Page 40 - SoMJ Vol 74 - No 1, 2021

30 The Society of Malaŵi Journal

Munazzamat Dawah Islamia is an international organisation with
branches in many countries. Its Malawi Mission was started, with a Sudanese
director, in 1996. As well as running madrassas, by 2004 it had built and was
administering four well equipped secondary schools, two for girls and two for
boys. With their own entrance examinations, help provided for needy Muslim
pupils to find scholarships, yet open to all, and with qualified Muslim and non-
Muslim staff, the schools presented their pupils for the full range of Malawi
School Certificate of Education examinations. By 2004 a good proportion of
former pupils, both girls and boys had gone on to colleges or universities in
Malawi and beyond, many supported by scholarships from the Islamic Zakat
Fund.
Through these and many similar organisations in Malawi, an increasing
number of Muslim pupils and students were achieving a higher standard of
education than the previous generation and were doing so in an environment that
built up and reinforced their faith. For them with this came access to more highly
skilled jobs and managerial and professional positions while they were still able
to retain, and indeed display, their Islamic identity. Because of this many younger
Muslims were encouraged to raise their ambitions about what they could
themselves achieve. However, especially in the more rural areas, there were still
some Muslims who had reservations that these developments, even where offered
in an Islamic environment, might come with the danger of their children becoming
somewhat estranged from them and their long-held religious and social traditions.
While relations between Muslims and non-Muslims remained generally
harmonious, and Muslims were well integrated within Malawian society, four
incidents during President Muluzi’s terms of office shed a light on the position of
Muslim communities in Malawi, and their perception of it.
The first was a fatwa (binding Islamic declaration) on ‘Anti-Islamic Propaganda
Machineries’ issued in August 1998 by the Muslim Association of Malawi to the
Government, all political parties, the media, civil society groups and all mosques.
It described itself as an ‘early warning’ against what its writers perceived as the
continued prejudiced defamation and negative stereotyping of Islam and Muslims,
particularly by political opponents and large sections of the media, as well as the
apathy and inactivity of the government in the face of it. Pointing out that having
a Muslim president did not make Malawi an Islamic state and repudiating the
claims that Muslims had this as a political agenda, the writers of the fatwa made
an appeal, not for exemption of Muslims from criticism, but for balance and
fairness.
Specifically, the fatwa appealed to the Government for protection against
defamatory claims that Muslims were trying to Islamise Malawi, to politicians not
to use Muslims as ‘a punchbag’ or treat them as, ‘second class citizens in their
own country’, to the press that they should avoid identifying the religion of Islam
with terrorism and fundamentalism, and should report even-handedly, and to the