A man who stitched clothes by day and stitched a community by afternoon.
In the afternoons, after the children had returned home from the government school, the sound of the sewing machine would slow, then stop. Inside a small tailor shop opposite the old Luckhoff School, Achmed Arnolds would rise from his workbench, fold away the fabric, and begin clearing the space. The same table where cloth had been measured and cut would soon hold Qur’an readers. The floor, still carrying the dust of the day’s work, would fill with children.
They came in ones and twos at first. Mostly family. Nephews, nieces, children who already knew the house and the man who worked inside it. By the time they arrived, they had already been home, changed, and settled from the day. They sat close together, repeating words they were still learning. When he spoke, they listened carefully. Not out of fear, but out of a kind of respect that had grown from familiarity. He was not only their teacher. He was someone they knew, someone who was part of their everyday lives. This was how it began. Not as a school or an institution, but as something small and close to home. A man teaching what he knew to those nearest to him. And then, slowly, the room began to fill.
What happened in that small space was not separate from the wider religious life of Die Vlakte. Before he became known for teaching, Achmed Arnolds was already deeply involved in the religious life of Die Vlakte through the liturgies of the community. He participated in and led the gadaad and the moulood, forms of devotional recitation that gathered people together in shared acts of remembrance and praise. These were not occasional events set apart from everyday life. They formed part of the regular rhythm of the community, where people assembled in homes or communal spaces, sitting close together, reciting texts that were both memorised and carefully guided. The gadaad involved the recitation of established devotional texts, often repeated in a steady and disciplined manner, while the moulood centred on praising the Prophet Muhammad through poetry, narration, and collective recitation. In both, the voice mattered. The recitation was carried in a melodious and rhythmic manner, what many in the Cape Muslim community would recognise as a laagoe. It was not only about correctness, but about how the words were given sound, how they moved across the room, and how they settled on the ear. In this way, the act of recitation itself became something that was both heard and felt.
This involvement was not his alone. He came from a family that was deeply embedded in these practices, with brothers and relatives who were also active participants in the liturgical life of the community. Their presence in these gatherings extended beyond participation. It reflected a shared commitment to sustaining the devotional and social fabric of Die Vlakte. Within this setting, the person who led was not simply reciting. He was responsible for holding the structure of the practice, guiding others in pronunciation, pace, and sequence. Achmed Arnolds occupied that role with a quiet steadiness. It was here that many in the community first came to know him, not in the space of formal instruction, but within these shared acts of devotion.
The respect he carried into the slamseskool did not begin there. It had already been formed in these liturgical spaces, and within a family that was recognised for its involvement in the religious life of the community. In these gatherings, knowledge was not separated from practice. It was heard, repeated, corrected, and embodied. The gadaad and moulood were central to the religious life of the people of Die Vlakte, and through them, Achmed Arnolds became a trusted figure long before he was called a teacher.
It did not happen all at once. There was no single day when the small gathering became something more. Instead, the change came slowly, almost unnoticed at first. A child from another household would arrive with a cousin. Then another, sent by a neighbour who had heard about the afternoon lessons. Word moved in the way it often did in Die Vlakte, through conversation, through trust, through the quiet recognition that something of value was taking place.
The room began to change. Where there had once been only familiar faces, there were now children who did not belong to the immediate family. They entered more cautiously at first, unsure of the space, unsure of the man at the centre of it. But the structure they stepped into was already steady. The recitation, the correction, the rhythm of the lesson, these did not shift. What had been formed in the earlier gatherings held its shape, even as the room grew fuller.
For those who arrived later, the respect that had already taken root among the family extended outward. It did not need to be explained. It was observed and then followed. The way the children sat, the way they listened, the way they repeated the words, all of this became part of how new arrivals learned to be in that space. In this way, the slamseskool began to take on a life beyond the household, shaped not by formal structure, but by repetition, familiarity, and the steady presence of Achmat Arnolds.
By then, the room no longer filled slowly. The children arrived in groups, some walking together from nearby houses, others sent by parents who had come to trust what was happening there. By the time Achmat Arnolds had cleared the last pieces of fabric from the table, the space was already beginning to tighten. The floor filled first, then the edges of the room, until there was little space left between them.
The recitation rose unevenly at first. Some voices were confident, carrying the rhythm of the words with ease. Others followed more cautiously, listening closely before repeating. Achmat Arnolds moved between them, correcting a word here, slowing the pace there, asking them to repeat until the sound settled properly. When the voices began to drift apart, he would bring them back together, guiding them into a single rhythm. It was not loud, but it was full.
As the numbers grew, the work of holding the room changed. What had once been a small circle now required attention across the space. He no longer sat in one place for long. He shifted his position, turning from one group to another, making sure no one was left behind. The structure of the lesson remained the same, but the effort to maintain it became more visible.
There was no announcement that the space had become too small. But it could be felt. In the way the children adjusted their seating, in the closeness of their shoulders, in the careful movement through the room. Still, they came. And each afternoon, the shop held as many as it could.
Over time, the limits of the space began to draw attention. The shop had held what it could, but it was not designed for what it had become. There is no single account that explains exactly how the decision was made, but those who remember speak of a growing awareness within the community that another space was needed.
The mosque offered that possibility. When plans were submitted to the local authorities for the rebuilding of the mosque in 1934, they already included provision for an additional room. At that stage, the need for such a space had not yet fully emerged. The teaching that would later require it was still taking shape in more informal settings. Yet the inclusion of that room in the original plans points to a certain foresight, an anticipation that the needs of the community would grow and that space for teaching might become necessary.
It was only later, when the tailor shop could no longer accommodate the number of children attending the afternoon lessons, that the mosque board acted on this earlier provision. The room that had been imagined in the plans was then built, and the slamseskool was moved into the mosque. What had begun in a small, improvised space now continued in a setting that had, in some sense, already been prepared for it.
For the children, the shift meant entering a different kind of space. The closeness of the shop was replaced by a setting that was more open, more clearly defined as a place of learning and worship. Yet the structure of the lessons did not change. The recitation continued, the corrections remained careful and steady, and the rhythm of the afternoon was preserved.
With the move came a quiet but significant shift in recognition. Achmat Arnolds, who had taught for years without formal compensation, began receiving a small salary from the mosque committee. This was not a minor administrative decision. It marked a moment in which the community, through its formal structures, acknowledged the importance of what he had been doing. The work that had taken place in the tailor shop, sustained through commitment and trust, was now recognised as something that required support and continuity.
The decision to provide a salary suggests more than appreciation. It reflects a growing understanding within the community that the teaching of children was not incidental to religious life, but central to it. What had begun as an informal effort was now being carried, in a more deliberate way, by the institution of the mosque. In this sense, the salary did not simply follow the move. It signalled that the responsibility for religious education was being taken up collectively, and that Achmat Arnolds’ role within that work had become indispensable.
Beyond the slamseskool, Achmed Arnolds was closely connected to the leadership of the mosque. He worked alongside Imam Achmad Toefy and later his son, Imam Nawawie Toefy, serving as a trusted assistant over many years. His role was not limited to a single task. It involved supporting the work of the Imams in ways that required reliability, discretion, and a steady understanding of the religious life of the community.
This relationship was built on trust that had developed over time. Those who led the community relied on him not only for his knowledge, but for his consistency and presence. He became part of the broader effort to guide and sustain religious life in Stellenbosch, moving between spaces of teaching, devotion, and service.
That trust is perhaps most clearly reflected in a decision that extended beyond the local setting. Imam Achmad Toefy entrusted Achmed Arnolds with the responsibility of accompanying his son, Nawawie, to Saudi Arabia for his Islamic studies. This was not a small task. It required a level of confidence in his character and judgement that had been formed over many years. His role in this journey speaks to how he was regarded within the community, not only as a teacher, but as someone capable of carrying responsibility beyond it.
In the end, what remains is not only the movement from the tailor shop to the mosque, or from informal teaching to institutional recognition. It is also the sound that carried through these spaces. The steady rhythm of recitation, the repetition of words across afternoons, the careful correction of voice. These were not separate from the act of teaching. They were the means through which it took place. The gadaad and the moulood, the gatherings of remembrance, and the lessons in the slamseskool were connected through this shared practice, where knowledge was spoken, heard, and repeated until it settled.
For those who attended, the learning did not end when the lesson was over. The words stayed with them, carried into their homes and into other gatherings. The manner of recitation, the attention to sound, and the discipline of repetition became part of how they continued to practise what they had learned. In this way, the work that began in a small tailor shop remained present beyond that space, not as a memory alone, but as something that continued in use within the life of the community.