Online anti-Muslim rhetoric clashes with ground-level harmony in South Africa

In a village in northern KwaZulu-Natal, Zwelibi Jack Ngubane was buried according to Muslim rites at the age of 105, his wishes honored by a community where Christianity and traditional African beliefs hold sway and Muslims are scarce. Hundreds gathered for his funeral in Nquthu, a rural area where Islamic burial practices were unfamiliar but unremarkable—the ceremony proceeded without incident, without controversy, without the friction that has begun to characterize conversations about Muslims elsewhere in the country.

Online, the story is different. In recent months, South African social media has filled with accusations that Muslims are attempting to seize control of the nation, that they target impoverished Black communities for conversion, that organizations like Gift of the Givers use charity as a cover for religious recruitment. Posts have questioned whether Muslims belong in South Africa at all. The rhetoric has grown louder, more visible, intersecting with a broader national anxiety about immigration and migrant populations. Yet the census tells a quieter story: fewer than one million Muslims live in South Africa, roughly 1.6 percent of the population, though some Muslim leaders estimate the figure higher, between two and five million.

Khethukuthula Dlame converted to Islam in 2012 as a teenager in Nquthu. Now 26, he is one of only a handful of known Muslims in his village. His neighbors tease him about his Islamic clothing—one jokes that he wears a dress—but the teasing carries no malice. "In these communities, there's harmony and respect," Dlame said, standing at his grandfather's gravesite. Samukelisiwe Ngubane, who first encountered Muslims through Indian shopkeepers in a nearby town, echoed the sentiment: "We have never had a problem. Some people are curious about what they do, but there have been no problems."

The gap between what circulates online and what unfolds in places like Nquthu raises a question that South African analysts and religious leaders are now grappling with: Is the country experiencing a genuine rise in Islamophobia, or is social media amplifying a marginal phenomenon into something that appears far larger than it actually is? Islam's roots in South Africa run deep—Muslims arrived at the Cape centuries ago through enslavement and political exile, beginning in the 17th century under Dutch colonial rule. Shaykh Yusuf of Macassar, a Muslim scholar and political exile, arrived in 1694. Today's Muslim community includes descendants of those early arrivals, South Africans of Indian heritage whose families have lived in the country for generations, Black African converts, and more recent migrants.

Thembisa Fakude, a South African political analyst and journalist who is Muslim, argues that fears of widespread Islamophobia are overstated. "I'll argue that there is no widespread or any orchestrated, well-planned Islamophobia directed towards Muslims," he told Al Jazeera. He acknowledges that anti-Muslim rhetoric exists online but cautions against treating social media posts as evidence that South African society itself has become Islamophobic. He also argues that Muslim communities should confront legitimate criticisms about racism and exploitative labor practices within their own ranks rather than dismissing all criticism as religious prejudice. "It is a storm in a teacup," he said.

Dlame himself believes that organized efforts to mobilize people against Muslims originate not in rural villages but in cities and hostels, where living conditions are poor and grievances run deep. "The move to orchestrated hate towards Muslims is not at a community level," he explained. "If you're looking at people when they're mobilising, it's not people from the villages. It is people in cities and in hostels."

Moulana Sulaiman Ravat, a Muslim religious leader, takes a more cautious stance. He agrees that ordinary South Africans are largely not Islamophobic and points to various indicators on the ground to support that view. But he warns that online rhetoric can shift attitudes over time, particularly if communities become complacent about what people encounter on their screens. "What people are exposed to online could start impacting their psyche and how they think," he said. He also pushes back against the framing of Muslim identity as evidence of diminished South African belonging. His own children are fifth-generation South African Muslims of Indian heritage. "They don't speak the language any more. They are as South African as anyone else," he said. "I would think I would say they are deeply religious and deeply patriotic, and there is no contradiction between the two."

Back in Nquthu, Islam arrives not through an algorithm but through lived proximity—through a neighbor, through a halal meal prepared by Dlame's mother, through a community meeting where he explained that Muslims, too, revere Jesus as a prophet, and villagers listened and joined in Zulu hymns. For now, the distance between the online conversation and the reality in communities such as Nquthu remains substantial. But Ravat cautions that this distance should not breed complacency. "Better be proactive than reactive," he said. "The fact that it could increase in South Africa and could have serious consequences, you could argue, is unlikely but not impossible."