Large number of Rwandan Muslims praying in Masdjid Al Fat'h in Kigali

KIGALI, Rwanda, April 8 (IslamOnline.net) – Muslim’s relation’s towards each other during the genocide on 1994, showing connection through religion more than ethnicity was the secret spell that converted Rwandans to Islam making it the fastest growing religion, an American daily reported on Wednesday, April 7.

10 years ago, during the genocide of 800,000 Rwandans, mostly members of the Tutsi ethnic minority, militias had the place surrounded, but Hutu Muslims did not cooperate with the Hutu killers, the New York Times said.

They said they felt far more connected through religion than through ethnicity, and Muslim Tutsi were spared.

"Nobody died in a mosque," said Ramadhani Rugema, executive secretary of the Muslim Association of Rwanda.

"No Muslim wanted any other Muslim to die. We stood up to the militias. And we helped many non-Muslims get away," he added.

Rugema, a Tutsi, was himself saved by a Muslim stranger who hid him in his home when members of the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (Interahamwe) militia were chasing him.

"We are proud of how Islam emerged from the genocide," he said.

Growing Society

500 hundred mosques are scattered now in Rwanda, double of the number that existed ten years ago.

The number of Muslims too, about one million, jumped from 1.2 % in 1994 to more than 16 percent of the population, the New York Times said.

However, the current number of mosques is no longer enough for new Rwandan Muslims who has sometimes to pray outside the mosque in the midday heat. 

Why Islam

The paper added that mistrust resulting from the killing caused the Roman Catholic Rwandans, in the most catholic nation in Africa, to relinquish their government and their religion as well.

They converted to Islam whose members did not participate in the genocide.

"But many people, disgusted by the role that some priests and nuns played in the killing frenzy, have shunned organized religion altogether, and many more have turned to Islam," the paper added.

"People died in my old church, and the pastor helped the killers," said Yakobo Djuma Nzeyimana, 21, who became a Muslim in 1996.

"I couldn't go back and pray there. I had to find something else," he added.

The gains of the new converts were privileged, according to Muslim leaders, to their ability during the massacres to shield most Muslims, and many other Rwandans, from certain death, the New York Times added.

Alex Rutiririza, who converted to Islam last year said his conversion was attributed to the Muslims’ behavior in 1994.

"The Muslims handled themselves well in '94, and I wanted to be like them," Rutiririza said.

He added that the safest place Muslims and non Muslims sought was in a Muslim neighborhood.

The 10th anniversary of one of the most horrific genocides ever committed was commemorated Wednesday among fears of bad live conditions and fears of extreme poverty for those who survived the killing.

Over a year ago, the Washington Post published a report putting the percentage of Muslims at 14 percent of the 8.2 million people in Africa’s most Catholic nation.

"Human rights groups have documented several incidents in which Christian clerics allowed Tutsis to seek refuge in churches, then surrendered them to Hutu death squads, as well as instances of Hutu priests and ministers encouraging their congregations to kill Tutsis. Today some churches serve as memorials to the many people slaughtered among their pews," the Washington Post reported on September 24, 2002.