WHEN people were forcibly relocated to the bare veld that Lenasia was in the mid-1950s, they had left behind well established places of worship in areas such as Vrededorp, Fordsburg, Newlands, Kliptown and central Johannesburg. There was not a single mosque, church or temple in Lenasia. There were no shops or sports fields. All that existed was the Lenasia High School and the Lenz Railway Station.

From this sense of absolute nothingness religiously-minded residents across the different faiths started the arduous process of building places of worship. Even as there was no mosque, church or temple, in the depths of their hearts they knew there is a God, and a just God at that.

Today, Lenasia has at least 60 mosques, churches and temples that were funded and developed entirely by the different faith communities. This figure does not include the informal religious services organised in people’s backyards and at makeshift structures in the Thembelihle informal settlement. Also, it does not consider the host of religious and educational centres - some with community halls - that provide religiously based educational, social and charitable services to the wider Lenasia community.

Initially, religious practices across faith groups were observed informally in the homes of a few of the early residents. Madrassah (elementary Islamic classes) too was run privately by one or two individuals at their houses. In addition to one’s spiritual beliefs and practices, religion offered a discriminated and oppressed community a degree of succour and comfort against the harsh realities of life under apartheid.

Quite often when people experience severe stress, they look inwardly for fortitude and strength. It was people’s religious beliefs and values that kept hope alive in the darkest days of apartheid, even as there were no formal places of worship in Lenasia. Their simple homes served as the sites of prayer. It took almost a decade for people of different faiths to get organised, raise the funds, acquire land, and design and develop their various places of worship.

The Shree Siva Soobramaniar Thirukoil was the first formal religious institution to be established in Lenasia. The Trustees can be traced to 1956, who incidentally also served as the committee overseeing the historic Melrose Shree Siva Soobramaniar Temple that was built in 1899 by Hindu-Tamil washermen working at the Melrose Steam Laundry near the Jukskei River. Once the land was acquired in Lenasia a tent was set up to facilitate prayers on site.

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Religion is the bedrock of Lenasia