Ottoman descendants in South Africa eagerly await Turkish citizenship

Some of the many families of Ottoman origin now residing in South Africa are eager to receive Turkish citizenship years after applying.

"This is my great grandfather's Turkish passport. I hope I can get one like this before I die," Hesham Neamatollah Effendi, 76, the great-grandson to late Ottoman scholar Abu Bakr Effendi said as he displayed his grandfather's now-browned passport emblazoned with the Ottoman tugra, or royal signature.

Abu Bakr Effendi was a prominent Turkish scholar sent to South Africa in the 19th century by Sultan Abdul-Aziz Khan to teach the cape's Muslim community of the Islamic religion.

His legacy and that of other Ottomans who came to reside in the cape can still be felt today after more than 150 years, through their writings, as well as the accounts and activities of their descendants who have lived in South Africa for five generations.

"To be able to get a Turkish passport or citizenship and travel to Turkey to visit or return to the ancestral homeland of my great grandfather would be more than awesome," Faried Manan a great-grandson to Mahmoud Hashim Pasha, said.

Some Ottoman descendants are now well-known in South Africa -- among them judges, doctors and even politicians. South Africa's minister of economic development, Ebrahim Patel, is one of the great-grandsons of Abu Bakr Effendi.

Hesham Neamatollah Effendi said families of Ottoman descendants suffered immensely during the many decades of Apartheid rule in South Africa.

He said that since the Effendis were Muslims, they were regarded as Malay (non-whites) and were forcefully relocated from their original homes to colored areas.
"We had to concentrate on survival under a wicked system," Neamatollah Effendi explained, adding that...