The recent confirmation by Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, that Tehran has deliberately withheld a response to US Vice President JD Vance’s letter marks a profound moment of strategic clarity in Middle Eastern diplomacy. 

By choosing calculated silence over a rushed concessions framework, Iran has demonstrated a level of sovereign resilience that firmly asserts its role as a regional heavyweight—one that refuses to buckle under the weight of American pressure.

This diplomatic stalemate does more than just safeguard Iranian sovereignty; it delivers a severe blow to the hardline security apparatus in Tel Aviv, exposing the stark limits of Israeli influence over American foreign policy.

For years, Israel’s geopolitical doctrine has operated on a foundational premise: that it could seamlessly align Washington’s immense military and economic power with its own regional security objectives.

The primary goal of this strategy has been the permanent neutralization of Iran’s nuclear potential and regional command infrastructure through overwhelming, preemptive force.

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Following intense joint US-Israeli kinetic operations earlier this year, the region appeared to be on the precipice of a full-scale war designed to bring Tehran to its knees.

Yet, instead of collapsing under the strain of an aggressive naval blockade and military strikes, Iran stood firm. This unyielding posture has effectively flipped the script, driving the Trump administration to seek a diplomatic off-ramp via Vice President Vance’s quiet backchannel outreach.

By seeking a framework for peace negotiations rather than demanding unconditional surrender, the White House has signaled a pragmatic recognition that the policy of absolute capitulation has failed.

For Tel Aviv, this shift is a profound strategic setback. It effectively disrupts their “maximum escalation” strategy, revealing that the United States is acutely aware of the high costs of a protracted, unrestricted regional war and is actively looking for an exit.

Concurrently, this diplomatic development opens a noticeable wedge between the policy goals of Washington and Tel Aviv. Israel relies heavily on ironclad convergence with US foreign policy to sustain its escalatory deterrence cycles. However, the contents of the Vance letter—which reportedly focuses on mutual national interests while acknowledging Iran’s sovereignty—indicate that the White House is prioritizing its own geopolitical limits over Israel’s maximalist demands.

When Washington opts for letters and tactical adjustments in tone, it underscores a reality that Tel Aviv has long sought to avoid: American and Israeli interests in the Middle East are not identical.

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Furthermore, the pressure campaign championed by Israel has triggered an unintended and highly dangerous counter-reaction within Tehran’s political architecture. Rather than forcing a nuclear capitulation, the aggression has instead sparked an active domestic within Iran regarding whether to formally revise its long-standing nuclear doctrine.

As Rezaei noted, because the Iranian public witnessed direct strikes on their soil, there is mounting internal pressure to abandon previous restrictions and openly debate the necessity of a nuclear deterrent.

This directly backfires on Israel’s long-term security goals, pushing Tehran closer to a threshold it might have otherwise avoided.

Finally, Iran’s refusal to treat economic penalties as a point of submission is actively diluting the collective Western leverage that Israel relies upon. By laying down seven strict conditions—including the full lifting of the naval blockade and the release of frozen assets—before any formal negotiations can resume or the Strait of Hormuz can be reopened, Iran is dictating the terms of engagement.

Because the US has reportedly shown a willingness to engage with these terms to restore vital maritime shipping lanes, the economic containment wall built around Iran is beginning to erode.

Ultimately, Tehran’s firm stance has frozen Israel’s primary mechanism of escalation. By refusing to enter a stacked negotiation room, Iran has forced both Washington and Tel Aviv to confront a shifting reality where coercion no longer yields automatic results, and where resilience has proven capable of altering the calculus of global powers.

For nations of the Global South, particularly South Africa, Iran’s defiance offers a compelling blueprint for navigating contemporary geopolitics. As Pretoria increasingly finds itself in the crosshairs of Western diplomatic and economic pressure due to its independent foreign policy, it can draw inspiration from Tehran’s unyielding approach.

By refusing to buckle under unilateral bullying and instead anchoring its position in national sovereignty, South Africa can similarly assert its right to define its own global partnerships, proving that collective resilience remains the ultimate shield against foreign dictate.

*Iqbal Jassat is an Executive Member of the Media Review Network, Johannesburg.

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South Africa, like many other countries, is moving to the right at dizzying speed. As in the United States, Australia and Europe, the key issue being used to push society to the right has been xenophobia. The key mechanism to achieve this has been social media.

Now, following the playbook of the international right, the xenophobia that has been manufactured in South Africa is rapidly turning into Islamophobia. And, as we see elsewhere, this is being achieved via the use of social media.

The active cultivation of xenophobia and now Islamophobia via social media has already had disastrous results. At least 150,000 people were forced out of South Africa in a few weeks in June, inflicting huge suffering and doing massive damage to the country’s international reputation. Documented people, including refugees, have been systematically targeted. We are now in a situation in which a mob can beat a man to death in central Durban with what appears, thus far, to be impunity. As well as being a horrific descent into social barbarism, this kind of thing also destroys South Africa’s credibility to speak and act against the genocide in Palestine.

Now that a vicious form of Islamophobia is being cultivated by the same social media accounts and personalities that drove the xenophobic project, the widespread support for Palestine in South Africa can only be weakened. At the same time, the inclusive vision of the national liberation movement, and then the constitutional order, is under direct attack. If the online project to incite Islamophobia has the same success as the xenophobic project, Muslims will soon be in the same kind of position that Muslims face in India and much of Europe and the US, a position in which de jure citizenship is undermined by de facto exclusion, with the result that Muslims must keep a low profile and remain outside of public debates.

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In this dangerous and rapidly escalating situation, it is imperative that we all understand that xenophobia did not become a key issue in South Africa via organic public sentiment. It was actively created online via a network of paid influencers, bots and fake accounts. This has been well documented. That same network is now starting to drive a coordinated Islamophobic project, with the ridiculous manufactured online panic about halal food being the latest move in the game.

The social media campaigns that have moved South African politics hard to the right, even to fascism in some cases, include a strong paid element. There are all kinds of rumours about who is paying for it. These rumours range from foreign states to local billionaires and political parties, but none have been confirmed by empirical evidence.

It is vital that the media rigorously investigate who is driving and paying for this online campaign. It is also incumbent on state intelligence to do the same, given that it is now a direct attack on the Constitution and social cohesion. It is also essential that we look at regulating social media to preclude brazen lying, incitement to violence and hate speech.

In this regard, we could learn a lesson from Brazil. While the right – often fuelled by xenophobia and Islamophobia – is storming ahead in much of the world, the left has triumphed in Brazil against the far right, backed to the hilt by Donald Trump. Like other right-wing extremists around the world, Flávio Bolsonaro largely built his campaign through disinformation on social media.

On 14 October, ahead of the second round of voting on 25 October, Lula’s campaign took legal action against Meta, the US technology giant that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, for manipulating its algorithms to restrict the circulation of Lula’s election material while favouring his far-right opponent. The Lula campaign also showed that Meta’s artificial intelligence tools permitted the generation of campaign material supporting Bolsonaro while blocking similar material for Lula. On 15 October, Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court ordered Meta to treat the candidates equally.

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The legal challenge to Meta raised fundamental questions about democracy and digital sovereignty. When a handful of immensely wealthy US corporations control much of the digital infrastructure through which billions of people communicate, organise and participate in politics, they acquire extraordinary power over democratic life without corresponding democratic accountability.

This judgment won by the Lula campaign was a significant moment, but far more can be done to regulate social media. We cannot have a situation where the old forms of media – newspapers, radio, etc. – are regulated by the law and professional norms and standards while people can freely spread fake news, incite violence, defame others and even make open death threats on social media.

There are a number of examples of progress towards democratic regulation. One is the European Union’s Digital Services Act, which came fully into force in February 2024. It requires major platforms such as Meta, X and TikTok to address illegal content, including unlawful hate speech and defamation, assess and reduce the risks of disinformation and electoral manipulation, and make their algorithms and content moderation practices more transparent. Companies that seriously violate the law can face fines of up to 6% of their worldwide annual turnover. Crucially, the legislation seeks to hold powerful technology corporations accountable while protecting freedom of expression, rather than giving governments unrestricted power to determine what people can say online.

There are principled people holding a line against the online cultivation of xenophobia and Islamophobia, including Zwelinzima Vavi, Redi Thlabi and Phumzile van Damme. There are also various NGOs and social movements that hold the line. 

But while these people and organisations deserve our respect, gratitude and support, we need structural intervention to subject social media to democratic regulation. If we do not rapidly move to regulate social media, our constitutional democracy, founded on the principle that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, will soon be corroded from within in the same way that secular democracy in India has effectively been destroyed.

*Dr Imraan Buccus is editor of Al-Qalam.

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South Africa’s local government elections on 4 November 2026 present voters with an ethical responsibility: deciding which political parties and ward candidates deserve their support. Beyond promises of efficient service delivery, these choices require consideration of justice, political integrity, human dignity, and the needs of vulnerable communities.

Three Islamic commitments offer guidance: dhikr that becomes ethical action, solidarity beyond our own communities, and responsible citizenship grounded in knowledge. Together, they provide a framework for voting with conscience.

Dhikr/Remembrance that moves into the streets

Dhikr extends beyond reciting Allah’s names, sending salawat and inward reflection. The Qur’an reminds us that hearts find tranquillity in Allah’s remembrance (13:28). For Imam al-Ghazali, remembrance must shape character and become visible in ethical conduct.

Active dhikr becomes palpable when neighbours feed hungry families, welcome refugees, protect women facing violence and mentor young people. It continues when residents challenge unfair budgets, organise around broken streetlights and participate in ward meetings. Remembrance becomes a practice of noticing, learning and acting. It also informs how we vote.

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Solidarity beyond our own community

The Qur’an commands cooperation in righteousness, not wrongdoing and aggression (5:2). This principle of ta‘awun, alongside ukhuwwa (brotherhood and sisterhood), makes solidarity a public responsibility. Charity matters, but cannot alone overcome the conditions producing poverty and exclusion.

Political judgment must therefore consider housing, unemployment, public safety and services, alongside parties’ treatment of women, refugees and marginalised communities.

The Qur’an praises those who welcomed migrants despite their own hardship (59:9). The Prophet Muhammad’s (s) community in Madinah exemplified hospitality towards displaced people. Populist political movements that exploit racial divisions, portray refugees as threatening outsiders or mobilise xenophobic hostility must be examined against this Prophetic ethic. Addressing local hardship must never require dehumanising strangers.

Citizenship as a public trust

Fiqh al-muwatana, the contemporary jurisprudence of citizenship, connects participation to amana (trust), ‘adl (justice), shura (consultation) and maslaha (public welfare).

The Qur’an commands believers to honour trusts and judge justly (4:58), while commending consultation (42:38). These principles provide an ethical foundation for informed voting and accountable governance.

Competent municipal administration matters, especially for working-class households. Reliable services and honest procurement are essential. Yet efficiency must be considered alongside justice, equitable resource distribution and human dignity.

Why efficiency cannot displace justice

In a September 2025 Mail & Guardian article, Imraan Buccus and I criticised Helen Zille’s response to the genocide and mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza. We argued that her emphasis on administrative efficiency deflected attention from the moral question of political complicity in Israel’s actions. Functioning traffic lights and reliable municipal services cannot provide moral cover for political support of those responsible for atrocities.

Good governance cannot be reduced to administrative performance while genocide, oppression and human dignity become secondary considerations. Justice is indispensable to legitimate governance. No administrative achievement can compensate for complicity in genocide or oppression.

My central voting principle follows: electoral support carries moral responsibilities, including the obligation to consider whether it implicates us in grave injustice. Parties’ positions on genocide, unlawful killing and oppression therefore warrant serious scrutiny, alongside their municipal records. The same scrutiny applies to racial hatred, xenophobia and exclusion. Competence cannot erase fundamental ethical questions.

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Putting conscience into practice at the ballot box

Voting with conscience requires examining evidence rather than relying on political slogans. Four questions can guide the decision.

First, ethical responsibility: What have parties actually said and done concerning genocide, oppression, racial division and refugees? Examine statements, policies, alliances and voting records, distinguishing documented conduct from allegations.

Second, governing performance: Have parties delivered water, sanitation, housing support and safe public spaces? Have they addressed corruption and distributed resources fairly, especially in poorer neighbourhoods?

Third, ward representation: Is the candidate accessible, trustworthy and active locally? Have they listened to residents, understood community problems and honoured commitments?

Fourth, verification: The Qur’an instructs believers to investigate reports before acting in ignorance and causing harm (49:6). This principle of tabayyun requires checking manifestos, credible reporting and candidates’ records rather than accepting WhatsApp rumours or inherited party loyalties.

These questions bring ethical commitments, political conduct, municipal performance and local accountability into a considered electoral judgment.

Beyond election day

Citizenship continues through ward meetings, budget scrutiny, service-delivery monitoring and collective action against exclusion. Communities should recognise effective governance while holding representatives accountable.

Dhikr, solidarity and voting belong together when remembrance cultivates conscience, conscience informs judgment, and judgment sustains public responsibility. Our commitment to justice must shape both our choices at the ballot box and the communities we build afterwards.

*Professor Aslam Fataar is a Research and Development Professor in Higher Education Transformation, Department of Education Policy Studies, Stellenbosch University. This article is based on a khutbah delivered in Cravenby, Cape Town, on 30 October 2026

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Our national anti-apartheid sports movement, the South African Council on Sport (SACOS), working with SANROC, worked tirelessly to isolate South Africa culturally and, in particular, in the sports movement.

Organised under the banner “No Normal Sport in an Abnormal Society,” the camp contributed towards our own democratic breakthrough in 1994.

The time now, in the spirit of fair play and sportsmanship, is for us to raise our voices and our bats against the jailing of political prisoners in Pakistan, in particular Imran Khan.

When South Africa was a global pariah, suffocating under the weight of apartheid, international sports solidarity was our lifeline. For decades, many parts of the global sporting community erected a wall of isolation against institutional racism, holding a mirror to our pariah state.

Among the giants who stood firmly on the right side of that history was Pakistan’s World Cup-winning captain, Imran Khan.

In his 1983 autobiography, Khan stated unequivocally that he had no qualms about declining lucrative offers to play in a country where a man was considered inferior because of the colour of his skin. He chose moral principle over personal profit. He stood for us when it mattered.

Today, that same icon languishes in a raw Pakistani prison cell. At 73 years old, he faces solitary confinement, systemic legal weaponisation, and medical neglect so severe that international appeals report he faces severe vision loss in his right eye.

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Yet, while global cricketing legends rally to demand his basic human rights, Cricket South Africa (CSA) and our modern Proteas are completely missing in action. Our sporting establishment’s silence is thus questionable.

We learn that the current humanitarian campaign to secure Khan’s welfare began as a noble peer-to-peer petition. Initiated by Australia’s Greg Chappell, the movement has submitted letters to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed by over 21 global titans, including Sunil Gavaskar, Clive Lloyd, Sir Alastair Cook, Ian Chappell, and David Gower.

The signatories are demanding fundamental humanitarian considerations: urgent completion of independent medical assessments, unhindered family visits, and immediate medical treatment.

But this campaign cannot remain an exclusive club for 1980s contemporaries. Because South Africa was isolated and banned from international cricket during Khan’s playing prime, our local administrators and legends probably do not share locker-room memories with him.

If it is true that behind closed doors, this lack of “shared history” has been used as a convenient shield for inaction, it is a cowardly excuse.

Surely you do not need to have faced Imran Khan on a pitch to recognise the blatant injustice of his detention.

By treating his imprisonment as a private matter for his ageing rivals, the broader cricket world—and South Africa in particular—is failing a critical moral test.

South African cricket exists in its current, prosperous form because the world weaponised sports to fight tyranny. Our unity era navigated a path back to legitimacy only because global actors forced accountability on our behalf.

For Cricket South Africa (CSA) to sit on its hands and treat Khan’s imprisonment as a “foreign political issue” is utterly unacceptable. We are calling for the release of a man who in his later years served as the 19th Prime Minister of Pakistan from 2018 to 2022. He was removed from office on 10 April 2022, after growing tensions with the military. Since August 2023, Khan has remained incarcerated, amidst mounting political protests led by his party demanding his release. Even Amnesty International in 2024, called for his release, noting:
Amnesty International has found several fair trial violations under international human rights standards which have resulted in his arbitrary detention, denying his right to liberty.

CSA is quick to champion progressive causes, domestic transformation, and social justice when it aligns with corporate branding and low-stakes public relations. But true institutional courage means speaking out when the stakes are high and diplomacy is uncomfortable.

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Our modern, multi-millionaire players – who wield immense global leverage through social media and player associations—must also look in the mirror.

Staying quiet to protect corporate relationships or lucrative T20 league contracts while a foundational figure of the global game is broken in a cell is a damning indictment of the modern player’s conscience.

When players claim that “sports and politics shouldn’t mix,” they mock the very legacy that allows them to wear the Proteas badge on the world stage today.

We are not asking South African cricket to adjudicate the complex, hyper-partisan labyrinth of Pakistani domestic politics.

But we are demanding that they stand against the subversion of justice, the violation of a Supreme Court medical directive, and the cruel treatment of an elderly sportsman.

The campaign must transition from an elite, back-channel appeal into a mass-based movement.

At a minimum, we expect CSA leadership to officially endorse the international humanitarian call for Khan’s fair medical treatment.

In addition, we call on democratic-era Proteas legends – the beneficiaries of our return to sport – to publicly sign their names alongside Chappell and Gavaskar.

Indeed, we remind the South African public to look at the green and gold cap and remember that the privilege to wear it was bought with the currency of global solidarity.

Imran Khan didn’t stay silent when South Africans were being oppressed. Our continued silence in the face of his persecution is nothing short of a betrayal of our own liberation legacy. It is time for South African cricket to stand up for the man who stood up for us.

The post SA Cricket silent on Imran Khan’s detention appeared first on Al-Qalam.

Visiting Palestinian scholar Dr Khalid Al-Awaisi has asked an uncomfortable “How could the ummah that professes such conviction in its faith witness a genocide in Gaza and remain so powerless to stop it?”

In an interview during his visit to Cape Town, Al-Awaisi asked a more uncomfortable question of the Muslim ummah: how could a community that professes such conviction in its faith witness such suffering and remain so powerless to stop it?

“Our iman is theoretical,” he said.

Throughout the interview, Al-Awaisi returned to the demands of solidarity: what Muslims were prepared to sacrifice, and how consistently they were willing to act. Al-Awaisi questioned the comfort of believing that prayer, a donation and a boycott had exhausted every available responsibility.

He recalled warning his aunt against returning to northern Gaza. She laughed and told him they were waiting their turn for martyrdom. Her response made him question the distance between her trust in Allah under bombardment and the faith professed by Muslims living in safety.

Faith and Palestine had been intertwined in his own life since childhood. Growing up in Al-Khalil, also known as Hebron, he accompanied his father to Al-Aqsa, where the elder Al-Awaisi taught university students. His father preferred to hold classes inside the masjid rather than in the lecture halls beneath it. Long before Al-Awaisi studied the Holy Land, he knew it through those visits with his father.

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During the first intifada, Al-Awaisi recalled soldiers firing at his primary school while children played during break time. Curfews restricted daily life, and Palestinians confronted the occupying army with stones. His memories place October 7, 2023, within a much longer history of occupation – one he had experienced as a child.

His father was later expelled to southern Lebanon alongside hundreds of academics and activists, he said. The family was subsequently forced out of Palestine. Al-Awaisi has never returned to Al-Khalil. A later visit to Al-Aqsa was possible with a foreign passport.

That experience informs his scholarship in Bayt al-Maqdis studies, which examines the Holy Land through its history, religious traditions and significance for Muslims. It also informs his impatience with language that makes Palestinians solely responsible for defending it.

“Al-Aqsa is not a Palestinian masjid,” he said.

Al-Awaisi argued that anyone witnessing Palestinian suffering has a responsibility to help. For Muslims, that duty is also rooted in faith: Al-Aqsa is sacred to the entire ummah, yet Palestinians have been left to bear the cost of defending it. He questioned how Muslims elsewhere could claim a bond with the masjid while leaving Palestinians to face such suffering alone.

To illustrate that shared responsibility, he asks Muslims to imagine soldiers entering the sanctuary in Makkah and attacking worshippers around the Ka‘bah.

“Would Muslims regard that as a matter for Saudis alone?”

An attack on the Ka‘bah would concern the entire ummah, he argued. Defending Al-Aqsa should carry the same sense of collective responsibility.

Al-Awaisi reserved some of his sharpest criticism for Muslim governments, describing their failure to protect the people of Gaza as a source of shame for the entire ummah.

For South Africans, there was a particular connection. Al-Awaisi recalled learning the power of boycotts through refusing South African goods while living in Britain during apartheid. He praised South Africa’s pursuit of accountability through international courts and the Muslim community’s longstanding attachment to Al-Aqsa.

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His praise was also a call to deepen that commitment. He urged people to give beyond the spare change in their pockets, sustain their boycotts and keep organising after the immediate outrage had faded. Individuals should develop projects of their own, he said, while organisations should set aside rivalries and work together for Palestine.

“You need to turn this emotion into action,” he said.

His challenge to the ummah was ultimately a question of accountability. Al-Awaisi imagined having to face the people of Gaza, and ultimately Allah, with an explanation of what he had done while their suffering unfolded.

“How will I answer to Allah?” he asked.

The post Al Awaisi: ‘Failure by Muslim States to protect Gaza a shame on Ummah’ appeared first on Al-Qalam.

Recently, I shared a platform with Prof. Sayed Muhammad Marandi, hosted by the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia.  Prof. Marandi is a compelling voice for Iran as it remains under attack from the United States and Israel. While indeed bombs and missiles, fighter planes and bombers, aircraft carriers and frigates, are all the conductors of physical and human destruction, the age we are in – the era of deception – means that war and conflict are pre-emptively conducted through Disinformation, Mass Manipulation, and the Distortion of Truth.

Our era, I argued, has a strategy to distort reality as a prelude and accompaniment to war and conflict:  lying, distorting, and manipulating are intentional as truth is subverted, facts distorted, and people manipulated through the dehumanisation of the ‘other’ to be attacked and towards whom fears are engendered. Such means of narrative war are meant to bypass both human sympathy and logic, and to blind people to the obvious truths about who are the victims and aggressors – most often through inverting the two.

This is most obvious, I demonstrated, in the 2 most prominent conflicts:  firstly, in presenting the start of history in the occupation and genocide of the Palestinian people by Israel as October 7, 2023, and not earlier, so as to find a moment of both post-facto justification for a history of oppression, as well as a priori consent to finish the job of eliminating Palestine and its peoples.  Secondly, the extravagant lies in prosecuting the war on Iran – from nuclear weapons to regime change, from obliteration of such weapons to the 40 imminent defeats of Iran – are so palpably deceptive, but illustrate that we need to look for the armies and weapons of war beyond the armed personnel and the exploding weaponry.

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The era of deception has an army of influencers ranging from opinion-makers who peddle fears, warnings and scenarios about imminent danger and the virtues of immediate war against the source of fear, to intermediaries in news channels, whose principles of objectivity mean finding necessarily the midpoint between the obvious truth and the blatant lie, often ending up with false reasons with real war narratives that sell news while appeasing the liars.

The era of deception also has an arsenal of weapons deployed:  the guilt-trip (we owe Israel a free pass because we allowed the European holocaust);  the gas-lighting (don’t believe your eyes about Israel’s genocide); playing the victim (the aggressors – USA and Israel – are actually the victims of Iran and Hamas, despite the sheer disproportionately in fire-power and deaths);  projection (Iran has nuclear ambitions while Israel maintains silence on its nuclear stockpile);  and then the famous double-down (either by flooding the zone with lies or repeating the lie often enough to make people immune to their own sensibility).

These armies and arsenals become especially effective as journalism declines (mostly by suicide) and the digital era spawns the good and the bad:  citizen journalists communicating a genocide from their devices;  while deepfakes employ generative AI to create an alternative ’truth’ through fake content, face-swapping and voice cloning.  The outcome of such campaigns of Disinformation and Mass Manipulation is that institutional legitimacy declines and social polarisation intensifies, and any middle ground is eroded.  For the time being, it will be a battle of numbers – whose ‘truth’ will be believed by more people.

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The tide that gave us Trump, Netanyahu and Orban;  that threatened with Le Pen, AFD in Germany and Wilders in the Netherlands; and that produced local populists across the world – that tide ebbs and flows.   But we do have some hope that the era of deception is capable of being pierced. In the USA, Pew tells us that 60% of Americans have a negative view of Israel and Gallup shows far greater sympathy for the Palestinians. The University of Maryland’s Institute for Global Affairs shows that over 60% of Americans disapprove of the war on Iran, while even Fox News reports that 71% believe the war to be without a plan or strategy.

These signs should encourage us to contest the space, utilize the technology, and remain tenaciously committed to truth.

*Ebrahim Rasool is the former ambassador to the US and former Premier of the Western Cape.

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I argued for the two-state solution, then the one-state solution, for many years. I was wrong. A colleague at Wage Peace put it best. Expecting Palestinians to live alongside Israelis in one state is like expecting a rape victim to live with the rapist who stole her house and holds the keys.

The strongest case for one-state says two-state is already dead. It says land theft has expanded so far that a viable Palestinian state no longer exists, and that the only choices left are permanent apartheid or a single democratic state with equal rights. Most Israelis reject both ‘solutions’ with contempt.

But one state fails for the same reason the two-state solution fails. A single state would begin from more than 100 years of dispossession, with power still in the hands of the coloniser. Equal rights on paper, inside a structure built to deny them, is not liberation. It is apartheid with a shiny new flag.

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Pillay vs Trump

Navi Pillay’s Nobel Peace Prize made the world notice what Israel spent years trying to bury. As chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Pillay found Israel responsible for “four genocidal acts” in Gaza, committed with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians as a group: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy the group, and preventing births within it.

She named the Israeli President, Prime Minister and former Defence Minister as having incited genocide. She described Gaza as “the most ruthless, prolonged and widespread attack against the Palestinian people in history.” Israel called the report “scandalous” and “fake.” Trump said he had “never heard of” her and called the award an “indelible stain” on Norway. He also reshared an irrational, unsubstantiated post calling her an “unabashed hater of America and Israel.”

Trump’s answer was a “Board of Peace”, ratified in Davos. Yvonne Ridley calls it a “Board of Piss.” War profiteer Jared Kushner unveiled tourism zones and high-rise waterfronts, calling it “New Gaza” and “New Rafah”. The board’s charter gives Trump final authority, allows permanent membership for countries that pay $1 billion, and makes no mention of Palestine. A real estate project built on graves.

The rainbow myth

South Africa is not a model to pedestal. We live in the shadow of a settlement called a miracle. Thirty years later, we have one of the highest Gini coefficients in the world, land is still predominantly in corporate hands, townships are still gaping wounds of humanity, and structural violence remains. I do not want Palestinians to inherit our disappointment while we wonder, what if Chris Hani led us.

For Palestine, this is not a political disagreement. This is not two peoples with competing claims to land redistribution. This is a colonial project built on ethnic cleansing, maintained by apartheid and occupation, and culminating in genocide – live-streamed, documented, and ludicrously denied.

We are asked to imagine a future where the architects and beneficiaries of that genocide simply become neighbours. This is not some Hollywood-written, Zionist-funded, award-winning American propaganda film. Our commitment to wage peace must be rooted in authentic, rigorous reality.

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Who can stay?

Prof. Patrick Bond asked whether my position meant throwing Israelis into the sea. I said I believe that the only Israelis eligible to stay are those who recognise genocide. Not those who say “both sides” or who call themselves “pro-peace” while remaining silent on horrendous crimes against humanity.

The ones who could stay are the tiniest minority – who protest, refuse to serve in the war machine, denounce Zionism, boycott, lobby, who say “not in my name” and mean it. And, the ones prepared to leave. The rest chose colonisation. They cannot inherit land they ethnically cleanse. And let me be clear, I will never recognise Israel as a state. This is a position we must not be afraid to stand on.

Only Palestinians must decide

Ultimately, Palestinians are the only ones who determine who stays. Not even South Africa, still selling coal to ‘Israel ’ and not prosecuting South Africans complicit in the genocide of Palestine.

Those who are not allowed to stay must go back to where they came from, such as the US and Europe. If they do not, they will target another land to steal. They are colonising Argentina. They are trying to colonise South Africa. There is an openly stated agenda to separate the Western Cape from our country. We should be vigilant about who funds it. Watch that video clip with Phil Craig and Afriforum.

There can be no just peace built on greed, depravity and impunity. It’s time we commit fully to Palestinian liberation. Our freedom is indivisible. None of us are free until all of us are free.

*Shabnam Palesa Mohamed is an activist, journalist, lawyer and strategist. She is the founder of Wage Peace International, a grassroots movement focused on multipronged strategies to achieve peace.

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Muslim schools operate under increasingly demanding conditions. Teachers must complete the curriculum, prepare learners for examinations, respond to uneven levels of learner preparation, manage social and economic pressures, and now contend with digital distraction and the rapid incorporation of generative AI into young people’s lives. Under these conditions, teaching can easily narrow to coverage, performance and examination preparation.

The challenge is not to lessen the importance of academic achievement. Learners need serious access to disciplinary knowledge, intellectual standards and the forms of reasoning associated with their school subjects. The larger educational question is how such knowledge can be taught in ways that also contribute to the formation of the learner as an ethical human being.

This question framed the workshop, Teaching with Iḥsān: A Prophetic Pedagogy of Islamic Ethics for Muslim Schools, held at Community House in Salt River, Cape Town, on 26 September 2026. Stellenbosch University’s Dialogue, Democracy and Development project presented the workshop in association with The Muslim Thinker Trust,  coordinated it. It combined conceptual input, an interactive presentation, generative group work and report-backs, with a strong emphasis on translating Prophetic ethics into pedagogical practice.

The classroom as a formative space

The workshop proceeded from the view that the classroom is simultaneously a knowledge space and a formative space. Teachers have an epistemic responsibility to teach subjects with intellectual seriousness. Learners require access to concepts, evidence, procedures, disciplinary reasoning and clear standards for what counts as knowledge.

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At the same time, schooling always forms learners. Knowledge is taught through relationships, routines, expectations, examples and patterns of interaction. The important question is therefore not whether formation occurs, but what kinds of dispositions, habits and ethical orientations are being cultivated through the everyday experience of teaching and learning.

This is where Prophetic ethics becomes educationally significant. It should not be reduced to occasional moral reminders or treated as a separate layer added to the formal curriculum. The deeper task is to bring knowledge, pedagogy and ethical formation into meaningful relation.

Adab, akhlāq and formation

The distinction between adab and akhlāq provided an important language for this work. Adab refers to visible conduct in relationships and situations. It concerns how learners speak, listen, disagree, use technology and participate in learning. Akhlāq refers to the deeper moral character and dispositions from which such conduct increasingly flows.

The pedagogical implication is that character formation cannot be achieved through exhortation alone. Learners need repeated opportunities to practise attentiveness, honesty, fairness, respect, responsibility and care. Through repetition, guidance and reflection, these visible forms of conduct can gradually become more deeply rooted dispositions.

The learner should therefore not only know more at the end of a lesson. The classroom experience should also contribute, over time, to how that learner listens, speaks, judges and acts.

A pedagogical grammar for Prophetic ethics

The workshop used the Islamic categories of taʿlīm, taʾdīb and tarbiya to give this educational purpose a pedagogical grammar. Taʿlīm concerns what learners should know and understand. Taʾdīb concerns the forms of conduct and disposition that should accompany that knowledge. Tarbiya concerns the longer process through which repetition, modelling, correction, and increasing responsibility nurture such formation. Iḥsān gives this process its orientation towards excellence, beauty and right action.

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This grammar locates Prophetic ethics within the ordinary work of teaching. Teachers already make choices about what knowledge matters, how it should be made teachable and what counts as evidence of learning. The workshop asked how ethical formation could enter these existing pedagogical decisions.

Basil Bernstein’s idea of pedagogical recontextualisation helped clarify this. Knowledge is selected, reorganised and translated for particular learners and educational settings. Muslim teachers must consider how Prophetic ethical resources can be recontextualised into school subjects while retaining both disciplinary integrity and the integrity of the ethical tradition.

A phased and temporal pedagogy

A core feature of the workshop was its emphasis on developmental pacing. Ethical formation looks different at different stages of schooling. Young children learn powerfully through attachment, imitation, story, rhythm and routine. As learners mature, they become increasingly able to understand consequences, interpret situations, discuss competing claims and accept responsibility for their judgments and actions.

The ethical purpose can therefore remain coherent across the school while the pedagogy changes. Younger learners may first experience goodness through modelling and repetition. Intermediate learners can increasingly explain why conduct matters. Senior and FET learners can engage questions of identity, responsibility, public life and moral judgment.

This temporal logic matters because ethical education should grow with the learner. It should move from guided practice towards increasingly independent interpretation and ethical agency.

Memory, embodiment and discernment

The Cape Mawlid offered a locally grounded example of formation through more than verbal explanation. Its pedagogical force lies in voice, repetition, listening, rhythm, bodily participation and communal memory. Children learn through hearing, repeating and gradually inhabiting particular forms of attentiveness and belonging.

The broader lesson is that learners are shaped by what they repeatedly hear, see and do. Classroom routines, the handling of mistakes, the modelling of disagreement and the repeated practice of honesty, care and responsibility all contribute to who learners are becoming.

The workshop also addressed conditions that can morally and socially disorient learners. The concept of fitan (times of turmoil and moral confusion) was used to name pressures such as online cruelty, racism, inequality, sexualised content, AI misuse, peer pressure and public violence. Within this context, dhikr was approached as remembrance and also as re-membering: restoring moral orientation when attention and judgment have become fragmented.

The educational aim is to help learners pause, notice what is happening, recall what matters, weigh the ethical dimensions of a situation and determine how to respond responsibly. Prophetic education should therefore move beyond rule repetition towards ethical discernment and agency.

Making inherited knowledge educationally alive

The example of Shaykh Yūsuf illustrated how knowledge travels, circulates and becomes recontextualised in changing historical conditions. This offers a useful metaphor for Muslim schooling. Inherited knowledge must retain its integrity while becoming meaningful in the circumstances learners actually inhabit.

Prophetic narratives can similarly become ethical resources through which learners examine care, dignity, hospitality, race, injustice, harmful conduct and repair. The educational task is to create opportunities for learners to interpret inherited knowledge and connect it thoughtfully to contemporary situations.

The discussion of generative AI made this need especially visible. The educational question is broader than whether AI should be allowed. It concerns digital adab: honesty, verification, responsibility, privacy, dignity and intellectual ownership. Learners need to gradually develop the capacity to explain how AI was used, check claims and take responsibility for the knowledge they present.

Educating for Prophetic ethical agency

The workshop’s design reflected its argument. Conceptual input was combined with interactive presentation, collaborative design work and report-backs. Teachers moved between conceptual understanding and classroom application, made their pedagogical thinking explicit, and refined it collectively.

Teacher development for Prophetic ethics cannot remain at the level of inspirational discourse. Teachers need conceptual resources and structured opportunities to translate them into teachable practices appropriate to particular subjects, phases and situations.

The wider aspiration is to understand Prophetic ethics as a serious pedagogical pursuit. Muslim schools should aim for strong academic achievement while also cultivating attentiveness, character, discernment and ethical agency. Prophetic pedagogy concerns the quality of the entire educational encounter: what learners come to know, how they learn to inhabit that knowledge, what kinds of judgment they develop, and how their education equips them to act responsibly.

The educational ambition is therefore larger than examination success. It is to cultivate young people whose knowledge becomes part of their character, whose character informs their judgment, and whose judgment enables them to respond to the world with responsibility, dignity and iḥsān.

*Aslam Fataar is Research Professor in Higher Education Transformation in the Department of Education Policy Studies at Stellenbosch University.

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In the Name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.

Al-ḥamdu lillāh. All praise is due to Allah.

O Allah, send Your blessings and peace upon our Prophet Muhammad (SAW).

Yā Rabb al-ʿĀlamīn, Lord of all the Worlds, You have honoured and given every human being dignity.

Help us protect the lives, honour and safety of women and girls.

Yā Arḥam al-Rāḥimīn, Most Merciful of those who show mercy, our hearts are heavy as we mourn the women murdered in South Africa.

Each life was precious, and to You they have returned. We remember those whose names we know and those whose stories have not been heard.

Comfort their families and give them patience and strength in their grief.

Protect women and children living in fear, whether in their homes, on the streets, at work or in places where they should be safe.

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Bring them to people who will listen to them, take them seriously and help them find safety. Grant healing to those who have survived violence and abuse.

Yā Aḥkam al-Ḥākimīn, Most Just of Judges, You have told us that the girl buried alive will be asked for what sin she was killed.

Guide those investigating these killings to the truth.

Give courage and integrity to the police, the courts and all who have a duty to protect.

Let no cry for help be ignored, no case be neglected and no perpetrator be shielded from accountability.

Guide us, especially men and boys, to reject the belief that women may be oppressed, threatened or harmed.

Make us among those who live with their families in kindness, as You have commanded.

Teach us to challenge abuse in our families, our masajid and our communities.

Help us listen to survivors, support those seeking refuge and act before another life is lost.

Bless the counsellors, shelter workers, neighbours and advocates who offer care and protection.

Strengthen our resolve to make every home and community a place where women and girls can live without fear.

Allāhumma anta al-Salām wa minka al-Salām, tabārakta yā Dhā al-Jalāli wa al-Ikrām.

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O Allah, You are Peace, and from You comes peace. Blessed are You, O Possessor of Majesty and Honour.

Grant us the courage to build a society rooted in compassion, dignity and justice.

We ask this through all Your beautiful names, Yā Rabb al-Nās, Lord of humankind.

Allāhumma āmīn.

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The need for religious values in society is now more important than any other time in the history of our civilisation, especially given the levels of corruption, unethical behaviour and conflicts the world is currently experiencing. Within this perspective it behoves all politicians irrespective of their political persuasion to adopt religious values for better and socially just governance.  

All over the world ordinary people seek high moral standards in the behaviour of politicians which in turn could become the basis of people’s trust and faith towards them and indirectly in the practice of governance. This is why in order to maintain expected honesty and ethical standards in the behaviour of politicians; ethics has to be incorporated as an important subject in the practice of public administration. 

What then would be the criteria for measuring ethical behaviour? How would we differentiate between right and wrong? Within societal norms there is no impersonal or universal standard of ethical behaviour – different human groups or even different individuals of the same group may have different perceptions of ethics. To take this point further, we would argue that if we acknowledge that people’s perception regarding right or wrong, good or bad is related to people’s or group’s interest and to the changing social customs and environment, these cannot be the dependable guide to our behaviour. Therefore, the universal basis for achieving uniformity in human behaviour regarding good and bad should be some impersonal ethical code, which can only be received from superhuman revelation i.e., religion. 

Given the levels of global chaos there seems to be growing evidence which suggests that there is a need for strong spiritual reality in people’s lives. Some may, however, argue that a connection between morality and God is unnecessary to make sense of life. Others contend that religious faiths and spirituality are the foundations of ethical decision making. Despite the philosophical differences of different religions, the central message of every religious doctrine is to create the feeling among people that the existence and happenings of the universe are the result of the desire of a conscious and creative universal force. Another related realization is that man has got a spiritual relationship with this divine force. Owing to this realization, man has been asked to differentiate between right and wrong or good and bad. Without the existence of such a realisation, people’s perception of ethics is bound to be cloudy and would become dependent on expediency. As a result, the concept of ‘should and shouldn’t’ would be a relative phenomenon.  This may then be subjected to misuse for personal or group interest. As man’s requirements are dependent on an ever changing social environment, in such a process, it becomes difficult to determine any stable ethical standard. 

Influence

Religion, on the other hand encourages man to be acquainted with such an ethical standard which would be free from personal or social influence. For example, in order to free an administration from the influence of patronage or hatred in applying administrative discretion, the Holy Qur’an says to its believers: “O ye who believe! Be ye staunch in justice, witness for Allah, even though it be against yourself or (your) parents or (your) kindred, (the case be of) a rich man or a poor man, for Allah is nearer up to both (than you are) and if ye lapse or fall away, then lo! Allah is ever informed of what ye do” (SuraNissa, 4:135); 

“O ye who believe! Let not hatred of any people (or community) dissuade you from dealing justly. Deal justly, for that is closer to Godliness” (Sura Maida, 5:8); 

“And O my people! Give just measure and weight, nor withhold from the people the things that are their due: commit not evil in the land with intend to do mischief (SuraHud: 85); and 

“O David! We did indeed make thee a vice-regent on earth; so judge thou between men in truth (and justice); nor follow thou the lusts (of thy heart), for they will mislead thee from the path of Allah; for those who wander astray from the path of Allah, is a penalty grievous, for that they forget the Day of Account (SuraSaad, 38:26). 

In the above verses, God Almighty has emphasized the impersonal value of public bureaucracy for the sake of establishing justice in society. These injunctions have been acknowledged as the important features of governance The above verses further prove that the Holy Qur’an is not meant for a special community, that it is the common heritage and universal guide for all mankind, irrespective of time and place. Followers of different religions or even those who are agnostics cannot but appreciate these injunctions of the holy revelations. If honesty and benevolence can be increased in the behaviour of public bureaucracy through religious teachings in public administration study, it would be beneficial to public interest – and should be practiced. 

Religious values therefore are the building blocks and foundations of a morally just society and it is imperative for politicians to adopt and practice these values in the governance of their followers.  

*Imaam Asghar Khan is a public representative of Al Jama-ah and serves as the leader of the party in KZN. He writes in his personal capacity.

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