22/10/2021
KNH’s first-ever Muslim chaplain (Assalamu alaikum), meet Sheikh Rashid Muhammad a.k.a. Abu Najma, the officiating Muslim chaplain of the KNH mosque. By Edel Quinn Mwende
“B
ismillah-ir-Rahmanir-Rahim” (in the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful). Those were the first words uttered as we settled in for our interview with Sheikh Rashid at the KNH Mosque. Sheikh Rashid, famously known as Abu Najma, grew up as an orphan and lived in a children’s home at Eastlands, Nairobi, from an early age of 4 years until he was 18 years of age. Life at the children’s home was quite difficult. This, he says, shaped him to mature at an early age. He vividly recalls how the sense of community and togetherness during those days was essential and played an important role in his upbringing. “Muslims, Christians, and Hindus would play together, eat together, celebrate holidays like Eid and national holidays as one big family without even noticing the differences in their religion,” he said. When he completed high school in 1994, he left the children’s home and got his first job as a salesperson at an electronics shop in Nairobi’s Luthuli Avenue. During weekends, he conducted dawaah programs in schools while every evening after work, he attended Al-Furqan classes in Kenya and lectures in various mosques to quench his thirst for Islamic knowledge. He was also a team member of ‘Msafiri Daawah’; a team of Muslim faithful that visited institutions such as Kenyatta National Hospital, back in 1997, to pray, motivate and encourage patients. He married early; at 20 and started his family with the income from the electronics shop in Luthuli Avenue. “I got a scholarship to pursue my bachelors’ degree in Islamic Law (Sharia) at International University of Africa, Khartoum, Sudan, from 2009 and graduated in 2014. My firstborn was then in class 8 awaiting her
KCPE, and I had never been away from my family in 15 years. This was a life-changing experience,” he told Newsline. “I had no birth certificate to process my passport but Allah guided me all through and I was ready to travel; within a week,” he recalled. In his community, one is considered learned only if they go to a Muslim foreign country for Islamic studies and they are well versed in Islam. Sheikh Rashid’s curiosity about religion was his main inspiration to study Islam. Since he grew up with both Muslims and Christians, he wanted to read and understand both faiths and Islam further piqued his curiosity. “The love for Islam is engrained in me. I love Arabic and the rhythm of the Quran,” he passionately pointed out.
He has mostly been a volunteer serving people at various levels such as radio show host at Iqra FM, Abu Najma with kids TV program on Horizon TV that won 3rd place in the local children programming TV of KUZA awards in May 2021. He has also taken part in National schools’ Islamic rallies as a motivational speaker and guidance and counseling programs in various high schools and universities in Nairobi. “The love The Imam is under the chaplaincy for Islam is unit at KNH and he is the religious engrained in me. leader at the mosque in consultation I love with his fellow KNH Muslims. Arabic “Everybody is listened to when it and the comes to matters of religion at the rhythm mosque as long as it’s for the sake of of the Quran,” Allah the Almighty,” he added. On a typical day, he arrives at the hospital at 6:30 a.m. for his private
PHOTO | NICHOLAS WAMALWA Sheikh Rashid and muslim faithfuls during prayers at KNH mosque
ISSUE 22 | Kenyatta National Hospital Newsline
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