In Search of an Islamic Party: Part Six The Death of Prof. Malima

In Search of an Islamic Party 
Part Six
The Death of Prof. Malima

Islamic law demands that when there is a controversy between two parties, both parties should be heard before passing judgement. Sheikh Mavumbi had judged Muslims without giving them chance to be heard. Amidst boos from Muslims, Sheikh Mavumbi ashamed was led out of the mosque through the back door of the mosque and on into the waiting police car. Was he to walk out from the main door Muslims would have beaten him. It was then when the police were whisking him away from his fellow Muslims that Sheikh Mavumbi realised that he had been a fool and the government had used his religious position among Muslims for its own political ends. People have simple minds. Any announcement through the radio or the printed word is bound to be taken as the truth. For how could the government allow its media to be used for propaganda and spread lies against Muslims?  If an announcement is on the radio and newspapers then it is the truth. Sheikh Mavumbi like many people in Tabora believed in what they read and heard on the radio that Prof. Malima was going to make a major political statement from the pulpit. On that Friday Prof. Malima spent the night in Nzega and arrived in Tabora Saturday afternoon and stayed at the house of Suleiman Marjebi one of the notables of  the township.

On Sunday 17 July, 1995 thirty-seven years since TANU held its 1958 annual meeting in Tabora the meeting which paved the way to independence, Prof. Malima addressed a big rally at Uyui grounds. The Tabora meeting would be remembered for its achievement. It managed to put into Legislative Assembly Julius Nyerere, Chief Abdallah Said Fundikira, John Ketto, Nesmo Eliufoo, John Mwakangale, Lawi Sijaona and Paul Bomani. It was in Tabora that Nyerere shed tears because of oppression of which Tanganyikans were being subjected to by the British. Nyerere said if the British did not want to set Tanganyikans free he would direct his anguish to God. Before Prof. Malima spoke Bilal Waikela mounted the platform dressed in his prison uniform which he wore thirty years ago when he was detained by Nyerere for resisting Christian hegemony. He reminded the people of Tabora that he was detained by Nyerere for reminding him of the cherished ideals of TANU the party they had formed and built together in order for Africans of Tanganyika to be free from all forms of oppression. Waikela told his audience that and he was now returning to politics to seek for that equality and justice denied.

Prof. Malima announced his resignation from the CCM at the Uyui meeting. Prof. Malima told his audience that that oppression which made Nyerere shed tears while giving a speech to members of TANU and the people cried with him at the Tabora Central Market was still prevalent 37 year after the tears had long dried. Prof. Malima told his audience that he was resigning from the CCM because, he said, the party has deviated from its cherished ideals of justice and equality and had established classes. He was resigning and joining the opposition in order to fight for equality among all the people in Tanzania.

That Sunday night NRA National Conference was held and Prof. Malima was elected Chairman and Abubakar Olotu secretary of NRA. What had taken place in Dar es Salaam Airport repeated itself in Tabora Railway Station. NRA had booked a wagon for its delegates travelling back to Dar es Salaam and had paid for it in advance. But when they arrived at the railway station, they were told that no wagon has been allocated to them. The press had the chance to correct their earlier story that Prof. Malima had planned to announce his resignation from the mosque but it did not do so. The propaganda machinery wanted people to believe that Prof. Malima was unable to do so because Muslims did not allow him to mix “religion and politics.”

Soon after returning from Tabora Prof. Malima travelled to Mecca and from there he went to London. Meanwhile NRA was preparing for a big welcome of Prof. Malima which would be followed by a meeting of Dar es Salaam Elders in which he would tell them why it was necessary for him to resign so that they charter a new course which would ensure justice and equality to all.  This meeting would have been followed the next day with a meeting with foreign journalists at Kilimanjaro Hotel Prof. Malima died in London on Friday night the 4 August, three weeks after resigning from CCM and announcing he was standing as s presidential candidate under NRA. On 9^th August,  Pro. Malima’s body was flown back to Dar es Salaam for burial. The government took upon itself to take over the funeral on what it said was Prof. Malima’s “commitment in serving the country diligently and honestly.”

In his last act in before his death in London, Prof. Malima took wudhu (ablutions) as if he was getting ready for salat (prayers). Around 01:25 hrs in the morning he laid down in bed. At around 01:30, precisely five minutes, he rose suddenly as if from a deep dream and said softly and pleasantly, “Alhamdulillah.’ (All praise and gratitude is for Allah). He then fell back again in a sleeping posture. He was gone. Polycarp Pengo head of the Catholic Church Dar es Salaam Region, issued a statement calling Prof. Malima a “ highly dangerous individual who had to be contained”[1] for his decision to stand as presidential candidate outside CCM. A new journal, Tanzania Analysis in its maiden issue carried a report that Prof. Malima was part of a plot to smuggle arms into the country to be used by “Muslim fundamentalists” to disrupt the coming general elections.[2] This was a treasonable offence if the allegations could have been substantiated Prof. Malima would have been arrested for treason. But his enemies knew that what was being hurled at Prof. Malima was all lies but they had a mission to fulfil nothing mattered.

Muslim activists are convinced that Prof. Malima was a marked man since the day he resigned from the CCM and wonder why Nyerere not in any way concern himself with Prof. Malima’s funeral arrangement or went to pay respect to his body although he was there when Prof. Malima died? Why did he distance himself from Prof. Malima at the time of his mourning? Why the cold shoulder to Prof. Malima at a time when he was no longer alive? There were reports that members of the NCCR-Mageuzi in Moshi celebrated the death of Prof. Malima by hooting car horns. [3] 

Muslims in Dar es Salaam staged a funeral procession which has never been seen and probably never will. A crowd never seen before came to mourn Prof. Malima. Prof. Malima’s salat janaiz was held at Mnazi Mmoja Grounds, as no mosque was large enough to accommodate all who wanted to stand behind his coffin to pray that last prayer. Throughout their history Muslims in Tanzania have never offered a salat janaiz on open ground because there had never been a reason to do so.  Mnazi Mmoja grounds have a special place in the hearts of Muslims. This was the ground which the early meetings of the labour and independence movements were held.

To hold Malima’s funeral prayers at the grounds was an honour not bestowed to any Muslim before. Prof. Malima was associated with the Muslim’s struggle for equality and justice. It was only right that he be buried as a shahid, a person who laid his life down for the sake of Allah. His coffin was mobbed by Muslims making it difficult to move in that crowd. Women also came to the grounds dressed in khanga to pay their last respect. Muslims who turned up that day at the grounds proved to the Christian lobby that Prof. Malima was popular and had a big following. That huge crowd were Muslims who would have voted for Pro. Malima. Prof. Malima was laid to rest the same day, late in the evening at his home village, Mkamba a few miles from Dar es Salaam.

It was a fact that Prof. Malima would have pinned his presidential campaign on the plight of Muslims in Tanzania putting across his message with facts and figures which his opponents would not have been able to dispute. It is also a fact that Prof. Malima would have faced momentous opposition from the Christian Lobby. But it is also a fact that Muslims would have backed Prof. Malima in a way never seen since the support of Julius Nyerere during the struggle for independence in 1950s. The electoral would have split votes on presidential nomination on Muslims-Christian pattern. Even if for the sake of argument Prof. Malima would have lost to Benjamin Mkapa, Tanzania would never have been the same. Muslims for the first time since independence would have succeeded to put its plight on the agenda and no government in power would have dared to ignore its force.

Kikwete and Mkapa

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[1] Majira, 24 July, 1995. Amidst this conflict between Muslims and the government, it was published by the press that Muslims were to embark on a systematic campaign to elect a Muslim president in the elections of 1995. This in its entirety was a mere psychological warfare unleashed by the Christian Lobby upon Muslim ministers in the cabinet who anyway were far from Muslim politics. The bombardment from the press and within the Parliament was so overwhelming to those Muslims ministers mentioned by Muslims as possible presidential candidates that they had to stand up in the Parliament as Muslims to deny their capability to lead the country and disassociated themselves from the Muslim movement. Prof. Malima refused to be humiliated; he was of the opinion that the move by Muslim ministers was un-called for and unnecessary. To him Muslim ministers were just as qualified as any Christian to aspire for the presidency. His signature was not among those which Muslim ministers issued to the press as binding document of their commitment not to aspire for the highest office in the land. Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete later to become president of the country was among the signatories.

[2] Tanzania Analysis, 22 July, 1995. It was later revealed that the journal had its offices in the BAKWATA building.

[3] See Ummah, “Kifo Cha Malima,” 18 August, 1995.

Jamatul Kheir,

Mkipenda In Sha Allah mnaweza mkafuatlia mjadala wa Prof. Malima katika Jamii Forums Jukwaa la Siasa ambako makala hii ipo pia.