Ulamah Council Takes Over the Organisation of National Ijtmah

From the year 2013, Ulamah Council of Malawi will be responsible for staging Muslims’ annual event called Ijtmah, Malawi Muslims Official Website has learnt.

MAM’s National Chairman Sheikh Idrissa Muhammad revealed this to Nation on Sunday of January 13.

The revelations were made when the chairman was responding to the question about the expectations the Muslims’ mother body has from the council.

“Our expectations are to see the council work vigilantly. We also expect to have the best ijtmah [this year] because the organisation of the national ijtmah is one of their tasks,” said the Muslims’ leader.

Inside sources have also confirmed the development in a separate interview with this website.

The decision follows the dissolution of National Islamic Ijtmah Committee, which has been responsible for organising the event in the past years.

MAM dissolved the National Islamic Ijtmah Committee with effect from October 31, 2012.

According to the Press Release which was released by the Muslims’ mother body, which this website is in possession, the committee had been advised to handover all the remaining materials and items belonging to the ijtmah function to the then Chairman of the working committee Mr Kaombe who is also MAM’s Southern Region Chairman.

The Press Statement did not state reasons that led to the decision but said the “Association will appoint another organising committee that will take care of all modalities including date and venue of Ijtmah for next year.”

However, during our investigations, it had transpired that MAM was not happy with the way the 2012 organising committee conducted its affairs.

Malawi Muslims Official Website found that the income and expenditure report that the committee released shocked the Muslims’ mother body, raising fears that the event’s funds might have been mismanaged.

According to the leaked  financial report, which Malawi Muslims Website managed to access,  almost a quarter of the total budget went into paying allowances for the members of the organising committee and other volunteers  thereby creating a severe food shortage that was apparent at Kamuzu Stadium, the venue of the 2012 Ijtima.

Because of this, many Muslims in the country have been calling for sheikhs to take over the organisation of the event.

Sheikh Jafari Kawinga told this website in October that the reason why Malawi experienced a ‘poor’ ijtimah is that the sheikhs were not involved.

“When you leave out sheikhs, this is what you should expect,” he said.

Previously, the ijtmah has been organised by sheikhs but due to other reasons it was handed over to National Islamic Ijtmah Committee but since then, according to many Muslims, the outcome were not palatable.