Malawi Mosques Champion Self-help Iftar

"It's unfortunate that we had developed a dependency syndrome on aid from well-wishers," Sheikh Yusuf Kanyamula told IOL.

"It's unfortunate that we had developed a dependency syndrome on aid from well-wishers," Sheikh Yusuf Muhammad Kanyamula, National Chairman of the Muslim Association of Malawi, told IslamOnline.net.

"Since the number of Muslim organizations working in the provision of iftar and in other relief programs for the Muslim community has been trimmed, we face a glaring challenge," he added.

Five prominent Muslims were arrested in 2003 on allegations of links with Al-Qaeda. Since then, most of the charity organizations they headed were closed, creating a huge gap in the charity service delivery service among the Muslim community.

Malawi has over the past years been the breadbasket of the Southern Africa and its economy is said to be agrarian, yet most of the citizenry go to bed writhing with empty stomachs.

Government figures suggest Muslims make up 12 percent of Malawi's 12 million people while the Muslim Association of Malawi puts the percentage at 36 of the population.

Islam is the second largest religion in Malawi after Christianity.

Self-Reliance

The self-help agricultural projects aim to guarantee sustainable availability of maize, the country's the staple food.

Realizing that the suffering of the majority poor would be even worse during the holy month of Ramadan, the Muslim community in locations and rural areas had to change.

Sheikh Kanyamula said many mosques in the country had realized the need to work in order to provide their local communities with iftar.

"As a Muslim community, we are trying to cope with new trends. Whilst appreciating the role being played by some organizations on the ground, we would want to develop a sense of self-help," he stressed.

"Muslims in Malawi should be taught to fish and not be given fish. People need to be provided with resources, such as seed and fertilizer, that would help them acquire plenty food."

He said some mosques had to do without iftar due to lack of sponsors, motivating the development of self-help agricultural projects to guarantee sustainable availability of maize, the country's the staple food.

Some mosques, Kanyamula added, have made tremendous development in self-reliance.

He said over the years, the Muslim Association of Malawi has been able to source seed to help empower mosques to engage in agricultural activities, allowing them to acquire the most wanted cereal.

"Giving is greatly encouraged in the Islamic faith, but we should analyze the situation properly. We should give to please Allah, and I believe the more beneficial the project is to the community, the more we would please Allah," he added.

"So we're saying let's engage the people in projects that will also enable them to be givers," Kanyamula said, adding that by providing local communities with farm in-puts, they would be able to cultivate and harvest plenty, thereby assisting the under-privileged in addition to providing iftar in Ramadan.

The Malawian Muslim leader commended the wealthy Muslim community for taking an interest in the project, that is fast being emulated by people of others faiths and institutions.

Exemplary

One local Muslim community that stands as an outstanding example is Namiyango mosque, situated a few kilometers on the outskirts of the commercial city of Blantyre.

While this mosque has enjoyed assistance from the Muslim community in the city, they have managed to source some funds amongst themselves; purchased seed, paid some rental for the farm and cultivate.

As a community, they provide labor and contribute towards the purchase of fertilizer.

Since the inception of the project, Muslims at the mosque said this has changed the way the community has operated its activities, especially during Ramadan.

"We've placed ourselves on a safer status, we can now do with very little assistance from well-wishers. When such assistance comes, it just supplements whatever we already had, thereby empowering us as a community," Sheikh Yuda, the mosque imam, told IOL.

He said the mosque is now able to offer iftar to the locals, and cater for other festivities, such as `Eid Al-Fitr and `Eid Al-Adha, citing bumper yields they experienced the previous and last growing season.

Sheikh Yuda said the mosque realized more than ninety 50kg bags, some of which were sold to buy rice that could be used as a supplement to the cereal.

In another Muslim concentrated district of Machinga, some 300 km from Blantyre, a community in Chaoni village has been praised for their commendable achievement in striving to help themselves during this Ramadan.

Abdul Mallick Medson, the project leader, said they realized a need to close the gap that had been created due to erratic flow of iftar food items from well-wishers and organizations due to problems.

"Malawi has a lot of poor people who would always look up to organizations for assistance during Ramadan. This means chances are slim that we would get sufficient food-stuff for the whole month, so that's why we had to initiate this project."

He said many Muslims from across the country have been coming to see how their project is managed so that they can start in their respective localities.

"To us, this is a source of pride."