Cape Malays

Cape Malays

Ethnic group in South Africa
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Cape Malays (Afrikaans: Kaapse Maleiers) are an ethnic group or community in South Africa. The name is derived from the Cape of Good Hope and the Malay race people originally from Indonesian/Malay archipelago, mostly from the Dutch East Indies colony (present-day Indonesia), a Dutch colony for several centuries, and Dutch Malacca, which the Dutch held from 1641 to 1824. The community's earliest members were enslaved Javanese transported by the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Key figures in the arrival of Islam were Muslim leaders who resisted the company's rule in Southeast Asia. Some, like Sheikh Yusuf, were exiled to South Africa by the company, which founded and used Cape Town as a resupply station for ships travelling between Europe and Asia. They were followed by slaves from various other Southeast Asian regions, and political dissidents and Muslim religious leaders who opposed the Dutch presence in what is now Indonesia. During the eighteenth century, Malay was the lingua franca of enslaved and free Muslims, though they came from East Africa, Madagascar, and India, as well as Indonesia. The use of the Malay language established the moniker "Malay" for all Muslims irrespective of their geographic origins. By the 19th century, the term was used to describe anyone at the Cape who was a practicing Muslim, while Afrikaans had overtaken Malay as the group's lingua franca.

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