Prior to the outbreak of the Great War, a new consular arrived in Cape Town, Mehmet Remzi Bey.

[1] In 1863, a qadi, or Islamic judge, was sent by the Ottoman Sultan Abdulaziz to teach the Muslim population in Cape Town.

The judge was Abu Bakr Effendi and he was credited with introducing the fez for men, as well as reinstating the hijab for women.

More importantly, besides his role as teacher he also published the Arabic Afrikaans "Uiteensetting van die godsdiens" ("Bayan ad-Din", or "The Exposition of the Religion") in 1877.

It did not maintain any type of relations until negotiations began between the African National Congress and the government towards democratic elections.