Page 48 - 2020 SoMJ Vol 73 No 2_Neat

The Establishment of Islam in Malawi 39

a disadvantage and though some prospered as traders, businessmen and skilled
workers, the majority of Muslims in the waged economy were limited to more low
paid jobs, typically as soldiers in the ranks, estate workers, fish sellers, shop
assistants, tailors, house servants and watchmen. As a result of this in Malawi in
colonial times Muslims tended to be marginalised both socially and economically,
a legacy that many of Malawi’s Muslims still bitterly resent today.
One of the important factors behind the eventual revival of Islam in
Malawi was a change in educational policy that followed Malawi’s Independence
in 1964. The majority of Muslims having supported his Congress party in the
struggle for Independence, when he came to power the first Prime Minister, then
President, Dr Kamuzu Banda set out to fulfil a manifesto pledge to make
education accessible in areas where Muslims predominated. To do this he
promised to put an end to what he called the marriage between religion and
education and put control of the school curricula and pupil admissions into the
hands of the Government Department of Education.
In spite of the changes which followed, Christian influence over the
school system still remained strong, and Muslims’ reluctance to commit their
children to it was overcome only slowly. However, from this time on a growing
number of young Muslims did pass through primary and secondary schools and
eventually, when it became available, to tertiary education. Much of the credit for
this has to go to the Muslim Association of Malawi which had developed from the
Central Body for Muslim Education and claimed to be an umbrella organisation
representing all Malawi’s Muslims. Thorough its Youth Committee and with the
help of some of Malawi’s Asian Muslims, during the 1970s it not only promoted
madrassa education but also sponsored the education of Muslim pupils in primary
and secondary schools on a significant scale. Their efforts helped to increase the
number of western educated Malawian Muslims who would play an important
part in the development of Islam and the increasing prominence of Muslims in
th
national life that came to life in the last quarter of the 20 century.
For these young Muslims possession of western education opened up new
economic and religious horizons. Academic qualifications gave them the key to
salaried, managerial and professional posts, the pioneers acting as powerful role
models. In the realm of religion, literacy in English gave them direct access to
information about orthodox Islamic belief and practice. Furthermore,
opportunities to travel to International Islamic conferences, and in some cases
even to study in Muslim countries, brought some of them into closer contact with
the wider Islamic world. All these developments led them to conclude that, not
only were Muslims socially and economically disadvantaged in Malawi, but also
that their practice of some aspects of Islam there differed from what they
understood as the Islamic ideal. Along with this realisation came a determination
to bring about what they saw as a revival within Malawi’s Muslim communities
in terms of social and economic development and religious reform.