South Africa's oldest mosque began as a clandestine prayer meeting in a private home. When the British occupied the Cape between 1795 and 1802, Muslims were permitted to worship freely for the first time. A freed slave named Coridon of Ceylon opened his Dorp Street home for gatherings. That building eventually became the Auwal Mosque in 1804. Auwal means "one" in Arabic.

The mosque's founding figure was Tuan Guru, meaning "Lord Teacher," a prince from the Indonesian island of Tidore who arrived as a Dutch political prisoner in 1780. During thirteen years on Robben Island, he wrote three near-perfect copies of the Qur'an from memory. His handwritten Koran and walking stick remain inside the mosque today.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace the mosque's origins through Bo-Kaap's layered history of slavery, exile and faith, connecting it to the broader story of how Cape Muslim identity was forged under occupation.