The Muslim Judicial Council (MJC) has confirmed that it will be intervening following a violent altercation and reported shooting incident at a mosque in Hazendal, near Athlone on Friday.
MJC first deputy president Moulana Shuaib Appleby said the MJC is addressing the matter and that the community and the Hazendal Islamic Trust have agreed to the intervention.
Appleby could not provide further details and referred queries to the parties involved, but said the outcome of the intervention would be conveyed.
Police captain Ian Bennett confirmed that the incident took place on Friday evening: “It’s an internal brawl between the mosque committee which includes the imam. There was an incident where shots were fired, but there’s no case reported at this present moment.”
The violence follows the sacking of Imam Nuhr Hassam, which upset the community, who demanded he be reinstated.
The Hazendal Islamic Trust, incorporating the mosque, says the dismissal followed a 12-month process.
On 24 January, the Trust announced the appointment of its new resident sheikh, Junaid Saban Al-Azhari, who presided over his first jumu’ah on Friday afternoon.
In a lengthy post on the mosque’s Facebook page, it said the reasons for the imam’s sacking included: failure to uphold the duties and responsibilities of the imaamat, such as not performing at least three out of the five salaahs a day and not hosting at least one Islamic class for the community; breach of confidentiality and poor professional conduct. It said the imam had been trying to drum up support in the community claiming that he did not know the reasons for his termination.
Mosque trustee and chairman Tariq Jensen says: “Friday evening we went to mosque for maghrib.
“The new sheikh walked in, he made salaah and then the ex-imam walked in and then he started quoting some hadith to say that the [sheikh] that is now there is not valid to make salaah. If you stand behind him the salaah is baatil [invalid].”
Jensen says the imam “disrespected” the new sheikh and a brawl ensued involving a group of around 45 community members against three members of the trust.
He adds: “There were people there that I’ve never seen in the masjid before. So these people started to intimidate us, started shouting at us.”
His nephew had been badly assaulted, with one person hitting him on the head with a brick, he says, and shots were fired to break up the fight.
“So obviously my brother had a blank firearm on him and so what he had to do is, he had to basically discharge that blank firearm so that they can disperse. If it was your son, and someone was attacking him, 20-30 people, what do you do?”
Several other families members were also attacked including the elderly architect of the mosque, and Jensen’s wife. It is unclear at this stage if community members had any injuries amongst them.
Jensen says: “We followed the rules. We even got a case pending at the CCMA. And now this thing has escalated even further.”
Calls to Imam Hassam went to voicemail on Sunday. Imam Al-Azhari said he was confronted by the former imam.
“He comes to me with a mob of people and says, ‘Get in your car now. I give you two options, you get into your car and never come back or you face these people’.”
shakirah.thebus@inl.co.za