Myanmar – Scattered across the lush, rolling hills of southern Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region, rebel fighters stationed at checkpoints inspect cars and trucks traveling towards a nearby town still under the control of the Myanmar military – their adversary.
While this is a familiar sight in the region, where the struggle against the military waged by disparate armed groups has intensified since the 2021 coup, what sets these rebels apart is their faith.
These are members of the little-known “Muslim Company”, who have joined the struggle for democracy in Myanmar as part of a Christian- and Buddhist-dominated armed group – the Karen National Union (KNU).
Officially named 3rd Company of Brigade 4 in the KNU, the 130 soldiers of the Muslim Company are just a fraction of the tens of thousands fighting to overthrow the country’s military rulers.
With their story largely untold, Al Jazeera visited the company’s headquarters, nestled between the ridges of jungle-clad mountains at an undisclosed location in Myanmar’s south, to piece together an almost forgotten thread in the intricate tapestry of Myanmar’s conflict.
“Some areas are focused on ethnicities having their own states,” Muslim Company leader Mohammed Eisher, 47, explained, referring to the armed resistance movements who have long fought against Myanmar’s military.
In Tanintharyi, Eisher said, no one group dominates the land and, besides, the military’s repression affects all groups.
“As long as the military remains in place, Muslims, and everybody else, will be oppressed,” he said.
While Eisher said he hopes the acceptance of diversity within the anti-military forces would help ease cultural and regional tensions that have previously led to conflict in Myanmar, scholars say the embrace of the Muslim Company underlines the inclusive nature of the historic uprising taking place, and the incorporation of previously marginalised groups into the struggle.
Diverse lines of descent
Myanmar’s Muslims trace diverse lines of descent.
They include the Rohingya in the west of the country, Muslims with Indian and Chinese heritage, and the Kamein, whose ancestors are believed to have been archers of a Mughal prince seeking refuge in the Arakan kingdom in the 17th century, and which is now part of Myanmar.
In Tanintharyi, where the Muslim Company is based, some Muslims are descended from Arab, Persian and Indian traders, while others are Burmese Malays, known as Pashu. The region’s ethnic diversity also includes Karen and Mon, as well as Bamar sub-ethnicities from the cities of Dawei and Myeik, among others.
While their uniforms bear the KNU insignia, the Muslim soldiers of 3rd Company carry a star and crescent moon badge in their bags, symbolizing their lineage from the All Burma Muslim Liberation Army (ABMLA) – the country was called “Burma” before it was re-named “Myanmar”.
In their main camp, hijab head coverings and thobes – long-sleeved ankle-length traditional robes often worn by men and women in Muslim countries – are common attire. Recitals of Quranic verses ring out from a mosque, while prayer mats are laid out at remote rebel outposts. Throughout the holy month of Ramadan, the company’s fighters observe fasting and attend daily prayers.
Successive military-led governments in Myanmar, together with hardline nationalist monks, have portrayed Muslims as a grave threat to Burmese Buddhist culture. That has resulted in Muslim communities, with roots spanning more than a millennium in Myanmar, facing scapegoating, religious suppression and denial of citizenship.
“It’s dangerous to generalize, but Muslims in Myanmar are highly vulnerable and have been exposed to significant violence,” Myanmar scholar Ashley South said.
“In Karen areas, however, one often finds communities living peacefully – and it is significant that Muslim refugees moved tentatively to KNU-controlled areas, sometimes in preference to other groups,” South said.
He added that the inclusion of groups previously alienated by Myanmar’s fractious politics is a defining trait of the current revolution, which has made strong gains against the military since it grabbed power in 2021.
History of Muslim resistance
The Muslims who resisted the military following its overthrow of Myanmar’s elected government three years ago and then found their way to 3rd Company, are not the first to rise against repression.
Among those fleeing the anti-Muslim riots of August 1983 in what was then Moulmein – now called Mawlamyine – in lower Burma, a small group of refugees formed the Kawthoolei Muslim Liberation Front (KMLF) in KNU-held territory.
The KNU trained about 200 KMLF fighters, but disputes between Sunni and Shia leaders eventually fragmented the group.
In 1985, some KMLF fighters moved south to Tanintharyi, founding the ABMLA. After decades of sporadic clashes with the military, they officially became 3rd Company, known colloquially as the “Muslim Company”. That was about 2015, after the KNU’s ceasefire with the military ended, according to an administrator who has been with the group since 1987.
With military atrocities having devastated families across Myanmar since the recent takeover, Myanmar’s army is now anathema not only to Muslims and ethnic minorities but to most of the population, the administrator said.
“The [2021] coup opened a path to freedom for everybody,” he added, speaking to Al Jazeera as he sat on a hammock above a pair of military boots taken from a captured government base.
About 20 women serve in 3rd Company, including 28-year-old Thandar*, a medic who joined in October 2021. After completing combat training under the KNU, Thandar told how she heard about the Muslim force and decided to sign up.
“I’ll work here until the revolution is over,” she said, smiling at their commander, Eisher. “He’s like my new father now,” she said.
Among other things, belonging to a like-minded company of fighters “made it easier to have a halal diet”, she said.
“Plus, I’m with fellow Muslims,” she added. “It’s good here. That’s why I’ve stayed here for so long.”
‘Freedom for all peoples of Burma’
About 20 Muslim recruits fleeing the military regime’s conscription law, enacted in 2010 but activated only this year in Myanmar, enlisted recently, said Eisher.
During Al Jazeera’s visit to the company, soldiers at its main camp were mostly married men, using their leave to visit their families nearby. A separate barracks housed the sick, typically young men struck down with malaria before.
The nearby camp mosque is a modest building made of breezeblocks with a tin roof, and plastic piping on the outer wall for ritual ablutions before prayers.
Eisher told how his faith was tested in 2012 during a skirmish with the military, when he was shot in the neck and upper right arm. Separated from his unit, he trekked alone for two days before finding his comrades, who carried him for five days through a dense jungle.
“The stench of the pus from my neck wound made me retch,” he recalled, touching the crater-like scar left where a bullet had exited and remembering how hard he had prayed.
“I was praying for the absolution of my sins, if I had committed any, and if not, for the strength to keep fighting,” he said.
At an outpost deep in the jungle of 3rd Company’s territory, Mohammed Yusuf, 47, leads a unit of fighters. Like Eisher, Yusuf has suffered for the cause. Twenty years ago, while clearing landmines, one exploded, blinding him.
“I want freedom for all peoples of Burma,” he said. “The revolution will be successful, but it needs more unity. Everyone should stay true to the cause.”
Third Company also has its internal diversity, including a few Buddhist and Christian members at the main camp.
One of the Buddhists, a 46-year-old Bamar farmer-turned-revolutionary with a serene smile, has taken to growing eggplants and string beans for the fighters to eat.
After volunteering with two other resistance groups, she told how she came to the realisation that her place was in the “Muslim Company”.
“There’s no discrimination here,” she said.
“We’re all the same – human beings.”
*Thandar is a pseudonym as the interviewee asked that her name not be used in this article.
