Abdul Fataagh

 Somewhere around the year 1840 (I would guess) the first line of Cape "Malays" was  born, of whom there are uncountable offspring mainly in Cape Town. Here is the story of my paternal great-grandfather as told to me by my father, Salamudien Fataar.

Early in the 1840s, as I have estimated, an English sailor (captain?) on a cargo ship in Cape Town married a Khoi woman in the Anglican Church (Cathedral). A son was born on his return to England, but on his return visit he died in his boat when a bag of coal fell on him. His wife (widow then) named Martha we could make out, gave the boy to an Imam in Cape Town.....She then went off....

The Imam (name or designation not available/unknown....perhaps this could be  found from the records of Imam(s) in Cape Town round about the 1840s.....), accepted the baby as a Muslim and named him Abdul Fataagh and brought him up....as his son.....

From a document I had in my possession (from my father who died in Claremont 1943)  and now perhaps with someone in the family, the baby was baptized/christened in the Anglican Church (Cathedral?) and the name of the father was Bowles (Bowers?)....Arthur(first name), the mother Martha ( no surnames for Khoi) and the child...Arthur also?..... So both the marriage and the christening were done in religious fashion, the father could not have been a Portsmouth, Liverpool or London no-gooder who could only land a job as a sailor....Note:Winnie Mandela once remarked that the "Coloured" people were the offspring of "prostitutes"!

When he was grown up he married a Cape Malay woman (name unknown). As far as I can recall they had 4 sons:

 Abdul Hadi , 

Abdol

 Salaamudien.

The youngest was Abduraghman who lived for years next to Chiappinni Street Masjid. Both he and Abdul Hadi for some strange reason took the surname Gallow and their children and grandchildren are Gallow, not Fataar!

There were 2 daughters, I think. The elder lived in District Six (opposite the fish market, just off Hanover Street) married a Toefy and her daughter Hajiera was married to my eldest brother, Gamja. Her other daughter, Sies Joggie (Jogera) lived in water-logged Kromboom most of her life. Another , Sies Poppie (we called her) was married to a skilled cabinet maker, had no children and lived  opposite the Race Course Kenilworth. She was a singer who performed in the old Tivoli Hall in Cape Town where the big post office now stands (now known as Grand Central Mall).

Abdul Fataagh had a job as a wagoner conveying mining equipment and other good from Kimberley rail head (diamond mines) to the recently established gold mines on the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) and the family of four (father, mother, Salamudien and Abduraghman) went to stay in Vrededorp, Johannesburg. Somewhere between 1880 and 1890 (the railway reached Johannesburg in 1895) there was an explosion underground in the gold mine which shook the city and caused damage and injuries to people in the city, among whom was Abdul Fataagh's family - story told was; my father's mother was placing a baked loaf in the sun when the window exploded and injured her face. A census had been conducted and Abdul Fataagh was given the name Abdul and the family Fataar. They received 400 pounds in gold coins as compensation and used this money to take the family on hajj in Mecca.

They survived the rough sea voyage to Aden (from Cape Town or Durban) perhaps around 1890. Then they traversed the desert from Aden to Medina to Mecca by camel. They survived many a desert storm lying on the leeward side of the recumbent camel that had sensed the storm coming. It was also a time of war - between the Bedouins and the Saudis, but they got through unscathed in both directions. They returned with the usual gifts of zam-zam, dates, mebos  and an assortment of jubbahs (beautifully hand-sewn) and the typical sorbaan with its white linen wrap-round. 

On their return from pilgrimage they settled in Cape Town since the railway had reached Witwatersrand.  My father and Hadji Abduraghman got married to Malay women in Cape Town. After the Kruger regime in the Transvaal, my father and part of his family lived in Vrededorp (Omar was born there 1910).

Old man Abdul Fataagh got other jobs: as a slagter (killer of animals to halaal the meat) at the abattoir, as a wagoner during the 1917 smallpox epidemic in Cape Town, since he must have had smallpox when he went on pilgrimage to Mecca, and so could collect bodies from Renzkies farm isolation hospital in Brooklyn and bury them at the Observatory koebers. In the later years of his life he became a fisherman in Cape Town.

My father used to tell me how his father had told his sons that they would not bury him. He went out in the stormy weather and he and his boat never returned from fishing in Table Bay....

Old man Abdul Fataagh was a pioneer, an adventurer and undoubtedly a fearless man who went in where few would tread....

The origin of the Fataar (plus Gallow) family, of whom there are perhaps round about a thousand persons today, is therefore genetically tri-continental : African, English, Indonesian. Later additions were Indian, Mozambican, and some other African. Those who carry the surname Fataar are the descendants of Abdol Fataar and Salamudien Fataar. Let me deal with these first.

Abdol Fataar

(Pang Dol as we called him) was the second-born son of the old man. He was married to a Galant woman from Claremont, Sies Gawa 'Konchak', a noted maker of tammeletjie (sweetmeat) of syrup and pine seeds. They lived in Hemlock street, in the famous Draper street network close to the Railway line between Claremont and Newlands stations, next to Talfalah primary (Muslim) School. Abdol used to be a hawker with a two-wheeled hand-drawn cart from which he sold peanuts and tammeletjies (some made with coconut) outside the Orpheum bioscope in Claremonst Main Road and on Saturdays at Newlands rugby field, quite near their house - at the segregated South goal posts, reserved for Malays and coloured people....A Galant suppporter of either Villagers or Hamiltons used to squat near the goalpost with his fez on "praying" for a win for his side....Quite a character - much maligned by my father....The Galants were quite a "family" in the Draper Street complex, Sis Gawa - called Galatie also had a brother, Manur Galalnt, who headed a large Galant clan spread over Claremont, Landsdowne, etc.....

Abdol's family : Son Salie, and two daughters Adhaa and Gadija ('Hottie); only 'Hottie' is still alive (July 2001) and she has 3 daughters plus.....in Cape Town (these numbers need checking). Salie Fataar, 'Emampie', I came to know fairly well. I have met his children: Achmat Fataar of Malmesbury, Rachmat Abdulla, two sons and 3 daughters (sorry I don't remember their names). They came to greet me when I went on Hajj in February 2000. So there's one Fataar branch of the Abdol Fataar- Galant offspring to which grandchildren and great-grandchildren can relate.....

Salamudien Fataar - he was the third son of Abdul Fataagh; on 4 December 1898 he married Janap Moosa in the Calremont Main Road masjid, Emam Abdullah Abderoef performed the nikah. Janap was the daughter of a Malay woman and an Indian man, Moosa. She was, incidentally, the grandadaughter of a 'liberated' Cape Malay woman, who was part of the slave community of Claremont around the early parts of the 19th century.... from here then we have the genetic mix of English, Khoi, Indonesia and India (Pakistan?).... Hadji Salamudien was a tailor at Garlicks; Janap was a washerwoman/laundress, doing what most Malay ex-slave women did for the white, mainly English, settlers at the Cape at the time. Claremont must have the largest such community around Draper Street and 2nd avenue.

Salamudien's Family :

Gamja - who was brought up by Janap's aunt Naseba, wife of Moos Salie. He married Hajiera Toefy, a granddaughter of Abdul Fataagh of District 6 - so the two cousins married. A tailor also at Garlicks; his children being Gameem Fataar, Tayba, Naseba, Salegga..... He died in 1934/35 of asthma.

Toyer - also a tailor at Garlicks; married Fatima Hendricks (of Azavia Hendricks family). Last surviving child being Galiema Fataar Dramat; he married Fatima Scello after his first wife died; children being Fuad, Salama, Farieda, Faieza and Sedick.

Tapey - who took the surname Bowers (!), married and had 2 daughters.....

Omar - a builder, married Galia Davids (parents of Muslim Mozambican heritage) and had a large family of 17, of whom 14 are alive, male and female. Salamudien, Gamja, Yaghya, Toyer, Bakaa, Achmat, Tapey, Ismail (late) all carry the surname Fataar, and so do their children and grandchildren. The daughters : Salega, Beigha, Gawa and others have their husbands surnames.

Salega - housewife, married Abdulla Slamdien, lost all her babies except first-born boy Adien...

Alie - the 12th and last born, on 26 March 1917; graduate teacher, lecturer and educationist; married Moreda (Rita) Davidson-Saban - 3 sons being Abdul Basier (Abe), Shadley and Rustum; also married Ursula Wolhuter as Ushra by Emam Abdullah Haroun, sons being Ashley (in Zimbabwe, with 2 boys Daryl and Sedique Alie) and Sedic who changed to Wolhuter and has 2 daughters in Cape Town.
Abe married Nabeweyah Emeran (died June 2000) and has 3 daughters : Aneekah, Refqah and Carimah.
Shadley married Zonja and have children Natasje and Sohrab.
Rustum's wife is Suraiya and children Mujeen and Zayd (Toronto, Canada)

Mymona - daughter of Salamudien's second wife, Amma Kamies (a widow) came last. She was married to Ismael (Esmael) and has 3 children - Beira, Zulaika and Bakaar Esmael....

Gallow-Fataar family

Hadi took the surname Gallow because they were not in the Transvaal when the census people affixed Fataar to Abdul. I believe he knew of the English grandfather but not the surname Bowles. His wife was Cetti (or something like that); they lived in Harvey Road Claremont, opposite the Harvey Road masjid of Emam Mustafa (Bons). He was a master builder and built some fine residences in Claremont above Main Road. His children were : Aghmat, Abubakaar, Nur and daughter Atti Satiya. I knew Hadi Gallow, a grandson of  Bappa Hadji. He had a brother, Bassier who died a while ago and left a widow Mariam who died in June 2001 in Wynberg. I have met the grandadaughter, Fatima (girlie) and her second husband Cassiem, at their house in Castletown Road, Wynberg. I am also in contact with Anwar Gallow, son of Hadi Gallow, here in Hayes Road, Wynberg.

Abduraghmaan, married to Beira (Cape Malay). After her death, he married Fatima Solomon of Constantia. They lived in the old house next to the lower Chiappinni Street Masjid; still occupied by son Nasim. The children were : Salama, Amin, Ajiem, Toyer (has a medical doctor son, Ismael Gallow, in Walmer Estate), Gamiet, Nasim, Shabodien, Mareldia (married (Jattiem) still alive in Woodstock.

From the second wife, Fatima : Sariefa, Sedick (both alive and with families) and Bahia (Married Fabing, living in Alberta Canada).

The families can add details of their marriages, children and grandchildren having either the Gallow (Fataar) surname or the surname of one who married a female member of the Gallow-Fataar clan.....

I am told that Rashaad Jattiem is busy with a history of our "family".

Alie Fataar - August 2001

(also see)