Muslim Association of Malawi (MAM) chairman Sheikh Idrissa Muhammad has lambasted this year’s Ramadan convention saying it was aimed at bringing Islam into disrepute.
Speaking at Ndirande main Masjid, Blantyre in what he termed as his “national address” on eidul-fitri salaat, Sh Muhammad said the grouping gathered to map the way forward of bringing down Islam in the country.
“These people are saying that in this country there are no sheikhs and such that they want to take over the leadership of MAM. They didn’t invite you (ordinary Muslims) claiming the event was meant for them as academicians,” said the chairman.
He stressed that the plan to remove sheikhs from leadership of MAM will never materialize because the so called academicians are pushing their agenda purely for personal gains.
“They are selfish people. All of them have attained their studies through MAM scholarships which they were supposed to be paying back in installments. But they can’t even remember to pay back though they are in lucrative jobs,” he elaborated.
Since 1980s, MAM has been offering scholarships for Muslim needy students to further their studies in countries like Turkey with Financial assistance from Islamic Development Bank IDB including some of the facilitators of this year’s Ramadhan Convention.
But reports indicate that the scholarship programme is on the brink of collapse due to the failure of paying back the loan by the beneficiaries.
“So you can see that instead of finding solutions to the challenges we are facing as Muslims in the country, they are busy planning to complicate things. They received donations to fund that function in the name of Islam but what they outcome was unislamic,” Sheikh Muhammad lamented.
This was the second time for the convention to take place after the inaugural event took place in Lilongwe.
The concept is said to be borrowed from Uganda and is being implemented by those who attained their higher education in that country.
This is not the first time for some Muslims in the country to copy an idea from outside whose implementation has been a big challenge. Islamic Tarbiya Programme is also another initiative which according to the 2012 organizing secretary Dr Eric Umar “ is a thing that was being done elsewhere and the brothers in Malawi found it an important aspect to emulate.” But this programme which is under Muslim Youth Assembly (MYA) has been dormant since 2012.
