensed an astute awareness of the inherent flaws and failures in the global capitalist system and it’s contempt for humanity – a clear insight into a world dictated by weak political systems and the caprice of undulating mass public opinion.
What I sense from the fuqara in Cape Town, especially the younger ones, is a dynamism, a sense of purpose and direction – and always humour, always kindness. These are, I see, men of action, not just of words.
Society has to be able to give us access to our own inwardness, and, as the Shaykh has said, a truly human society cannot be achieved unless the ultimate undertaking of that society is not just its survival, progress or expansion, but rather the realisation of the meaning of man in this lifetime. If we learn from the Qur’an and our elders then we have access to truth, unchanged by time and circumstance.
My original plan was to leave Cape Town by early November, but I ended up postponing my flight back to London twice. There was still something I had to do. I am glad I stayed. I managed to get to know many of the fuqara better, become friends, companions. I was invited into homes, into lives and into ideas. For this recollection here, there is no space for details, but after several weeks of spending time with the fuqara I felt I belonged. I no longer felt like an outsider looking in. As Hajj Abdullah Luongo said to me one evening: “We recognise each other on the path.”
On my penultimate night in Cape Town a dhikr was held at the zawiya by the mosque. If anything, I drank more from this dhikr than I did the moussem – perhaps I was nervous before, when now I was at ease. Whatever the reason, it was a night of beauty. I woke the next morning early, and laughing. That day, a beautiful Sunday with a vast blue sky, the fuqara gathered in Constantia at the tomb of the great wali Shaykh Abdurrahman Matebe Shah, the last of the Malaccan Sultans. We recited Yasin and the Nasiri du‘a. After, everyone mingled and soaked up the great company. It was here I had the pleasure of speaking with Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi again. Towards the end of our conversation the Shaykh tells me that my presence there, as the son of my father, has closed something for him that had not been completed.
We sometimes travel with one intention, but unbeknown to us, our real purpose has already been determined.
I left our conversation, and Cape Town, with much to contemplate.
