My Journey from the Madrasa to the Western Academy

I left for Egypt as a nineteen-year-old, almost one year to the date of completing my secular high school education (matric) to study at Al-Azhar, one of the Muslim world’s oldest pre-modern madrasas and often regarded the most prestigious of the Sunni

world.2 I flew with Olympic Airways (now defunct) over Egypt first to Greece and from Greece back to Egypt. As Egypt boycotted apartheid South Africa to isolate the racist white state there were no direct flights between South Africa and Egypt. Thus, South

Africans, including oppressed black people like me could not travel directly to Egypt; to be sure, we supported this Egyptian (and Global South) position as correct; it was in solidarity with the anti-apartheid struggle. Moreover, we could not apply for an Egyptian visa from South Africa.3 So, I arrived at Cairo’s international airport without a visa. I was immediately taken into a back room, remaining there for about an hour until South Africans who had arrived before me and already enrolled at Al-Azhar Egypt came with a letter confirming that I was a recipient of a scholarship to study at Al-Azhar. In the few weeks that followed, I found Cairo a bewildering experience not terribly unlike Ebrahim Moosa’s experience of India as a student at the famous Deoband Seminary in India (Moosa, 2015:15).4 But I grew used to the place and began fitting in. The diverse ethnic make-up of students with different languages from countries over the world especially from Africa was a factor for strength and growth.