The Hidden Muslims of Zimbabwe

It was a hot day in 1961, and a man was travelling on business in the Buhera district of what was then called Rhodesia. It just so happens that he was a Muslim, one of the 4, 000 or so descendants of Asians and Malawians who had settled in the country after the turn of the century.
On this particular occasion he found himself miles from the nearest town; he had been driving all day and badly needed water. In despair, he stopped at a’ kraal’ or small settlement of African villagers, members of the Varemba tribe.
Typical of rural people of the area they lived a traditional life, very much as their ancestors had done for centuries. They were friendly and welcoming to the stranger who, trying to make polite conversation asked them their names. The answers, when they came, astonished him.
“My name is Ali” said one of the tribesmen brightly. “I’m Yusuf” said another, “and I’m Mustafa” added a third. The visitor looked at them, openmouthed. “Are you a Muslim?” he asked incredulously. The word seemed to have little meaning for the villagers but, as the visitor started to describe his own beliefs and customs, they nodded in agreement.
Yes they too would never eat pork. Yes, they too circumcised their sons it seemed an extraordinary coincidence – they seemed to have no knowledge of the doctrines of Islam. After he left the kraal, the Muslim traveler could not stop puzzling over the phenomenon. He alerted his friends in the established Muslim community and they sent out more representatives to meet and talk to the tribe.
Gradually, the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle started to fit together.
It seems that when, back in the Middle Ages, Arab merchants set up trading posts on the east African coast, Islamic culture gradually spread further and further inland. Archaeologists excavating the Great Zimbabwe ruins, the ancient heart of the country which now bears their name, have found bracelets and a number of other objects of typically Islamic design.
This was apparently how the ancestors of modern day Varemba tribe first came into contact with Islam and later, when they reverted to African religious beliefs, they kept on many of the outward signs of Islamic culture, without really understanding why they did so.
After that first historic meeting between the thirsty Muslim traveler and his Varemba hosts, contacts were at last established between the indigenous and immigrant Muslim communities. But the contact was as yet with only a small proportion of the tribe, and only the beginning of what has since evolved into a fascinating story.
In August 1974, Sheikh Adam Moosa Makda leader of the country’s Islamic community, visited Masvingo, in the area of Great Zimbabwe ruins. While he was there, he was approached by a frail old man, one of the Varemba tribe, who spoke to him in the native language of Shona.
The old fellow insisted the he had a dream in which he had been told to go to Masvingo to find an ‘Arab’ who would explain to his people how to perform their rituals. He was convinced that Sheikh Makda was his man.
The Sheikh was intrigued by the old man’s story. He gently explained to him that by the word ‘Arab’ he probably meant ‘Muslim’ and accepted the invitation to come and meet his tribe.
Sheikh Makda arrived in Chinyika, headquarters of that particular branch of the Varemba, to find 400 villagers sitting expectantly under a wood and grass shelter. Not sure what to say, he started about his religious beliefs. As he saw the reaction to his words, tears come into Sheikh Makda’s eyes.
The villagers were beaming with delight, nodding and clapping their hands. To them, it must have seemed as if a great door had been opened into the past. Now at last they understood why they observed such particular customs, why their tribal groupings had such ‘foreign’ sounding names, like ‘Sharifi’ and’ Bakari'(names, in fact, lifted almost straight from Arabic). At last they understood the words, meaningless in their own language, which they had taught to say by their ancestors before slaughtering an animal: “Allah Akbar!”
Sheikh Makda pondered over how best to reintroduce the Varemba to the mainstream of Islam. In the end, he decided that the way would be to send three members of the tribe, one young, one middle-age and one old, to the Muslim Society in Masvingo, where a trained Imam could instruct them in Islamic beliefs and rituals. They could then go back and explain things in their own way to their own people. The scheme was an unqualified success.
An appeal was the made to the local chief for some land, and in October 1976, the first lorry load of bricks was delivered which would eventually become the Islamic Centre of Chinyika. Since then, the Varemba have embraced Islam in greater and greater number-up to a thousand in the first two years. They have taken instruction with enthusiasm, while insisting they have been ‘real’ Muslims all along, just needing a ‘refresher course’! Many of them trudge for miles to come to Chinyika.
More than two dozens of Varemba youngsters are among the several young Muslims in Zimbabwe now in the process of memorizing the Qur’an and one of the tribe, Ali Mutazu, is now a qualified Imam.
But now, in recent months, yet more amazing facts are coming to light. Independence, and the end of the civil war in 1980, has made the remoter parts of Zimbabwe more accessible to researchers and recent findings by a young lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, Ephraim Mandivenga, who, thought not himself a Muslim has become fascinated by the story.
His book, Islam in Zimbabwe (Mambo Press). The first to be published on the subject shows that this may just be the tip of the iceberg. There may be as many as 150, 00 members of the Varemba tribe in Zimbabwe – all, in a manner of speaking, indigenous Muslims!’ says Mandivenga. If this is true, it must alter our whole picture of Zimbabwe’s Muslims who, previously, were chiefly an immigrant community.
There are two main immigrant groups of Muslim who have settled in Zimbabwe. The first are the Asian Muslims – now numbering about 20,000 who arrived after the British colonists hoisted the Union Jack at Fort Salisbury in 1890.
When being laid and the engineers decided to construct a fantastic iron bridge, which still today carries steam trains in splendor across the Zimbazi gorge into Zambia, the labour force was recruited from the Indian subcontinent. Muslims came from what is now Pakistan stayed and intermarried with the local Africans.
Other came from the Gujerat province of India, making the long, rolling journey by ship from Bombay to Beira on the Mozambican coast and then by train to Untali. They started off working in the chrome mines; some built up successful businesses and now every town along the main railway routes of Zimbabwe has its sprinkling of Asian shop front names.
The second group, that of the Malawian Muslims is larger – about 50,000 strong. They are descendants of Malawian tribes Islamized by the coastal Arabs and, after the British colonized Rhodesia, many of them migrated there to look for jobs, chiefly unskilled work in farms, the steel and tobacco industries and as domestic servants and gardeners.
The various strands of the Muslim community in Zimbabwe are well known for their generosity to each other. The oldest mosque in the capital, Harare, was built in 1927.
An island of calm on the noisy, traffic filled corner of Charter Road and Julius Nyerere Way, it began as a place of worship for the Asian community, but the Malawians were soon also made welcome. In 1961, Asian Muslims donated 10, 300 british pounds sterling to the Malawians so that they could have their own mosque.
Now that the Varemba Muslims have been ‘discovered’, both the Asian and Malawians communities are chipping in to help educate and encourage them. The work is coordinated by the Zimbabwe Islamic Mission, or ZIM, headed by Sheikh Adam Moosa Makda, who was educated in Saudi Arabia and whose special concern is with poor and underprivileged Muslims.
In Kwekwe, where ZIM has its headquarters, is Zimbabwe’s most beautiful mosque, insured by Moorish and Indian tradition, reminiscent of the Taj Mahal, it took eight years to build and was finished in 1977. There are mosques located in nearly all of the larger towns. There are 18 mosques in the capital city of Harare, the largest which was completed in 1982 is located in Ridgeview, a suburb of Harare.
The Ridgeview mosque can take 2,000 people – a reflection of the needs of the diplomatic community which has grew up in the city since the end of international isolation in 1980.
There are 8 mosques in Bulawayo, and a number of mosques in rural areas. The Muslim community has expanded its outreach efforts with the aid of the Kuwaiti-sponsored African Muslim Agency (AMA); the Harare AMA office has had increased success proselytizing among the majority black indigenous population, in part because of its humanitarian projects in rural areas. Some chiefs and headmen in the rural areas have reportedly converted from Christianity to Islam. A training center for Imams has been set up in another suburb of Harare, Waterfalls.
Several scores of young black Zimbabwean Muslims have passed out there and many others drop in for help and information.
Muslims in Zimbabwe seem to exist harmoniously with the rest of the country’s population. They are fortunate in not having been tarred with the brush of colonialism – in fact, the Patriotic Front, who fought the white regime of Ian Smith, received support from Islamic countries, notably Pakistan, Libya and Algeria.
I heard the story of how, when the Chinyika Islamic Centre was being built in the 1970s, the Imam was surprised by some Patriotic Front guerillas who burst into the compound.
Fed with horrific tales of alleged atrocities against Christian missions, he was sure his last hour had come. But, to his amazement, when the intruders discovered that he was a Muslim, they just patted him on the back and said “keep up the good work!”
The main problem for Zimbabwe’s Muslims is lack of funds – the Malawian group, particularly, are chiefly unskilled workers with very limited resources. To help the huge task of incorporating the Varemba, teachers, scholarships and Islamic publications are just some of the things that are needed. Still, the future looks bright and the Islamic Community of Zimbabwe would like everyone to know that they are very much a going concern!

http://www.tripolipost.com/articledetail.asp?c=4&i=3979