Reception of the first aliens

1840–1860

Apollo Kagwa and Henry Wright Duta Kitakule, “How religion came to Uganda”

During the reign of Suna (the king who preceded Mutesa) he was visited by some Arabs: Medi Abraham (trader from Zamzibar). Kyera, Amulain, Mina, Katukula Mungazik and ZIgeya Mubulusi. Of these, he liked Medi Abraham best, and gave him many presents such as ivory, women and slaves. Later on, when Medi Abraham saw Suna killing people with little thought, he told him there was a God who created them and from this God he had obtained his kingdom as well as the people he governed and he himself was created by him.

This Suna did not believe, for he said he knew his Lubare gods and they had given him his kindgom, but Medi Abraham repeated his words every time he was called to see him.

Sometime afterwards, Suna asked Medi, “Is there a God greater than I?” and Medi told him there is a God who will raise up all who believe in him and they will go to paradise.

When Suna understood this, he agreed that Medi should read the Koran only now and then and in this fashion he got through the first four chapters of the Holy Book.

When he had got hold of these, more or less by word of mouth, Medi returned to the coast and did not come again to Uganda and soon after this Suna died and Mutesa succeeded him and made his capital at Banda, halfway between Mengo and Ngogwe. He also encouraged Arabs to visit him. Katukula Hali and his friends Hamul Musirimu and Makwega. Mutesa made friends of these and gave them many things just as his father Suna did before him.

King Mutesa asked Katukula what it was his “father used to talk to them about when they visited him”. and he told him: “We used to tell him about God, the King of Kings and that he will raise people from the dead”.

King Mutesa asked him, “Are you not lying? Is there a resurrection from the dead?” They told him that indeed there was and that those who learned the words of God when they die, would rise again.

So KIng Mutesa said to Katukula, “Well then, come and teach me to read” and brought a Swahili called Makwega who taught the king every day, and he learned Mohammedianism very quickly. Some others learned with him whose names are Musini Sabakaki and Basuke Sahawali of Kigalagala, who is now Mutola, and Myakonyi Omumuyuka of Myukaya, and later Kauta Mukasa, who was Katikiro and Majabi Omutabuza and Tebukoya and Sembuzi and Wakibi.

These were first taught but afterward, the converts were slow in coming forward.

When the King went from the capital, Banda, to Nakawa, he persevered with his reading and fasted during the first fast, and he then ordered all his subjects to read Mohammedanism. He also learned to write in Arabic: the Arab Wamisi brought the Mohammedan Kibali who taught the king.

Then Mutesa came from Nakawa to Nabulagala, and thence to Rubaga where he stayed for sometime. He again ordered his people to read but he saw they were not giving their minds to it. SO he said to his head district chiefs, “I want to know if people are learning to believe in Islam well." His chiefstold him they were, “Well",” he said, “if they are, how do they salute each other as Mohammedans?” They replied, “Some salute thus - Salamaleku dekimu musalamu - others, Sibwakede bwatulise”.

He saw they had not learned to salute and found that those who had begun to really learn were very few indeed, and he gave orders that every man who had not learned was to learn the salutation, Salamu alekumu, alekumu salaamu or SHabuluheri. And in anger, the king gave orders that everyone refusing to learn was to be seized.

Many who would not learn were then seized, called infedels and killed.

Then every married man fixed up a stone in his yard to pray at and every chief built a mosque and many people became readers but were not circumcised all the chiefs learned that faith.

from the translation by C. W. Hattersley in

Uganda Notes, May 1902, p. 35