National Muslim Forum Nepal: History, Aims and Structure
In short
National Muslim Forum Nepal — Rastriya Muslim Manch Nepal — is an umbrella body for Muslim-led development organisations across the country. It grew directly out of the worst episode of communal violence in modern Nepali history, in September 2004. This page sets out what happened, how the Forum was formed in response, and what it does: its aims, its three-tier structure, and the things that distinguish it from a political organisation.
What's on this page
What the Forum is
National Muslim Forum Nepal is an umbrella organisation. It does not replace the local Muslim-led NGOs and development organisations working in districts across the country — it brings them onto a single platform so that they can act together on questions that no one of them can address alone.
| Name | National Muslim Forum Nepal |
| Nepali name | Rastriya Muslim Manch Nepal |
| Type | Umbrella body for Muslim-led development organisations and NGOs |
| Founding meeting | 26 September 2004, Kathmandu |
| Formally established | 7 June 2005 |
| Founder members | 55 |
| Initiating body | Islami Sangh Nepal |
| Character | Socio-cultural, not affiliated to any political party |
The initiative came from Islami Sangh Nepal, which convened Muslim scholars, intellectuals, community leaders and social workers to consider whether such a body was needed. The conclusion was that it was — and the reason was recent and painful.
Muslims in Nepal
Some context before the history, because the scale is often misunderstood in both directions.
2021 National Population and Housing Census. Islam is the third-largest religion in Nepal after Hinduism (81.19%) and Buddhism (8.21%), and the Muslim share has risen from 4.4% in 2011. Note that the census records "Musalman" separately as a caste and ethnicity category at 4.9%, so the two figures are close but not identical.
Where
Concentrated in the Terai districts along the southern border — Banke, Bara, Kapilvastu, Rautahat, Parsa, Sunsari — with long-established communities in Kathmandu and the hills.
Not one community
Terai Muslims, Kashmiri-descended families in Kathmandu, and Churaute Muslims of the hills have distinct histories, languages and customs.
Indicators
Muslim communities have historically recorded some of the lowest literacy and development indicators of any group in Nepal, particularly for women.
Representation
Under-represented in the civil service, the security forces and politics relative to population share — one of the gaps the Forum was set up to address.
September 2004
On 19 August 2004, twelve Nepali men were kidnapped near Ramadi in Iraq by a group calling itself Ansar al-Sunna. They were cooks and cleaners working for a Jordanian contracting firm. On 31 August the group released video confirming it had killed all twelve, one by beheading and the rest by shooting.
They had gone abroad to support their families. Nepal barred its citizens from working in Iraq, so they had travelled to Jordan and been moved on from there. They were among the hundreds of thousands of Nepali migrant workers whose remittances hold up the country's economy — and they were killed for a war they had no part in.
The reaction in Nepal was immediate, and it fell on people who had nothing to do with it.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 19 August 2004 | Twelve Nepali workers kidnapped near Ramadi, Iraq |
| 31 August | Killings confirmed by video. Protests begin in Kathmandu the same evening; stones thrown at a mosque near Ghanta Ghar |
| 1 September | The worst day. Jame Masjid stormed and set alight, copies of the Qur'an burned in the street, over a hundred Muslim-owned businesses and homes attacked. Airline offices of several Muslim-majority countries torched. Recruitment agencies ransacked. Houses burned in Nepalgunj; attacks in Jhapa |
| 1 September | Indefinite curfew imposed on Kathmandu and two other cities. Police open fire on a crowd; two people killed, dozens injured |
| 1 September | Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba broadcasts nationally, appealing against communal violence |
| To 6 September | Disturbances continue in cities and towns across the country before subsiding |
Sources: contemporary international news reporting from 31 August to 6 September 2004, and subsequent Nepali reporting on the anniversary. Property damage to recruitment agencies alone was later estimated in the hundreds of millions of rupees.
For Nepali Muslims, 1 September 2004 is remembered as a black day. It was the first time in living memory that the community had been attacked at that scale, in that way, across multiple districts at once — and the trigger had nothing to do with them.
The response, and its limits
This part deserves care, because accounts differ and the accurate version is more useful than the simple one.
The state did act. Police cordoned mosques, used tear gas, and imposed an indefinite curfew within a day. Two rioters were shot dead by police. The Prime Minister made a national broadcast appealing to Nepalis not to descend into religious violence.
Sometimes stated: the government and police did nothing at all.
Not accurate. Curfew was imposed, mosques were cordoned, and police fired on rioters. The fair criticism is different and more specific: the response came only after the Jame Masjid had already burned and a hundred businesses had been attacked, protection outside Kathmandu was thinner still, and very few people were ever prosecuted for what was done. Many Nepali Muslims concluded that they could not rely on being protected next time.
That conclusion — rather than any single grievance about a single day — is what produced the Forum. The community had no national body able to speak to government with one voice, no mechanism for putting its case, and no organised way to press for accountability afterwards.
The lesson drawn
A community that is scattered, locally organised and nationally silent has no way to be heard when it most needs to be. The answer was not to form a political party, but to build a platform that could speak.
One more point of accuracy worth making. Some accounts of these events describe them as a foreign-directed conspiracy to destroy Nepal's religious tolerance. There is no evidence for that, and the contemporary record does not support it — what it describes is a spontaneous eruption of anger after a video circulated, directed first at recruitment agencies and then at Muslims as the nearest available target. Naming it accurately matters. Communal violence in South Asia rarely needs a foreign author, and saying so is not a defence of anyone who took part.
Why an umbrella body
Muslim-led NGOs already existed in Nepal in 2004, in districts across the Terai and beyond. The problem was not absence but fragmentation.
Scattered effort
Dozens of local organisations, each working in one district, with no way to coordinate or share what worked.
No national voice
When something happened nationally, there was no single body that government, media or donors could deal with.
Sectarian division
Nepali Muslims are not a single school or sect. Any body meant to speak for the community had to hold that diversity, not paper over it.
The Ashoka Hotel meeting
On 26 September 2004 — twenty-five days after the riots — fifty-five Muslim figures from every section and region of the country were invited to a meeting at the Ashoka Hotel in Bagbazar, Kathmandu.
They agreed that an umbrella organisation should be set up on a proper legal footing rather than as an informal alliance. Two committees were formed to do it.
| Body | Size | Task |
|---|---|---|
| General body | 55 | Agreed the decision to form an umbrella organisation and set the action plan |
| Implementation committee | 17 | Carry out the action plan agreed by the general body |
| Drafting committee | 9 | Write the constitution and complete legal registration |
Those fifty-five became the founder members, and the General Assembly of the Forum is built on that original body.
Registration and formal existence
National Muslim Forum Nepal came into formal existence as a registered institution on 7 June 2005 — a little over eight months after the founding meeting, and nine months after the riots.
The gap between the meeting and the registration is the least dramatic part of this story and one of the more important. A committee wrote a constitution, agreed a structure, and completed a registration process. Organisations formed in the immediate heat of a crisis usually do not survive it. This one was built to outlast the moment that produced it.
Aims and objectives
The Forum's stated aims, as set out in its own founding documents:
Capacity building
Equipping Muslim youth to participate in the mainstream of national life.
An equitable society
Working towards equity through a rights-based approach and collaborative effort.
Political participation
Encouraging Muslims to take an active part in political parties — as citizens, not as a bloc directed by the Forum.
Socio-economic uplift
Promoting and protecting the community's socio-economic and cultural interests.
A channel to government
Acting as the medium through which Muslim issues reach the system of government, and pursuing them to a resolution.
Networking
Creating links between Muslim institutions and the wider civil society sector.
Read together, the pattern is worth noticing. Five of the six are about participation in national life rather than separation from it — entering the mainstream, joining parties, linking to civil society. That is a deliberate posture for a minority organisation founded in the aftermath of being attacked.
Structure
The constitution establishes three tiers.
| Body | Composition | Role |
|---|---|---|
| General Assembly | All 55 founder members, plus ordinary and lifelong members as defined in the constitution | The largest body and the ultimate authority |
| Executive Committee | Chairman, Vice-Chairman, General Secretary, Secretaries, Treasurer, Spokesperson and 13 further members | Governs the organisation between assemblies |
| Working Committee | 9 members | A small nucleus handling day-to-day activity on behalf of the Executive Committee |
The three-tier shape is standard for a Nepali registered organisation, but the size of the Working Committee is the practical point: nine people who can meet and decide quickly, answerable to a larger elected body. Umbrella organisations often fail because everything requires a full assembly.
What distinguishes it
Not party-affiliated
A socio-cultural organisation with no adherence to any political party — while retaining the ability to address political questions affecting the community when circumstances require it.
Nationally spread
Members from every corner of the country — east to west, Terai to hills, across districts — rather than a Kathmandu body speaking for others.
Across all sects
Office-holders and members come from all the Muslim sects present in Nepal. For a community that is internally diverse, this is the hardest of the three to achieve and the most consequential.
The professional range matters too — the membership includes people from a variety of occupations rather than religious scholars alone, which is what allows an umbrella body to engage with development work, government and donors on their own terms.
The balance being struck
Non-partisan, but not apolitical. The Forum does not tell members which party to support, and does not seek office. It does reserve the right to speak on political matters that affect Muslims as a community — which is precisely the gap that existed in September 2004.
The secular transition
The Forum was formed at an unusually consequential moment in Nepali history, and its early years coincided with the country's constitutional transformation.
| Year | Development |
|---|---|
| 2004 | Nepal is constitutionally a Hindu state. The riots occur in September |
| 2005 | The Forum is registered in June |
| 2006 | Jana Andolan II. Parliament restored; the peace process begins |
| 2007 | The interim constitution declares Nepal a secular state |
| 2008 | The monarchy is abolished; Nepal becomes a federal democratic republic |
| 2015 | The federal constitution confirms secularism and introduces inclusion quotas covering minorities |
An organisation founded to advocate for a religious minority in a Hindu state found itself, within three years, advocating within a secular republic that had formally committed to inclusion. Whether that commitment has translated into outcomes for Nepali Muslims is a separate question — and one the Forum exists to keep asking.
The 2015 constitution's proportional representation lists include reserved shares for Muslims among other groups, which is a structural change of exactly the kind the founding members were arguing for in 2004. The gap between formal inclusion and lived outcomes is where advocacy work continues.
The short version: National Muslim Forum Nepal exists because in September 2004 a Nepali Muslim community of well over a million people discovered it had no way to speak for itself at the moment it most needed to. Twelve Nepali workers were murdered in Iraq by people who had nothing to do with Nepali Muslims, and Nepali Muslims paid for it — a mosque burned, homes and businesses attacked, and protection that arrived late. Twenty-five days later, fifty-five people met in a Kathmandu hotel and decided that the answer was not anger but organisation. They wrote a constitution, registered it properly, and built something across sects and districts that was designed to still exist decades later. That is a considered response to an ugly event, and it is the part of this history most worth remembering.
Common questions
What is National Muslim Forum Nepal?
An umbrella organisation for Muslim-led development organisations and NGOs across Nepal, known in Nepali as Rastriya Muslim Manch Nepal. It was initiated by Islami Sangh Nepal, founded at a meeting of 55 Muslim figures in Kathmandu on 26 September 2004, and formally registered on 7 June 2005. It describes itself as socio-cultural and is not affiliated to any political party.
Why was it established?
In direct response to the anti-Muslim riots of September 2004. Twelve Nepali workers were killed in Iraq by the group Ansar al-Sunna, and rioting followed across Nepal in which a mosque was burned and more than a hundred Muslim-owned homes and businesses were attacked. Nepali Muslims found they had no national body able to speak for them, and concluded that local organisations working separately were not enough.
What happened in Nepal in September 2004?
On 19 August 2004 twelve Nepali workers — cooks and cleaners for a Jordanian contractor — were kidnapped near Ramadi in Iraq. Their killing was confirmed on 31 August. Rioting broke out that evening and peaked on 1 September, when the Jame Masjid in Kathmandu was stormed and set alight, over a hundred Muslim-owned businesses and homes were attacked, and houses were burned in Nepalgunj. An indefinite curfew was imposed, police fired on a crowd killing two people, and disturbances continued until about 6 September.
Did the Nepali authorities respond to the 2004 riots?
Yes, though the response is widely regarded as having come late. Police cordoned mosques and used tear gas, an indefinite curfew was imposed on Kathmandu and two other cities, two rioters were shot dead by police, and Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba broadcast a national appeal against communal violence. The substantive criticisms are that this followed rather than prevented the worst damage, that protection outside the capital was thinner, and that very few people were prosecuted afterwards.
How many Muslims live in Nepal?
The 2021 census recorded 1,483,066 people following Islam, or 5.09% of the population — the third-largest religious community after Hindus and Buddhists, and up from 4.4% in 2011. Communities are concentrated in the Terai districts along the southern border, with long-established populations in Kathmandu and the hills.
What are the Forum's aims?
Building the capacity of Muslim youth to join the mainstream of national life; working towards an equitable society through a rights-based approach; encouraging active participation in political parties; promoting the community's socio-economic and cultural interests; acting as a channel for Muslim issues to reach government; and creating links between Muslim institutions and wider civil society.
How is the Forum structured?
Three tiers under its constitution. The General Assembly is the largest body, comprising the 55 founder members plus ordinary and lifelong members. The Executive Committee has a Chairman, Vice-Chairman, General Secretary, Secretaries, Treasurer, Spokesperson and 13 further members. A nine-member Working Committee handles day-to-day activity on the Executive Committee's behalf.
Is the Forum a political organisation?
No. It describes itself as purely socio-cultural and is not affiliated to, nor aligned with, any political party. It does reserve the ability to address political issues that affect the Muslim community in particular circumstances, and it encourages individual Muslims to participate in mainstream parties — but it does not seek office or direct members how to vote.
Was Nepal a Hindu state when the Forum was founded?
Yes. Nepal was constitutionally a Hindu state in 2004 and 2005. The interim constitution declared the country secular in 2007, the monarchy was abolished in 2008, and the 2015 federal constitution confirmed secularism while introducing inclusion quotas covering religious and ethnic minorities. The Forum's early years therefore ran alongside a fundamental change in the country's constitutional character.
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