Auwal Masjid

About this audio guide

This guide to Auwal Masjid in Cape Town follows Coridon of Ceylon, a formerly enslaved man who bought two plots on this street in 1794 and rented out a plain warehouse rather than building anything grand. You'll hear how a single carved prayer niche turned that storeroom into South Africa's first mosque, and how the building was patched and expanded across more than a century of renovations. The guide then turns to what workers found tucked in the attic during renovations in the 1980s, and to the mosque's first imam, who spent years imprisoned on Robben Island.