Africa-Press – Uganda. Juma prayers at Uganda Muslim Supreme Council (UMSC) main Abubakar mosque in Mbarara City were on Friday held under tight security following the visit by the Acting Mufti Sheikh Abdallah Ssemambo.
Before prayers, Sheikh Ssemambo was welcomed by a convoy of vehicles and motorcycles from Biharwe town which is about 15 kilometers from Mbarara city on the Masaka-Mbarara road.
Unlike the usual prayers to enter the mosque, everyone had to be checked by police who manned the two entrances.
At around 12:30 pm, Sheikh Ssemambo was ushered in by a group of enthusiastic Muslims chanting Allah Akbar.
Moments later however a fracas erupted inside the mosque on who should lead prayers but was later settled after it was agreed that in that area, Imam Sheikh Adam Abbasi would lead prayers.
In his remarks after prayers, Sheikh Semambo hailed President Museveni for putting a brake on the sale of Muslim property over Shs 19 billion debt.
“We thank the President for stopping the sale of our property. It is very weird and shameful for us to sell our properties, including places of worship. As Muslims, we need to unite and focus. These incidents happen because people fight each other and have differences,” he said.
He said it was high time that Muslims looked at working together for the development, and social-economic transformation of communities especially in areas of health and education.
“For a while, we wasted our time fighting, but now we’ve united and worked for development. Approximately every 20 miles Catholics have a development project. What happened to us?” he wondered.
Sheikh Ssemambo said they were in Mbarara upon invitation by the Muslim community to among others get a briefing on the new changes in the Muslim leadership.
In his preaching, Sheikh Abbasi blamed the educated Muslims who should have been offering guidance for being selfish and creating divisions among the Muslim community.
“Some of the people to blame are the educated. Instead of offering guidance, they are selfish, working for recognition and dividing Muslims. Islam should be a religion of good example in families, development, and leadership but we have run short of this,” Sheikh Abbassi said.
Rwizi region police spokesperson Mr Samson Kasasira said their deployment was a preventive measure after anticipating that there could be chaos.
“Our deployment was a preventative measure. We anticipated there could be chaos due to the Acting Mufti’s visit from Kampala to Mbarara. We had to make sure nothing went wrong,” he said.
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