16 Facts About Farid Esack

At age nine, Farid Esack joined the revivalist Tablighi Jamaat movement, and by age 10 he was learning at a madrasah.

Farid Esack spent eight years as a student in at Jamia Uloom-ul-Islamia where he was a classmate of Maulana Abdul Aziz.

Farid Esack addressed hundreds of protest meetings, formed ties with inter-faith opponents of apartheid, and became a leading figure within the World Conference of Religions for Peace.

Farid Esack founded Call of Islam with Adli Jacobs and his cousin, Ebrahim Rasool, who later became the Premier of the Western Cape and the South African ambassador to the United States.

From 1984 to 1989, Farid Esack was the National Coordinator of Call of Islam.

Farid Esack addressed rallies, conducted political funerals, and participated in inter-faith organisations opposed to apartheid.

Farid Esack became an important leader in the World Conference on Religion and Peace.

In 1990 Farid Esack left South Africa to continue his theological studies.

Farid Esack holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, England, and pursued postdoctoral studies in Biblical hermeneutics at the Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology, Frankfurt, Germany.

Farid Esack has been involved with the organisation Positive Muslims, which is dedicated to helping HIV-positive Muslims in Africa.

In May 2005 Farid Esack delivered the second Mandela Lecture sponsored by the Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa, Amsterdam.

Farid Esack is currently a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Farid Esack is head of the South-African branch of BDS.

Farid Esack was responsible for the boycott of Ben Gurion University by the University of Johannesburg.

In 2013, Farid Esack said that BDS distanced themselves from the singing of "shoot the Jew" in song during a protest at Wits University's Great Hall.

In 2015 in the wake of 132 deaths caused by terror attacks in France, Farid Esack lashed out at Western powers that had waged war on Muslim countries and that supported the invasion of Muslim countries.