This chapter focuses on the post-colonial articulation of the Muslim question, by which I mean the Muslims’ relationship to the post-colonial state. It argues that the status of Islam and Muslims was related to another emerging conundrum after independence, which had to do with the status of the diverse social identities after the end of colonialism. What I refer to as the nationality question emerged when post-colonial leaders such as Milton Obote envisioned a new type of state project divorced from the social classifications of the colonial era. In trying to stamp out tribalism and ethnic parochialism, Obote imagined that citizenship would be based on Ugandan identity whereby other markers such as tribe and ethnicity would have minimal influence over the political trajectory of the state. The chapter shows that the role of Islam and Muslims under Obote’s government became limited to maintaining a balance between Obote’s national quests and the recalcitrant Buganda establishment. As the legacy of colonial animation of difference (indirect rule) reinforced the dominance of particular ethnic groups, especially the Baganda, whose demand for self-government (federation/secession) obstructed his attempt to construct the national political project, for various reasons Obote appealed to the Muslims as a way to surmount the Buganda obstacle.

First, the Islamic identity, like Catholicism, transcended race and nationality. Unlike the Catholics however, the Muslims had no political party and were not a threat to the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC). Obote intended to deploy the Muslims as an alternative centre of power to challenge the recalcitrance of the Mengo establishment and thus provide legitimacy to his government within Buganda. This would, in turn, confirm his legitimacy over the whole country; whoever governed Buganda reigned over Uganda. (His choice of Muslim Ganda leaders revealed the importance of urban Buganda, from which power radiated to the rural.).

Second, Obote perceived Muslims as important allies in a symbiotic relationship. Since the legacy of colonial governance of Islam and Muslims had circumscribed and relegated Islamic practices to the private domain, delimiting their political field pushed their politics to masjids and other micro sites. The Muslims thus had nothing to lose and much to gain from escaping historical political oblivion.