Ismaili Prayer's Podcast

Not long after Ugandan leader Idi Amin came to power in 1971, he said he had a dream that Allah had told him to expel people of Asian descent from the country. Many of them were Ismailis.The Aga Khan, spiritual leader of the Nizari Ismaili branch of Islam represents about 15 million people and advocates tolerance and pluralism. When Amin's decree came, the Aga Khan called then prime minister Pierre Trudeau asking him to help. More than 7 000 Ugandan Asians came to Canada. It was the first time in Canadian history that Canada accepted a large group of non-European refugees.There was a long tradition of trade between Asia and Africa. Nevertheless, General Amin insisted that "Africa was for Africans."His expulsion order affected at least 80,000 people, many who had lived in Uganda for generations. "I am a fourth generation African. I couldn't be any more African than I was when I was there, but I wasn't accepted. We did not have the right colour. We were not black enough to be African."---Muslim Harji, Asia