Kramats of the Cape · Constantia forest
Sheikh Abdul Mutalib
A grave in the Constantia forest found in 1972, perhaps one of the many exiles sent to work there.
The kramats of Matebe Shah and Sayed Mahmud are the best known in Constantia, but they are not the only ones. The Society's guide records that in 1972 woodcutters working in the forest found another grave. Their donkeys would refuse to pass over one particular spot, especially at about one o'clock on Friday afternoons. Those they consulted confirmed that a wali lay buried there.
Matebe Shah and Sayed Mahmud were not the last exiles sent to the Company's forest. Prisoners of high standing were often placed at remote posts, away from the enslaved people of the town, and many worked and died in this forest. Sheikh Abdul Mutalib may have been one of them.
Sources: Guide to the Kramats of the Western Cape, Cape Mazaar (Kramat) Society (1996; third impression 2010); Government Gazette 45602, 3 December 2021: SAHRA declaration of ten kramats.