An inspirational figure A former and prominent African National Congress MP, since 1994, Imam Gassan Solomon who served three administrations was a highly principled and inspirational personality of South Africa. Imam of Cape Town's Claremont Main Road Masjid, since 1979, the cleric was active during the formation of the Interfaith Movement in the mid-1980s. Imam Solomon preached for equal rights and justice and had been responsible for mobilising young people to act against apartheid. Appearing before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Imam Solomon represented the Muslim Judicial Council. Being a founding member of the Call of Islam, in 1984, Imam Solomon was also instrumental in founding the Voice of the Cape, a Muslim community radio station, in 1996. Solomon activism began in his student days when his family and relative were forcibly removed from their homes in Constantia in terms of the Group Areas Act. On his demise, in Cape Town, nearly a year after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu mourned his death by describing Imam Gassan Solomon as 'one of the jewels of the Western Cape has left us for a higher place.'