Mubaje hails late Amir Ssekikubo, one of the first muslim converts

Sheikh Shaban Ramadhan Mubaje, the Mufti of Uganda has praised the late Amir Ssekikubo, one of the earliest muslim converts in Buganda Kingdom.

The late Ssekikubo was a royal servant in the Palace of Kabaka (King) Mutesa 1 then at Lubaga Hill before he gave it out to Roman Catholic faithful in his Kingdom.

Although Ssekikubo lived his entire life as a Muslim, he features prominently in the history of the Catholic Church in Uganda.

Ssekikubo was in charge of the highway from the landing site on the shores of Lake Victoria where foreigners heading to the palace would dock.

In 1879, when the first white Catholic missionaries arrived in the Kingdom, it was Ssekikubo who led them to meet Kabaka Mutesa I.

Due to security reasons, the Kabaka ordered Ssekikubo to host the missionaries in his homestead present-day Kitebi Zone in Lubaga division in Kampala for a month as he scrutinised them to make sure they didn’t pose any threat to the Kingdom.

The missionaries didn’t forget the hospitality of their native muslim host and wrote about him in their memoirs. In the early 1970s, Pope Paul VI instructed the Late Cardinal Emanuel Nsubuga, the former Archbishop of Kampala to search for Ssekikubo’s family.

The search led to his son and grand children including Hajjat Nusura Namutebi, a renowned scout and veteran UMSC Volunteer.

The family offered land that was left behind by the late Amir Ssekikubo as a historical site where he hosted three white men and later the Catholic Church.

The late Cardinal Nsubuga requested the family to donate another piece of land for the construction of a mosque in honour of their father, which the family did.

Cardinal Nsubuga accepted to finance the construction of the two houses of worship standing side by side with Ssekikubo’s main house standing in the middle to date.

Every year on February 21st both sides organise memorial prayers to mark that historical event.

While presiding over this year’s memorial prayers, Mubaje explained that "What I have seen here is the spirit of the Inter-religious Council, which we initiated a couple of years ago purposely to ease hostilities between different faith groups so that we examine such values that we share as humans.”

He advised muslims to always use good language to invite people to Islam.