In
1983 the government and BAKWATA found itself facing a crisis which vibrated
even beyond its borders. A few miles from Mwanza, a town on the shore of Lake
Victoria there is a small village, Buzuruga which had a small mosque of which
its imam was one Sheikh Daud. The
village had its fair share of Muslims, Christians and animists. Buzuruga was to
participate in the installation of its traditional headman, the leader of a
local tribal militia known as the sungusungu.
The ceremony entailed congregation of all the people including men and women
standing on an open ground with women leaving their top parts bare. People were
to stand like this early morning before sunrise in order to watch the sun
rising from the east and supplicate to it. This was a pagan initiation ceremony
and no Muslim could participate. The CCM Chairman one Masabo Kabambo in a rally
on 8 th August declared that no one was to be spared in the ceremony, Muslims
must participate like all other citizens.
The
sungusungu a Sukuma tradition long
forgotten was revived as a peoples' militia when it was realised the police
force could no longer be trusted to maintain peace and order due to several
reasons, one of them being corruption in the police force. Under the
authoritarian regime of Nyerere, sungusungu
had a political stance and was given a force of law. This force of law
conferred to an untrained force under arms, although primitive, created apathy.
Muslims refused to participate in those celebrations held on 17 August for the
simple reason that the festivity was un-Islamic. The Muslim stand enraged
sungusungu and in its fury sungusungu conducted a house to house search and
went Sheikh Daud's house and roughed[2] him up ridiculing Islam, and
in the process intentionally defaced the Holy Qur'an. Sheikh Daud was punished
with 115 lashes for his insolence. Muslims were rounded up as they were going
for salat fajr and forcefully matched
to the grounds to participate in the celebrations. Other Muslims including
women were dragged from their homes and taken to the grounds. Men were forced
to strip and women to take off their hijab. Muslims who resisted were manhandled and
humiliated. The following day when Muslims in Mwanza alerted the Muslim umma in
Tanzania of what had taken place in Buzuruga Muslims were appaled.
Muslim
activists in Mwanza sent a detailed report to Warsha in Dar es Salaam. In
return Warsha through its members in the executive of the Dar es Salaam
University Muslim Student Association (MSAUD) dispatched an emissary to Mwanza
one Mohamed Lulengelule to have on the spot assessment of the situation. The
emissary interviewed Sheikh Daud.
BAKWATA were hesitant to issue a statement to condemn the defilement of
the Qur'an because sungusungu was
taken as a state institution. BAKWATA was waiting for direction from the
government on how to act and what to say. Meanwhile Muslims throughout the
country were calling for Muslims to raise up in jihad against the government and BAKWATA.
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| Sheikh Hemed bin Jumaa bin Hemed |
When
eventually BAKWATA sent the Grand Sheikh, Sheikh Hemed bin Juma to Mwanza it
was too late. Muslims had taken full control of the problem. BAKWATA had come
to close the stable door after the horse had bolted. And when BAKWATA through
the Grand Sheikh using the state-radio gave their own version of the crisis
Sheikh Hemed bin Juma said that it was not the Holy Qur'an which was defaced
but Yasin and there was no reason for
Muslims to raise up in arms. It was better if
BAKWATA had remained silent. Muslims were by that gesture made to see
BAKWATA for what it was- a hypocrite, puppet organisation on the government payroll.
In the articles which Warsha and other Muslim organisations wrote and
distributed to Muslims BAKWATA and the government were treated as one. While
BAKWATA went down on the estimation of Muslims, Warsha's stature rose in the
eyes of Muslims as a true organisation representing Muslim interests.
[1] Written in
1986 with assistance of Mohamed Lulengelule, President Muslim Student
Association of the University of Dar es Salaam Students Union (MSAUD) who went
to Buzuruga to investigate the crisis in his capacity as representative of
Muslim students and from an article in the Crescent
International, December 16 -31, 1984 by an anonymous writer.
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