Abstract
Positive Muslims, a faith-based NGO focused on the care and advocacy of HIV and AIDS within the South African Muslim community was first established in Cape Town in the year 2000 during the height of a period referred to as state-sponsored AIDS denialism. The trajectory of the establishment, its response and approach to HIV & AIDS support in the South African Muslim community with its underlying Islamic theology impulses, and its subsequent closure o in 2011 - is the main focus of this research thesis. Locating the emergence of Positive Muslims as a particularized faith-inspired, socially motivated response to a global pandemic within a context of hyper-misinformation, uncertainty, statesponsored denialism, I explore how contemporary Muslims draw from, interpret and develop their own understandings and nuanced praxis of liberatory theologies, as one response to the HIV & AIDS pandemic within the South African context. Contextualizing the emergence of Positive Muslims and their Theology of Compassion as an adjectivized responsive theology anchored in Liberation Theology specifically and Muslim responses to HIV & AIDS generally, this thesis maps out some of the prevailing attitudes, anxieties and responses within the broader global landscape of HIV & AIDS research.
M.A. (Semitic Languages and Cultures)