Community to rescue at Muslim gravesite
PORT Elizabeth’s Muslim community was hard at work yesterday, cleaning up the South End cemetery with the hope that it will one day be recognised as a heritage site for the city.
The author of South End: Then and Now, Yusuf Agherdien, 61, said the cemetery held significance for the Muslim people of Port Elizabeth as it told the story of their ancestors and where they came from.
“Looking at the history of PE, Muslims played a vital role in the development and growth of this municipality,” he said.
The cemetery, plagued by vandals and neglect, was established in 1855.
Some of the headstones found there were priceless, and the scriptures were in Arabic and “Jawi script”, which confirmed that their forefathers were Indonesian.
“Over the years we’ve made contact with the Indonesian consulate in Cape Town, to possibly translate the headstones for us and find out who the rest of the people buried here are,” Agherdien said.
Agherdien is chairman of the Eastern Cape Malayo Cultural Society, which aims to preserve the heritage and culture of residents in the province with Malay ancestry.
The volunteers started their cleanup at the Muslim section at the front of the cemetery, and will work their way to the Christian graves at the back of the cemetery.
“We want this graveyard to be declared a heritage site and [be] part of a tourism attraction to let people know just how much Muslims contributed to the development of PE.”