A cross-section of the audience listening to Brenda McCollum at the public lecture titled The Muslims of Buganda at the Uganda Museum Main Hall in Kampala on June 7. PHOTOS/COURTESY OF GEOFFREY KADDU | THE UGANDA SOCIETY.
In her doctoral research, Brenda McCollum examines how the British colonial government implemented discriminative policies against the Muslims in Buganda. This, she argues, is because they did not see the community as a legitimate institution, which resulted in lack of recognition, education support, development and marginalisation.
McCollum’s thesis examines the lives, experiences, and leadership of the Baganda Muslim community during the colonial period. Through an examination of the leadership of the Kibuli Muslim Community and how this group interacted with other Muslim communities within Buganda, her body of work analyses how the Baganda Muslims worked to navigate the marginalisation they faced from the colonial state.
She argues that the discrimination that the Muslims faced from their colonial government was multifaceted and was rooted in part in European fears of Islam and ideologies such as Islam noir.
By analysing the colonial state’s approach to education, McCollum’s thesis shows that educational policies were one of the central ways in which Muslims were marginalised during colonial rule. However, her thesis also argues that the Muslims found and developed their own routes to educational attainment, working to negotiate the marginalisation they faced from the anti-Muslim policies of the colonial government.
McCollum presented her research findings at the public lecture organised by the Uganda Society on June 7, at the Uganda Museum Main Hall in Kampala.
Religious wars
Following Islam’s arrival in Buganda in 1844, it spread relatively quickly by gaining converts within the Kabaka’s royal court. In 1862, the first Europeans arrived in Buganda. In 1877, the first Protestant missionaries arrived in Buganda supposedly at the behest of Kabaka Mutesa I via Henry Morton Stanley. Elsewhere, Catholic missionaries from France arrived in 1879.
Competition for political influence began swiftly, and, compounded by existing political rivalries and inter-clan conflict, culminated in the Religious Wars of 1888–1890 in Buganda. This conflict was brought to an end with the arrival of Lord Lugard and his advanced weaponry in 1890, McCollum notes.
“Throughout the 1890s, Protestant Ganda leaders such as Apollo Kaggwa worked with the British to conquer and develop what is now Uganda, each relying on the other for their growing authority in the region,” she writes, adding: “In 1900, the Buganda Agreement was signed, cementing not only British colonisation of all of Uganda, but also the hierarchy of Buganda with Protestants first, Catholics second, and Muslims a distant third.”
The 1900 Agreement was signed by British colonial officials and Ganda regency chiefs on behalf of then recently enthroned three-year-old Kabaka Daudi Ccwa II. For the next 62 years, the British colonial state worked with Protestant and Catholic Ganda leaders, while wilfully ignoring the needs of the Ganda Muslim community.
Despite this atmosphere, Ganda Muslims flourished during the colonial period. By localising Islam as a social, political, and cultural force, Ganda Muslims developed political influence and negotiated an influential space for themselves in wider Ganda society, McCollum notes.
“The current state of Uganda’s historiography reflects the marginalisation faced by Ganda Muslims during the colonial period. Although Islam has been dealt with by some notable historians such as [ABK] Kasozi,” McCollum observes, “Christianity in Uganda has received a great deal more attention. Additionally, historians of Uganda have largely written about religion in the region from a distinctly Western perspective. Religion in Buganda, as in most of sub-Saharan Africa prior to the mid-19th Century, played a direct role in all areas of life.”
The scholar also stresses the importance of “fully understand[ing] how Ganda people thought of and sought to use religion as a social, cultural, political, and economic tool.” The Western perspective, she opines, “has greatly overshadowed the understanding of religion in the region and thus, examining Muslim communities in sub-Saharan Africa from a less Western perspective is a pressing issue facing all historians studying Islam in the region.”
Marginalisation of Muslims
The racialisation of Islam in the Kingdom of Buganda, and how this was used to view the group as an illegitimate organisation, and then treat it in discriminatory ways, can be seen in early interactions between the Muslim Ganda and the British. McCollum underscores this in her peer-reviewed article titled The Racialization of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa—A Study of the Kingdom of Buganda.
“As the 1900 Agreement was being negotiated, Frederick Lugard, an important British official who helped lead colonisation efforts in Uganda, often referred to the Ganda Muslims as Mbogo’s adherents. Prince Nuhu Mbogo was a member of the Ganda royal family and a chief who had converted to Islam. He became the primary leader of all Muslims in the Kingdom of Buganda predominantly, thanks to British policies, which forced all Ganda Muslims into one county in the early 1890s,” she proffers in the article published in the Arc: Journal of the School of Religious Studies.
Mbogo was forced to go into exile in Zanzibar by the colonial government due to his strong Islamic faith in 1893. He returned to Buganda in June 1895 and assumed his role as the leader of Muslims. According to McCollum, “Prince Nuhu Mbogo represented all of the Muslims in Buganda during the negotiations for the 1900 Agreement, but the British viewed his authority over the Ganda Muslim community as stemming from a traditional context, rather than a religious one.”
She hastens to add that while this is not entirely incorrect, “the British clearly viewed Mbogo and his adherents in a less than legitimate way, as they did not refer to them as a religious group during their negotiations.”
“This is in contrast to the way they referred to and worked with Ganda Protestants and Catholics, which were both referred to as proper religious groupings and were given much more land on which to host their communities in the agreement; the missionary societies were given 92 square miles, while the Muslim community was given only 24,” McCollum notes. “The disproportionately smaller quantity of land which Muslims were given and the marginalisation they then faced illustrates both the lack of legitimacy they held as a religious group in the eyes of the British, and that this perception was predominantly due to their identity as both Africans and Muslims.”
Historical distortions
Isaac Ssettuba is a translator/interpreter/researcher. In an interview, he tells Saturday Monitor that Mbogo’s so-called adherents were not Muslims in the strictest sense. What was clear is that the land in question was understood to be in Mbogo’s control so much so that “the Kibuli land hosting the historic mosque, a hospital and Muslim-founded education institutions, is regarded as ‘his’ (and successor’s) donation to the Muslim community.”
“The ‘other privileges’ or rather ‘fruits of compromise’ for the Muslims, although often associated with the 1900 Agreement, were a result of earlier negotiations, markedly with Captain Frederick Lugard. These include freedom of worship, the right to wear the ‘Islamic cap or turban’ in all public offices and the right to slaughter all meat for public consumption according to Islamic law,” Ssettuba says.
Ssettuba says Mbogo managed to co-operate with different parties of the early colonial days due to his commitment to peaceful co-existence as a senior Ganda royal.
“He was Muteesa I’s favourite brother overseeing matters in the reign of ‘a grandson,’ Daudi Chwa II. He had negotiated with Lugard to end the Muslim rebellion, in return for their peaceful resettlement and freedom of worship. The Christian Ganda chiefs respected him for being a senior member of the royal lineage and a proven peace-broker.”
Ssettuba says Mbogo was a de facto fourth regent to young Kabaka Chwa, at least in traditionalist Ganda circles.
“There was, however, tension in dealing with the new commoner landed gentry, embodied in Apollo Kaggwa and ilk, usurping much of the royals’ power, thanks to colonial rule,” Ssettuba adds.
Ssettuba says the pre-1900 Agreement Buganda had known three major settlements, with the British aimed at appeasing, admonishing and rewarding, to varying degree, the three politico-religious parties of the time, through power-sharing deals. Each party was awarded a number of counties (Masaza) to be its ‘spheres of influence’ by administration and settlement.
“The 1892 Lugard Settlement gave the great Buddu to Catholics, and the slimmer Ggomba, Butambala and Busujju to the Muslims. The remaining six counties (traditionally Buganda was made up of 10 counties) went to the victorious Protestants,” Ssettuba says.
“The 1893 Sir Gerald Portal Settlement added Mawokoto, with parts of Ssingo and Ssese Islands, to Catholic lands, as a reward for their obedience and willingness to serve the king. The Muslims, suspected of wanting to rebel again, and reluctant to serve the king, were left with their three smaller counties,” he adds.
Ssettuba proceeds to disclose that the late 1893 Major James Macdonald Settlement, which happened after Muslims had clearly attempted to rebel, led to their loss of Ggomba and Busujju. This left them with only Butambala. The Catholics took Busujju and Protestants claimed Ggomba.
“A proposal to banish Buganda Muslims to Karagwe (present day Tanzania) was also floated at that time,” Ssettuba further adds.
Skewed outlook
The findings of the 2014 National Population and Housing Census indicated that Catholics are the largest religious denomination, constituting close to 40 percent of the population. This is followed by Anglicans with 32 percent and Muslims with about 14 percent. Together, these denominations account for more than 80 percent of the total population.
According to McCollum, throughout the colonial era (1900–1962), this perception of African Muslims influenced the policies of the colonial state.
“The colonial state openly favoured Protestant and Catholic schools, missionaries, and, eventually, political parties. Protestant and Catholic Ganda, having received what the colonial state deemed as the ‘correct’ form of education, were able to achieve upward mobility both socially and economically and to take higher positions within the colonial state. By the mid-20th Century, a large majority of university graduates in Uganda were either Protestant or Catholic.”
“For the first several decades of colonial rule, the British protectorate government allowed Protestant and Catholic missionaries to control the education system in Buganda, even though they knew missionary schools—which catered to newly converted Christian boys—were leaving Muslims, girls, and other children who did not want to convert to Christianity behind. This created a reinforcing cycle where better-paying jobs went to Christians, those Christians sent their children to higher education, and the next generation did the same,” she adds.
Dr Brenda McCollum delivers her findings at the public lecture titled The Muslims of Buganda at the Uganda Museum Main Hall in Kampala on June 7.
Per McCollum’s reading, the marginalisation of Ganda Muslims “was a result of the colonial administration’s lack of attention to the community and its needs.” She cites “the refusal of the colonial state to view the Ganda Muslims’ problems as legitimate concerns. This, she adds, “sprouted from their refusal to see the community as a legitimate institution within the colonial apparatus.” Needless to say, lack of recognition and support translated to lack of development.
“By the 1950s, as Uganda prepared for independence, the majority of Ugandans in positions of political power within the colonial administration or emerging political parties were either Protestant or Catholic. Additionally, most were Muganda (Baganda),” McCollum notes, adding: “This influenced how the newly formed nation negotiated her independence, as the developing political parties were affiliated along religious lines…”
McCollum notes that while there is a plethora of work that “examines the powerful alliances made between Protestant Ganda and the British colonial state”, studies on the same around Islam and Muslims are few and far between. She argues that this lack of academic attention is due to the marginalised position which Muslims and Islam held in colonial Buganda.
“Islam arrived in Buganda in the early 1840s, a few decades prior to the arrival of Europeans. Islam, like Christianity, quickly gained converts in the Kabaka’s court. If it were not for the arrival of Lugard and the favouritism he showed Protestant Ganda chiefs, Buganda may not have become a Christian majority kingdom. However, Lugard did arrive, and British colonisation solidified the marginalised position of Muslims in Buganda.”
She adds: “As noted, the Buganda Agreement of 1900 allotted only 24 square miles of land to the Muslim Ganda community to survive and make a living on; this disproportionate allocation of land is a prime example of their marginalised status. Throughout the colonial period, British officials knowingly allowed the hardships facing Muslim Ganda to continue, even as they were made aware of the challenges Muslims were facing.”
Beating the odds
According to McCollum, despite this unfavourable treatment, the Muslim Ganda flourished during the colonial era. She writes: “The Muslims of Buganda created an influential political and social niche for themselves by drawing on transnational Muslim organisations like the East African Muslim Welfare Society (EAMWS), overcoming divisions and creating a strong community within Buganda, using cultural and societal institutions such as education, and benefitting from gifted leaders such as Nuhu Mbogo.
She adds: “Over time, Muslim Ganda increased their number of university graduates, as well as the number of people in positions of power, and by the late 1950s and early 1960s, they were a highly sought-after alliance as the political parties of Uganda negotiated leadership of the country. By the mid-20th Century, although other groups had already done so in the early 20th Century, Muslim Ganda had also drafted their versions of Buganda’s history, an important step for a marginalised group fighting to create a more favourable position for themselves in their country.”
Ssettuba says the EAMWS was founded in 1943/45 by the Aga Khan, head of the Shia Muslim Sevener Sect, the Ismaili. This sect is known for business enterprise and inclusive promotion of social welfare, irrespective of religious identity.
“The EAMWS mainly contributed to funding the construction of mosques, schools and hospitals. The famous Kibuli and Wandegeya mosques in Kampala were erected with substantial donations from the Aga Khan. The role of the society in building a Ugandan Muslim elite was rather an indirect one, basically through support to Muslim-founded schools and the Aga Khan Schools network, which has been always open to all,” he says.
He adds: “Let us also note that Uganda Muslims are predominantly Sunni, and due to significant doctrinal divergences, Sunni scholars from Uganda hardly study under Shia guidance. The Uganda Muslim Islamic intelligentsia constituted itself gradually, beginning with Coastal holy men, who settled in land all over East Africa, and taught Islam as they engaged in various activities for livelihood. At the same time, a few sheikhs studied at the coast (Zanzibar, Lamu, and Mombasa). Between the 1930s and 1950s, a few young Ugandans would often privately go to study in Muslim countries (Yemen, Oman, Sudan, and Egypt, among others).”
“From the late 1950s, and more markedly the late 1960s,” Ssettuba says, “Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, Libya, Sudan, and Pakistan, among others, have been offering scholarships to Ugandan Muslims for religious instruction since the late 1950s.
“From the mid-1970s when Uganda became a member of the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) to date, many Ugandans, Muslim and non-Muslim, have benefited from the organisation’s scholarship programmes in different Muslim countries,” he further notes.
In the second and final part of the series tomorrow, we will explore how European colonial powers marginalised religions alien to them, as well as how the fate of Muslims in Buganda impacted Islamic faith countrywide.
Who is Brenda McCollum?
Brenda McCollum is a lecturer in African Studies at the University of Oxford in England. She did her Bachelor’s degree at Baker University, in Kansas, USA. Following her undergraduate degree in History and International Studies, she went to the UK in 2018 for her MSc in African Studies at Oxford. After completing the MSc, she began the PhD in History, also at Oxford and is currently in the final months of her doctoral degree. Her dissertation focused on the histories of Muslims and Islam in southern Uganda, in the late 19th and 20th centuries. In her doctoral work, her methodologies included oral history interviews and archival research.
