What We Can Learn from Rwandan Muslims

By Mona Eltahawy

Ten years ago this week, for 100 hundred days between April and July 1994, the world watched as militia from the Hutu majority of Rwanda massacred members of that country’s Tutsi minority and moderate Hutus. Rwandans, driven by ethnic hatred, killed 800,000 of their fellow Rwandans.

The tragedy of that genocide still haunts Rwanda of course and should haunt the international community for decades to come. It is heartbreaking but not surprising that the world did nothing as Hutus massacred Tutsis. After all, we only see three kinds of images of Africans – civil war, refugees and famine. Nobody intervenes when black people kill black people.

It is shameful that it took 10 years for the world to realize that it did nothing.

It has been a painful week of recollection for Rwandans as survivors of the genocide have relived their tragedies. Out of this pain, there is one glimmer of hope. It is particularly beneficial for Muslims to hear these days when Muslims fly planes into buildings and place bombs that tear apart train commuters.

Muslim Hutu did not cooperate with the Hutu killers. They refused to kill Muslim Tutsis. Muslim Hutus were able to shield most Muslims, and many other Rwandans, from the killing. Imams spoke out against the killing and urged their congregations not to take part.

As a result, Islam is the fastest growing religion in Rwanda, said a New York Times report this week.

Roman Catholicism has been the dominant religion in Rwanda for more than a century. Although some brave nuns and priests lost their lives trying to stop the slaughter, many others were implicated in the killings

“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 New York Times said.

Yakobo Djuma Nzeyimana, 21, became a Muslim in 1996. He told the newspaper: “People died in my old church, and the pastor helped the killers. I couldn’t go back and pray there. I had to find something else.”

There are about 500 mosques in Rwanda today – double the number 10 years ago. Muslim leaders in Rwanda estimate that there are about one million Muslims in that country – about 15 percent of the population. This too is double the number 10 years ago.

Alex Rutiririza said he became a Muslim last year because “The Muslims handled themselves well in ’94, and I wanted to be like them.”

He said that 10 years ago, the safest place was in a Muslim neighbourhood. Many of Rwanda’s Muslims live crowded together in the Biryogo neighbourhood of Kigali – Hutu militiamen could not go in. During the mass killings of Tutsis 10 years ago, the militias had the place surrounded but Hutu Muslims did not cooperate with them. They said they felt more connected through religion than through ethnicity and Muslim Tutsis were saved.

“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.”

Mr. Rugema is a Tutsi. He told the New York Times he owed his life to a Muslim stranger who hid him in his home when members of the militia were pursuing him.

Sheikh Saleh Habimana, the Mufti of Rwanda, told the BBC many Rwandans turned to Islam because Muslims were seen to have acted differently.

“The roofs of Muslim houses were full of non-Muslims hiding. Muslims are not answerable before God for the blood of innocent people,” the Mufti said.

Where is that spirit gone in the rest of the Muslim world? Why haven’t we learned from that spirit?

Rwandan Muslims understand the true essence of Islam. It is that Islam that I value and that I hold onto as more and more Muslims are too willing to take the lives of innocent people, be it of Muslims or others. Rwandan Muslims embody the Islam that I and millions of others follow. It is far from the Islam of violence that Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, Sheikh Hamza Abu Masri and the other messengers of hate embody and use to brainwash young and impressionable Muslims.

Hearing of the noble behaviour of Rwandan Muslims during the terrible days of genocide, I could not help but wonder why sub-Saharan African Muslims are not blowing themselves up. Why aren’t sub-Saharan African Muslims suicide bombers? Why aren’t sub-Saharan African Muslims joining al-Qaeda? I know that some Muslims in Kenya and Tanzania have been implicated with the organization. But on the whole we hardly ever hear of a sub-Saharan African Muslim joining terrorist groups.

Listen to the Mufti of Rwanda’s definition of Jihad:

“We have our own jihad, and that is our war against ignorance between Hutu and Tutsi. It is our struggle to heal,” the Mufti told the Washington Post. “Our jihad is to start respecting each other and living as Rwandans and as Muslims.”

Why hasn’t the rest of the Muslim world studied this? Is it because of racism – that we feel we cannot learn from black Muslims? Is it because Arab Muslims look down on sub-Saharan African Muslims?

We hear a lot about the grievances of the Muslim world against the West. Africans and Arabs both suffered from colonization. Many African countries won their independence at the same time as did Arab countries.

So why has the anger of Muslims in these once-colonized Arab countries driven many to hate and violence while it has not done so to sub-Saharan African Muslims?

I propose that the imams and Muftis of the Arab Muslim world visit Rwanda and ask the imams and the Mufti there what they said when they urged Rwandan Muslims not to join in the genocide of 1994.

I urge Arab imams and Muftis to take notes when they ask Rwandan Muslims how they stood up to the militias and refused to kill so that they can read those notes to their congregations back home. Isn’t it the jobs of imams and Muftis to teach the true essence of Islam? I hope they can learn from the imams and the Mufti of Rwanda.

I will end with Ramadhani Rugema, the executive secretary of the Muslim Association of Rwanda:

“In Rwanda, there is no al-Qaeda. We have too many problems to deal with. Mixing killing and religion – we don’t believe in this.”

I propose that the next time we hold a conference on how to stop extremism in the Muslim world, we invite Rwandan Muslims to teach us how.

Mona Eltahawy is managing editor of Arabic Women’s eNews and a columnist for Asharq al-Awsat. This first appeared in Asharq al-Awsat.