Kramats of the Cape · Camps Bay, off Hely Hutchinson
Sheikh Ali
Also remembered as Sayed Bassier
A lesser-known grave above Camps Bay, kept by a stonemason who found it.
On the Camps Bay side of the Signal Hill ridge lies the grave of Sheikh Ali, also known as Sayed Bassier. Nothing is known of his life, and the grave appears to have been found within living memory.
The story told about it concerns a stonemason searching the mountainside for good rock. He came upon a stone shaped like a man lying on the ground, and when he touched it, the story goes, it spoke, and asked him to tell the authorities to stop building a school on the site. The authorities agreed, and the stonemason became the keeper of the grave.
Sources: Guide to the Kramats of the Western Cape, Cape Mazaar (Kramat) Society (1996; third impression 2010).