Maulana said the media was an essential element in educating the masses about the Qur’an.

In big cities and villages alike, Muslims tune in to the only Muslim radio station, Radio Islam, listening to Qur’an recitation and lectures by renowned international and local scholars on the blessings of Ramadan.

Radio Islam's Public Relations Officer, Mcpherson Maulana, said the media was an essential element in educating the masses about the Qur’an.

He said the holy fasting month makes this exercise more special since it is when it was revealed.

"It is very important that we use the media to teach the masses about the Qur’an, especially during this month," Maulana told IOL.

"People should understand that this is a truly amazing book, full of miracles."

He said that Radio Islam has, since establishment in 2001, been holding Ramadan competition as a way of increasing its understanding among the people.

"The response has always been overwhelming and we hope this year it's going to be the same success story," said the stations' publicist.

He said people have always looked up to the station for information on some issues related to the month of Ramadan.

This, he said, has led the station to design phone-in programs that act as a bridge between the scholars and people in the villages across the country.

Collaborative efforts

Certainly, reaching the Muslim masses in Malawi would not be possible without collaboration among Islamic organizations and activists, especially during the month of Ramadan.

The availability of Muslim Association of Malawi's Information Bureaus has helped bring essential information on Ramadan to the Muslims' door step.

However, realizing that a sense of ownership is instilled in people when given responsibilities and special tasks, the Radio Islam in collaboration with the Islamic Information Bureau have since established Radio Listeners Clubs and Youth groups across the country respectively.

These establishments empower the people at grassroots to tell the organizations what they need to know about their religion.

Coordinator of the Listener's Clubs Suleiman Matola believes the clubs have proved to be an effective way of reaching out to the communities with information, or to obtain information.

"Sometimes people have had to practice religion on a trial and error basis because they had no access to the learned," he told IOl.

"With the establishment of Listener's Clubs, we have managed to collaborate with other players, thereby normalizing the situation," Matola said, citing recruitment of teachers of Islamic studies in rural areas to help end ignorance.

"In some cases, especially as far as reverts are concerned, people could not properly perform the Tarawih prayers, we had to arrange with some locally available resource people. The situation has now changed," he said.

Chabulika urged all Muslims to capitalize on Ramadan to clear the image of Islam, that has suffered a continuous onslaught from Eurocentric media.

"It's up to us as Muslims to clear the mist. The month of the Qur’an has dawned upon us and we should strive to read the Qur’an and encourage the non-Muslim to also read this sacred scripture so that we know the true version of Islam, as opposed to the Islam portrayed in the anti-Islamic media."