Analysis of The Religious and Linguistic Impact of Abubakr Effendi
From 1862 to 1869 Effendi had studied the local language use and then proceeded to compile the book "Bayan-al-Din". Printed by the Turkish Ministry of Education in Istanbul, it is an interesting and significant part of South Africa's history, and serves as a valuable reference of the Afrikaans usage during that era in the Islamic neighbourhoods of Cape Town. It gives an invaluable insight into the use of Afrikaans in the so-called "Slams" (slang for Islamic) neighbourhoods of Cape Town in that period. It is also significant, since this community did not have Dutch as mother tongue and were therefore mostly unaffected by its orthography. As such this was the first substantial book ever written and published in Afrikaans, although written in a modified Arabic script where the diacritic signs are used to indicate the pronunciation of Afrikaans. It bears testimony to the slave origins of the language which was not accredited by the White Afrikaners, especially during the Apartheid Era.
The book, totalling 254 pages, appears to follow the Hanafite law-school. It was divided into 8 parts, each dealing with a specific part of Islamic law:
- ritual cleansing (pp. 2–66)
- ritual prayer (pp. 66–219)
- religious tax (pp. 219–258)
- fasting (pp. 258–284)
- slaughtering of livestock (pp. 284–302)
- religious prohibitions (pp. 302–344)
- drink (pp. 344–349)
- hunting (pp. 349–354)
Adriaanus van Selms, a Dutch scholar and Semitic researcher, published a transliteration in Latin Script of Abu Bakr Effendi's work in 1979. Since the original work presented spoken Afrikaans without using vowels, van Selms's biggest task was to decipher which Afrikaans words were being referred to. Effendi had also innovated new Arabic characters for several Afrikaans letters not found in the Arabic alphabet, the letter 'P' for example. What is interesting is that these innovated letters had to be unique, yet still recognisable by the population who were already schooled in traditional Arabic. Since this was a local modification to the language, used only amongst the Cape Muslim Community, it may have proved illegible for those familiar with traditional Arabic.
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