Message from

HASSAN SAYED

Secretary of the Mosque Committee

 

All praise and thanks are due to Almighty Allah for His infinite mercy and for having blessed us with the infinite guidance of his beloved Rasul, Nabi Muhammad (pbuh). We further thank Almighty Allah for this opportunity to celebrate the centenary of Hazrat Shah Ghulam Muhammad’s (r.a.) arrival in South Africa.

 

Sufi Sahib, as he was known, came to our country in 1895 – a time when Muslims in this country desperately needed guidance. He passed away in 1911 – a mere sixteen years after he first set foot here. It is indeed a miracle of modern times that in that short period and under the difficult conditions that must have prevailed then, he succeeded in establishing no less than thirteen Islamic institutions.

 

One of those institutions was the Habibia Sufi Masjid, which was established in 1905 when Sufi Sahib (r.a.) visited our shores with his brother-in-law, Maulana Abd al-Latif (r.a.). Since that time the Habibia complex has seen tremendous changes and the current extensions are but a part of the ongoing growth process which was started in 1896. Alhamdulillah, thanks to the Almighty, this mammoth task has now been completed and we have just celebrated the official opening of the masjid.

 

Habibia Sufi Masjid now boasts some wonderful new facilities including a library and resource center, which promises to generate great interest in the institution and transform it into a hive of activity. In this midst of all this, however, the masjid – with its tall minarets piercing the sky during the day and glowing benignly in the evening – holds court, and creates the ambience for the whole complex.

 

None of these renovations would have been possible without the unwavering faith and tireless efforts of the Masjid Committee members. Special mention should be made of Maulana Qutbodien’s fund-raising drives in KwaZulu Natal, Gauteng and Cape Town, which allowed for much of the work to continue. Musallees, too, were extremely generous with their donations for both the buildings and the carpets that were laid in the mosque. The builders of the masjid, particularly Haji Umar Abrahams, must be commended for the professionalism, craftsmanship and their painstaking attention to detail.

 

For all of those individuals who contributed to the completion of this project we pray that the Almighty Allah lighten their burdens in this world and the Hereafter and ask that they may prosper, Insha-Allah. For our beloved Imam Abd al-Latif Parker, affectionately known as Imam Baboo, we make a special dua that the Almighty grant him long life and that he be our guide for many more years. Words cannot adequately describe the air of spirituality that envelops the whole institution because of his presence. His patience, vision and wisdom are lessons we all have yet to learn.

 

Finally, we pray that the Almighty protect us and instill in us a passion for Islam that would reverberate throughout the world. If Sufi Sahib could leave such in indelible mark on a country thousands of miles from his birthplace, and in an age before electricity, air travel and global television networks, then surely, for Muslims in the twentieth century – anything is possible!

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