THE OBSERVER UG

Mufti Sheihk Shaban Mubajje

As Ugandans pick up the pieces, weeks after the November 16 twin suicide bombings in the capital Kampala, the Muslim community is struggling to navigate the immediate aftermath, which is strewn with brutal arrests, abductions and killings of terror suspects who are largely Muslims linked to the rebel Allied Democratic Forces.


The arrests have fired tensions within the Muslim community. In an emotional sermon during Juma prayers on Friday last month, Sheikh Salim Bbosa, the resident imam of Masjid Jamia, Kyengera, warned his Muslim congregation, “We can die anytime from disease or be killed.”

He also made another big newsworthy announcement; he told the congregation that he had stopped teaching his Darusu classes at the mosque to avoid being mistaken for brainwashing young Muslims. Darusu classes are the equivalent of catechism in the Christian faith. In Darusu classes, sheikhs and imams teach young Muslims the norms of Islam and how to grow in the faith.

Darusu classes, however, according to sheikhs, are viewed in official government circles as a bellwether of madrasa schools, which have a long and rich history of teaching Islam. After the birth of Islam in the seventh century, Muslims who wanted a religious education joined study circles in mosques where teachers provided instruction, according to the website; Giving COMPASS.

By the 11th century, madrasas were well-established independent centers of learning with some of the features they retain today. Madrasas generally taught calculation, grammar, and poetry, history and above all the Qur’an and sacred law. These schools spread quickly. They have been accused in Uganda of radicalizing Muslim youths especially after the emergence of ADF and its murderous and terror activities.

Sheikh Bbosa said, “…My appeal to you [congregation at Masjid Jamia, Kyengera] and all Muslims is to be patient and calm in the face of the prevailing situation in the country; avoid criminal acts and criminals. Let us protect ourselves and avoid bad people. Avoid giving your phone to people you do not know. You will give a bad person your phone and he or she will call the wrong person. And when they [security] are tracing the criminal, they will come to you a Muslim. If someone asks to use your phone, at least give him or her money for airtime because bad-intentioned people do not have phones. You shall be implicated in a wrong situation.”

“…Secondly, with too much pain, I have indefinitely suspended all the darusu classes that I have been conducting in all the mosques and over other media platforms till a time when God shall keep us alive,” he added.

“To the Muslims of Kyengera, this is where I have grown and when death ever comes because it can come in any situation or if I am killed in any situation, it is you who should take responsibility for my dead body. All the rites shall be performed by my elders; Sheikh Kassim Kiyingi, Sheikh Abdul Razak Ddumba, and Sheikh Abdullah Sserunjogi…”

Bbosa’s darusus have been very popular. His special sermons lean mainly on mainly social issues and are interactive. They are largely question-and-answer (Q and A) sessions.

Bbosa is not alone in suspending darusus. Many other sheikhs have done so quietly in recent weeks. An Observer survey of mosques in Kisaasi, Mulawa, Kira, Kyaliwajjala, Katooke and other parts of Kawempe found that sheikhs stopped conducting such regular sermons out of fear.

They declined our request for interviews to explain their decision. In Luweero, the District Kadhi Sheihk Ramadhan Mulindwa urged all imams and other religious leaders in the 250 mosques in Uganda to get registered.

Mulindwa said a register will help leaders trace their people in case they are arrested. Many Muslim clerics have been arrested or abducted. And several vocal Muslim leaders have abandoned religious teachings that could easily be misinterpreted as brainwashing sessions.

Sheikh Bbosa’s resignation comes on the heels of the recent spate of arrests of terrorism suspects in the aftermath of the November 16, 2021 bomb blasts in Kampala. Several sheikhs and imams have been linked to ADF activities. Bbosa is among the very few leaders that have come out publicly to speak about his fears.

Interviewed for this story, Ashraf Zziwa Muvawala, the public relations officer of Uganda Muslim Supreme Council, said the council has taken a keen interest in sheikhs and imams’ decision to abandon their voluntary duties most especially darusu teachings for fear for their lives.

Muvawala said Mufti Sheihk Shaban Mubajje is keenly following the continued disappearance of Muslim sheikhs and other leaders. He has recommended that cases of arrests and disappearances should be reported directly to the office of Dawa (propagation and preaching of Islam), which is under him.

“The ongoing registration of Muslim sheikhs and imams at different levels in the nine regions of Uganda is one way of helping us follow up on any missing Muslim leader,” he said.

“…the principle is to speak good and beneficial things. The prophet encourages us to speak things beneficial to our people. If you do not have anything to say, keep quiet…”

He distanced Islam from teachings that condone killings. He said there’s no teaching in Islam that encourages a Muslim to kill to go to heaven. And he said not everyone with an Arabic name is a Muslim.

“We maintain that if a Muslim or any other person has been accused of anything; let them be taken to courts of law… There was an insinuation that Islam condones terrorism but the public did not buy into it. The public did not isolate us. People have come together and realized that we need each other…”

Muvawala said Muslims are seriously being singled out for harassment by security forces.

“…. I went to the administrator general’s office to ask for the administrative rights of my parents’ estate. At the gate, the policeman was allowing everyone in with a bag but when I stepped forward, he emptied all the contents in my bag on the floor. After that, he still refused me to enter the building because I had a bag yet people ahead of me had bags. I discovered that I was putting on my religious cap. I just walked away because they could have shot me and claimed they have shot a terrorist,” he said, adding, “This same situation also happened to one of our daughters who went to the government laboratory in Wandegeya. She was denied entry because she was veiled. I think you all saw the case in Kyambogo University where Muslim students were being forced by security men to remove their veils. …”

In a petition to the Uganda Human Rights Commission, the Muslim Center for Justice and the Network for Public Interest Lawyers requested the commission to open an investigation, hear and make orders and issue a report on the alleged extrajudicial killings of Ugandans by security forces.

Umar Nyanzi said they want the commission to investigate the threat of Islamic terrorism. He said Islam is a religion of peace and requested security agencies to stop linking Muslims to terrorists.

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