Ten Years After Horror, Rwandans Turn to Islam
By MARC LACEY
New York Times 4/7/04

KIGALI, Rwanda, April 6 — When 800,000 of their countrymen were killed in 
massacres that began 10 years ago this week, many Rwandans lost faith not only in 
their government but in their religion as well. Today, in what is still a 
predominantly Catholic country, Islam is the fastest growing religion.

Roman Catholicism has been the dominant faith in Rwanda for more than a 
century. But 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. 

"People died in my old church, and the pastor helped the killers," said 
Yakobo Djuma Nzeyimana, 21, who became a Muslim in 1996. "I couldn't go back and 
pray there. I had to find something else."

Wearing a black prayer cap, Mr. Nzeyimana was one of nearly 2,000 worshipers 
at the Masdjid Al Fat'h last Friday. The crowd was so large that some Muslims 
set their prayer mats on the dirt outside the mosque and prayed in the midday 
heat.

The Muslim community now boasts so many converts that it has had to embark on 
a crash campaign to build new mosques to accommodate all of the faithful. 
About 500 mosques are scattered throughout Rwanda, about double the number that 
existed a decade ago. 

Although no accurate census has been done, Muslims leaders in Rwanda estimate 
that they have about a million followers, or about 15 percent of the 
population. That, too, would represent a doubling of their numbers in the past 10 
years.

Muslim leaders credit the gains to their ability during the 1994 massacres to 
shield most Muslims, and many other Rwandans, from certain death. "The 
Muslims handled themselves well in '94, and I wanted to be like them," said Alex 
Rutiririza, explaining why he converted to Islam last year.

With killing all around, he said, the safest place to be back then was in a 
Muslim neighborhood. Then as now, many of Rwanda's Muslims lived crowded 
together in the Biryogo neighborhood of Kigali. 

During the mass killing of Tutsi, militias had the place surrounded, but Hutu 
Muslims did not cooperate with the Hutu killers. They said they felt far more 
connected through religion than through ethnicity, and Muslim Tutsi were 
spared.

"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, a Tutsi, said he owed his life to a Muslim stranger who hid him 
in his home when members of the Interahamwe militia were pursuing him.

Mr. Rugema said two imams had been arrested outside Kigali on charges of 
taking part in the massacre. But both were released within about two years for 
lack of evidence. "We are proud of how Islam emerged from the genocide," he said.

For all the gains Islam has made, no one is suggesting that it is about to 
supplant Christianity as the country's leading religion. Catholicism, which 
arrived in the late 19th century with the White Fathers order of the Roman 
Catholic Church, remains deeply embedded in the culture.

On Palm Sunday, worshipers on their way home from Mass lined the roadways 
throughout Rwanda with fronds in their hands. They included people like 
Mediatrice Mukarutabana, who survived a massacre in her church that she says has made 
her even more observant now.

"God saved me," she said after the morning Mass at St. Francis Xavier Church 
in eastern Rwanda. "He was testing my faith. Since the genocide I've been 
transformed. I can endure more now. I have more of a connection with God."

Ms. Mukarutabana's church has a new pastor as well. The one who was there 
during 1994, a Spanish priest, tried to persuade the attacking militias to spare 
his congregation. He even offered them money if they would go away. But the 
militias would not relent.

After a standoff, the attackers offered the priest the opportunity to leave 
safely on his own, and he fled.

    
    

 

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