SHAYKH YUSUF AL-MAQASSARİ AND THE EARLY MODERN INDİAN OCEAN
Shaykh Yusuf al-Maqassari (1626–1699), a prominent scholar from South Sulawesi, Indonesia, has become a significant research subject for Indonesian and South African scholars. He is reknowned as the founding father of Islam at the Cape of Good Hope. He was exiled to the Cape in 1693 where he died in 1699. His role as a cleric who actively resisted the VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) led to his exile across various regions, ultimately establishing him as a key figure in places like Ceylon and Cape Town. Beyond his resistance efforts, Yusuf al-Maqassari was instrumental in transmitting religious ideas and fostering intellectual connections between the Middle East, the Malay World and South Africa in the 17th century. Yusuf al-Maqassari’s life offers a compelling lens through which to examine intellectual history in the 17th-century Muslim world. While scholars have extensively documented the contributions of Muslim thinkers, studies have primarily concentrated on the Near East, regarded as the centre of the Muslim world. In contrast, the Malay World has often been marginalised as a peripheral region, and its role in producing significant Islamic intellectual works has been largely overlooked. This article addresses this critical gap by offering an account of the intellectual biography of Yusuf al-Maqassari. It explores the interconnected factors of the Indian Ocean network in the sventeenth century that profoundly shaped his thought and highlights the Malay World’s contribution to intellectual history.
Keywords: Yusuf al-Maqassari, Islam, The Malay World, Indian Ocean, Ulama.
