Qanta Ahmed Qanta Ahmed

Africa’s liberal Mufti

Sheikh Salim Hitimana has fought to preserve a moderate and pluralist spirit

issue 01 June 2019

 Kigali, Rwanda

To most outsiders, Rwanda is still synonymous with genocide. Nearly a million killed in 100 days; almost three quarters of the Tutsi population dead. The country’s attempts to rebuild have been much commented on, but something else is overlooked: Rwanda has become an astonishing oasis of tolerant Islam and, in many ways, an example to the West.

In Rwanda, there is an Islam which stands firm against the petrochemical ‘Gulf Stream’ of Wahhabi finance, despite lacking the huge wealth that Muslims in the Arab world enjoy. It also refuses to yield control to the neo-fundamentalists of the Muslim Brotherhood now backed by Qatar and Turkey. This independence and liberalism are embodied by the spiritual leader of Rwandan Muslims, Sheikh Salim Hitimana.
Qanta Ahmed
Written by
Qanta Ahmed
Dr Qanta Ahmed is a British American Muslim physician and journalist, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.

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