Page 39 - SoMJ Vol 74 - No 1, 2021

Malawi’s Muslims In The Era Of Multi-Party Democracy 29

African and Asian Muslim women, a practice that had been frowned upon during
the Banda era.
With the Muluzi administration there was also a trend toward the setting
up of new non-governmental organisations and a decentralisation of control
among those which already existed. Qadiriyya Muslims set up the Quadria
Muslim Association of Malawi, alongside the existing Muslim Association of
Malawi, a development that would have been discouraged in President Banda’s
time for bringing ‘confusion’. In 1995 the Muslim Association of Malawi set up
a Halal Department to certify foods that could be eaten by Muslims. In 1999 the
Association established its Islamic Information Bureau. In 2001 an Islamic radio
station, Radio Islam was set up. At an international level, diplomatic and
economic ties were established with Islamic countries such as Libya, Malaysia,
Kuwait, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates. Presidential visits were exchanged
with several of their Heads of State and substantial amounts of economic support
for Malawi was promised from some of these countries, though not all of it was
delivered.
One major feature of this period was the determination of Muslims and
their leaders to open up further opportunities for education and development and
to build up the ones which already existed. This was accompanied by a
proliferation of organisations with this aim, with funding from inside the country
and from abroad. An account of three of the many will give an idea of their
activities and their impact.
The Islamic Zakat Trust which had been registered, in the Banda era, in
1988, became very active with strong involvement of some of Blantyre’s Asian
Muslim community. Its stated aim was to use zakat contributions in order to
provide scholarships and bursaries to needy Muslim youth, to enable them to
become self-reliant and to contribute, themselves as zakat payers, to the
development of their own communities, and also to the building up the nation. In
cooperation with the Muslim Association of Malawi the Trust, through its Islamic
Zakat Fund, gave sponsorship to many young Muslims who because of it were
able to access secondary and tertiary education in Malawi, and by 2000, in
universities abroad. It was also behind the setting up of Radio Islam.
The Lilongwe Islamic Movement was also very active in this era. It had
been established, also in President Banda’s time, by members of the Muslim Asian
community in that city to alleviate poverty and promote madrassa education and
development among Malawi’s Muslim youth in the Central and Northern Regions
of the country. The organisation insisted that their pupils should attend school for
western education in the mornings. In the afternoons they attended their
madrassas, which by 2004 numbered around 250. Some of the successful students
were sent for further studies to the Blantyre Islamic Centre or to South Africa,
where the organisation had strong connections.