2 - Islam in Pre-Colonial Buganda

Summary

This chapter will discuss the Islamization of Buganda in the pre-colonial era, when the discursive formations, that is the discourses and vocabularies of Islamic sources and Muslim practices, began to permeate Ganda society. Situating Islam in the social-cultural-political context of the state, I argue that Muteesa used Islam as an ideology to centralize royal power vis-à-vis other competing centres of Ganda power. Islam offered both internal and external benefits to the ruling elite at the time. Internally, Muteesa attempted to use Islam as a new ideology to surpass the Ganda religious system of shrines and public healers, and their influence over political authority. Externally, Islam would cement Muteesa’s relationship with other Muslim powers such as those of Egypt and Zanzibar which had different interests in Buganda. It allowed him to strengthen his control over the caravan trade linked with Zanzibar and at the same time positioned Buganda as a Muslim polity against any real or potential Egyptian takeover. The caravan trade provided opportunities to acquire advanced military weaponry, which Muteesa’s armies could use to defend Buganda’s interests and also undertake internal reorganization of the Ganda polity.

As we will see, Muteesa’s attempt to use Islam to transform Buganda met with only partial success. Although Islamization placed the Kabaka as the patron of both Islam and Muslims, and established elite Muslim chiefs who would enforce Muteesa’s Islamization project, it met with resistance from Buganda’s people and the Christian parties who entered Buganda in the last part of Muteesa’s reign. The subsequent killing of Muslims and non-Muslims brought about a phase of violence, which demonstrated the limits of Muteesa’s use of Islamization as a political strategy. The forces that hindered him set the stage for a political battle for the control of power in Buganda. The onset of religious competition for the control of political power constructed religion as a new form of social-political identity in Uganda.

The chapter is organized into three sections. The first describes the social-cultural-political context of Buganda before its encounter with Islam and the emergence of political power in pre-colonial Buganda to provide a background to the context within which Islam emerged.