As early as 1725 the imams made their moral presence felt at the Cape in the following case outside the Slave Lodge, the notorious Company brothel.
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| An old plan of the Slave Lodge in Cape Town |
Apparently and elderly Muslim pointed at the sailors swaying in line, waiting for the whores, and said, “You Dutch Christians preach to us of your superior religion. The Calvinists are, to hear them, the salt of the earth with God-given morals … Look at how you really are. You behave like swine, like drunken whoring pigs. I would never allow my daughter to marry a Dutchman. I would break her neck first. Now you have the better ships, the bigger guns, and you make us your slaves. But one day Allah will be revenged!”
From: New history of South Africa, by Hermann Giliomee and Bernard Mbenga. Published in 2007 by Tafelberg Publishers, Cape Town.
