Grace Street mosque presses for heritage status
Nelson Mandela Bay’s Muslim community is calling for heritage status to be granted to Masjid-ul-Akbar, Gqeberha’s oldest mosque.
Built in 1855, the tiny building is situated in Grace Street near the harbour.
Sandwiched between health department offices and a parkade, it has a fascinating history that includes a Javanese prince, a freed slave and a bosun’s chair.
Just off the shabby innercity street, past the antechamber where congregants remove their shoes, the mosque’s sumptuous wall-to-wall carpet is inlaid with panels all pointing east to allow worshippers to face Mecca when they pray.
Every second panel is marked to ensure people abide by Covid-19 distancing regulations.
Speaking to The Herald in the peaceful gloom, the 12th head priest of the mosque, Imam Berhardien Jappie, 75, who has held the position for nearly 50 years, explained his deep attachment to the building.
“This is my ancestral place. I spend time here every day and have ever since I was 27 years old when I took over as imam from my elderly father, Fuad.
“But my links to Masjidul-Akbar go back to the beginning.
“Today, there are 25 mosques in Nelson Mandela Bay but this was the first in Port Elizabeth [Gqeberha] and the second in the Eastern Cape.”
Jappie said the story began when in 1652, Jan van Riebeeck arrived in Cape Town.
His party included slaves from Holland’s Southeast Asia colonies, political exiles and members of the Javanese royal family including Emaam Jabaar-u-Din, grandson of Sultan Nabier, ruler of Macassar.
“In 1806, 89 Muslim freed slaves and their families left Cape Town to settle in Uitenhage [Kariega].
“They included artisans and tradesmen — tailors, masons, master builders, cooks, boatbuilders and fishermen.”
He said within this group was Fortuin Weys, who was to become a central character in the ensuing story of Masjid-ulAkbar and Port Elizabeth.
“Weys had performed with distinction as a soldier for the Javanese Artillery Corps that fought on the side of the Dutch Batavian Republic in the Battle of Blaauwberg in Cape Town in 1806.”
The British won the battle, marking a turning point in the history of SA though no-one knew it at the time, but Weys, having hung up his rifle, was allowed to go on his way.
Supporting the imam’s description of Weys, Dean McLelland in Port Elizabeth of Yore quotes Scottish poet, journalist and prominent 1820 settler Thomas Pringle as saying Weys was a blacksmith by trade but he became a wealthy property owner.
His was the second house built in the city.
“He was one of the wealthiest and most respectable inhabitants.”
Jappie said a corps of Cape Town Malays was, meanwhile, drafted by the British in 1846 to fight for them against the Xhosa in the Battle of the Axe, on the colony’s eastern frontier.
“Most of these soldiers returned to Cape Town but among those who stayed were brothers Aboe Rafie and Aboe Salie, and Ishaaq Jukkie, who was my great-great-greatgrandfather.”
The imam said the three men had lived initially on the beach but, seeking no handouts, started a fishing enterprise.
“At first, the Muslim community used to travel each Friday by foot or ox wagon to the mosque which had been built in Uitenhage, the first in the Eastern Cape.
“They needed a place to worship in Port Elizabeth, so Weys donated land and Jukkie and the two brothers started to build.
“Port Elizabeth’s first mosque, Masjid-ul-Akbar, was completed in 1855 and Grace Street got its name because of the presence of the mosque, which is now 166 years old.
“There were no other buildings in the area when it was built.
“Jukkie married Weys’s daughter, Asia, and became the third imam of this mosque.
“Jukkie’s son, Behardien, married Gasiena. She was the eldest daughter of the grandson of Prince Shamsudien, son of Sultan Nabier.
“So through my mother’s side five generations back, I am related to the sultan.”
Jappie said his maternal grandfather, Imam Taweelodien Davids, also a former imam of the Grace Street mosque, was part of the team that built the Campanile, the Florentinestyle monument designed by architects Jones & McWilliams to commemorate the arrival of the 1820 settlers and completed in 1923.
“My mother described to me how she had to bring grandfather clean clothes and something to eat as he went from the dusty building site to the mosque.
“As a builder myself by trade, I was interested how they managed to build so high. He told me he hoisted himself up on a bosun’s chair and worked from there.”
“Some years ago, I visited the MBDA [Mandela Bay Development Agency] Tramways Building about a matter to do with our Muslim burial ground in Lower Valley Road.
“I saw a bosun’s chair in one of the offices and I realised it must have been one of the chairs my grandfather sat in while building the Campanile.
“They confirmed to me they had in fact removed it from the Campanile during the renovation in 2016.
“Now we are trying to have it replaced there for display.”
Masjid ul-Akbar spokesperson Luxolo Kanti said the Bay Muslim community was calling for Masjid-ul-Akbar’s historic significance to be fully recognised by the authorities.
“We are calling for this mosque to be granted heritage status because it is an unrecognised jewel of our city.
“It would be excellent for tourism because its story is crying out to be told.”
He said he was trying to organise a meeting with the Bay tourism authorities about the bosun’s chair.
“We will be asking them to retrieve and remove this valuable artefact from the place where it is sitting at the MBDA and to display it rather at the campanile where it will add value.”
Gqeberha heritage tourism guide Lyn Haller said the trust agreed with Kanti.