The Supreme Council of Ulamah in Malawi Chairman Sheikh Dr Imran Shareef who also happens to be the former Muslim Association of Malawi (MAM) Secretary General has trashed the meeting that MAM and other council’s executive members held last Sunday in Blantyre describing it as ‘illegal and useless’.
On Sunday, some sheikhs led by MAM National Chairman Sheikh Idrissa Muhammad met at Blantyre Lodge where they agreed to dissolve the current Ulamah Council’s executive committee which is chaired by Dr Shareef saying it was illegal.
The meeting agreed to fire Dr Imran Shareef from the council and that Mufti Abbas Cassim be reinstated as a Chairman until elections are held.
They also agreed that Dr Shareef should never contest in any position in future.
However, in an interview with Malawi Muslims Official Website, Dr Shareef described the move taken by his fellow sheikhs as laughable saying those people who were present at the meeting had no mandate to fire him from the council as they were not present when the committee was established.
“That meeting is useless. Those people have no mandate to remove me because the elections were done in a normal way. We met in October last year in Balaka where prominent sheikhs like Sheikh Hanif Kazembe and others were present. It was a matter of restructuring the whole organisation,” he said.
When asked to which committee now he is chairing since most of the members who were in the committee are the ones who agreed to dissolve it, Dr Shareef said those people went there ignorantly without knowing the agenda of the meeting. They only discovered the agenda during the proceedings and they did not agree with what was proposed.
“I met with some of them and they said they are not part and parcel of what was agreed there. So, I can say that all positions still exist as they were before.”
[pullquote align=”right”]“I have everything which qualifies me to become a Mufti. But people underestimate me. They don’t respect me, instead they go and castigate me in the media. I am the most educated person among the Sheikhs in Malawi. I am the only person who graduated in both Islamic and secular law.”[/pullquote]
He also added that he is going to answer them at a meeting which is scheduled to take place this coming Saturday.
However, efforts to talk to Sheikh Hanif Kazembe proved futile as his phone was out of reach while Sheikh Chabulika who was the Publicity Secretary in the dissolved ‘cabinet’ said he was travelling.
Typically, Supreme Council of Ulamah is known as MAM’s entity, the thing Dr Shareef described as ‘untrue.’
“Ulamah Council is independent just like Qadria Association of Malawi (QMAM) and MAM. QMAM has got its own Mufti [Shamiuna], MAM has also got its Mufti who is Abbas Cassim likewise Supreme of Ulamah Council who happens to be myself,” claimed Dr Shareef.
Dr Shareef therefore expressed worry that other people in the community do not recognise him despite having everything to enable him receive respect he deserves.
“I have everything which qualifies me to become a Mufti. But people underestimate me. They don’t respect me, instead they go and castigate me in the media. I am the most educated person among the Sheikhs in Malawi. I am the only person who graduated in both Islamic and secular law,” said Shareef.
However, when contacted MAM Chairman insists that according to the records, the council belongs to the association.
Dr Shareef has been accused of conniving with other members to grab ulamah council’s chairmanship from Mufti Abbas Cassim.
Reporting by Robert Kumwenda, Official Correspondent for Malawi Muslims Official Website in Blantyre
Wow
that the Brother is educated, it's true.but how can we accept changes in an organisation as he did in Balaka as legal?we know the chairman Mufti Abbas was not there and neither was his vice.do you mean you can change an organisation's leadership or even restructure it in the absence of the actual leadearship hence Sheikh Abbas Kassim and his deputy?so like he did in Balaka have they done him at Blantyre logde.he set the trend.why worry now.we respect education, but we should respect elders too.you mean removing sheikh Abbas in absensia was respectiful?you mean he could just wake up one morning and decide to restructure without informing the leader, Sheikh Abbas?
when the prophet wanted to send a Daee to Yemen, he gathered all his disiples in the mosque.the disiples in trying to make their presence known to the prophet, some stood up every now and then to correct their clothes, some came deliberately late to atrack his attention so he could choose them etc.these deciples who were doing this were the well learned in islam among men of the time.but because of their conduct, the prophet chose someone who was humble and never even dreamed of such a gesture.his knowlege was also little.
it is also dividing the muslims to say that the council doesnt belong to MAM.He has even called Sheikh Abbas as MAM's Mufti and him the council's Mufti.wasnt it him who said that he had only taken the chairmanship and left the Muftship to the sheikh because he was old and had two roles as chairman and as Mufti hence was over burdened, so he made him focus only on Muftship?
the status of QMAM isnt the same as that of MAM.is it?MAM doesnt represent a tarikat of any kind.it simply represents muslims regardless of origin for as long as you are sunni.so the council's Mufti is MAM's Mufti.and hence Mufti for you and me and MAM's chairman.
sometimes its even better to keep quite than letting your mouth wide open and say nonsense. anyway! zikanganani. Allah will watch over you deeds, and His Messenger and believrs! simple.
I do honor and respect all the sheikhs that got impressive CVs including Dr. Salimin and Dr. Imran. The two have extremely done well and made Muslims proud in Malawi. No one can dispute about their education qualification for Muftship in principal. However, I do have some reservation for their qualities in adaab & akhlaq.
I do not recall any Caliph –Abubar, Omar, Uthman and Ali neither, Swahabi, QurafRashideen, or any Imam being Shafi, Malik, Hanafi or Hambali as PhD Degree holders.
If the above are worth respect because of their quality and vast knowledge that they had lived upon not accumulated I do not see any discrepancy in Muft Abbas.
Respect is earned, if you want people to respect you! Please live your ilim not otherwise.