Kaweesi: Bicycle repairer who defied odds to become kadhi

Retired kadhi of Rakai and Kyotera districts, Sheikh Swaibu Kaweesi passes as a good example of a man who derives satisfaction from a long service to his Creator and to all the people that he has given spiritual direction since he was appointed a mwalimu of Kammengo Mosque, Lwanda, Sub-county, Rakai District, in 1959.

Now aged, 82, Sheikh Kaweesi still serves his community as the chairperson of Lwanda A Village in Lwanda Trading Centre, Rakai District. When Sunday Monitor paid him a visit recently, he was perusing some documents in preparation for the village executive committee meeting that was due to take place that afternoon.

He was born on June 28, 1938 at Kiyovu Village, Lwanda Sub-county to Zubair Bwayise and Hanifa Nakirijja.  He was the third born in a family of four children, three of whom were girls. “Our last born is dead, but my two elder sisters are still alive,” he discloses.

His father died in 1942 when he was only four years old and he remembers very little about him. However, he keeps fond memories of his mother whom he describes as hard working, loving and determined to give the best care that she could provide to her children. “When she heard about a new school that had been opened at Kammengo near Lwanda Trading Centre in 1946, she took me there and I was one of the first eight pupils that were enroled in Primary One at Kammengo Primary School,” the cleric reminisces. 

A resident at Kammengo Village, Mr Hausi Musigire, had volunteered to open a school on his own land to teach Islamic religion to small children and to give them some literacy skills. However, due to disputes that little Kaweesi never clearly understood, the school was burnt down after one year.   

It took the effort and reconciliation skills of the sub-county chief of the day, Mr Paulo Bulimwaka, to resolve the conflicts and the school was relocated to the place where today stands Kammengo Technical Institute, which was public land. It was named Kammengo Muslim Primary School and in 1948, it became government-aided. Sheikh Kaweesi recalls that even back then, school education was generally rather costly and not all parents were able to send their children to school.

Upon completing Primary Four, his mother, due to financial constraints, told him that she could not afford his school fees since she also had his sisters to provide for. “Our mother was a devout Muslim and she told me it would be better for me to go for advanced training in Islam,” he narrates. 

“So she put me under the tutorship of Sheikh Balaka Ssali of Nakasoga Village in Nabigasa Sub-county, in whose residence I lived from 1950 to 1953, the year Sir Edward Mutesa II was exiled.” 
Under Sheikh Ssali, the young Kaweesi learned Arabic, studied the Koran, Islamic law, and became fairly well grounded in the Holy Scriptures.
 
The bicycle repairman
After completing his religious training, his mother apprenticed him to a well-established bicycle mechanic in Lwanda Trading Centre, Mr Hakaya Kavuma, to become a bicycle repairer. He soon mastered the trade and after two years he was able to establish his own bicycle repair workshop. 

In 1956, Sheikh Kaweesi married his first wife. “I later diversified my source of income and opened up a grocery shop and became a tailor as well. But I am still an accomplished bicycle repairer, only that due to old age now I cannot squat down for a long time to do the work. However, even today, some people still bring to me pressure lamps and pressure stoves for repairs.”

As a young mechanic and shop owner Sheikh Kaweesi soon became recognised by his fellow Muslims as a keen Mosque goer, which led the sub-county Muslim leader, Sheikh Abdul Tamuzadde to appoint him a Mwalimu and Imam (teacher and leader of prayers) at Kammengo Mosque in 1959. 
“As soon as I took up that responsibility, I was fortunate to meet Sheikh Muhammad Wamala, who arrived from Kampala to become a resident of Kammengo Village,” Sheikh Kaweesi says. “He was retired and very willing to offer me guidance and more knowledge in Islam. I learnt so much from him.”

In 1962, the Mufti of Uganda Swaibu Ssemakula appointed him Sheikh of Kammengo Mosque, a position he held until 1972 when Uganda Muslim Supreme Council promoted him to sub-county sheikh, which meant that he superintended over all the six mosques in Lwanda Sub-county. “This meant that I was to preside over prayers at all big functions and religious ceremonies, go all over the sub-county monitoring and supervising Islamic development programmes like construction of schools and mosques and emphasising to fellow Muslims the importance of taking children to school, especially the girls.” 

In 1980, he was appointed county sheikh and charged with supervising all the sheikhs and mosques in Kooki County.
On June 14, 1991, the then  Mufti of Uganda, Ibrahim Saad Luwemba, appointed Sheikh Kaweesi  the  district kadhi of Rakai and Lyantonde. Later, Lyantonde was given its own district kadhi and Sheikh Kaweesi remained in charge of only Rakai District. However, in 2017, Rakai itself was split into two districts, Kyotera and Rakai but Sheikh Kaweesi continued as district kadhi for the two districts until December 31, 2019 when he retired.

Was he paid a salary for his services throughout his career as a religious leader? “No, I was never paid,” he replies. “And even when I became sheikh and district kadhi I was not paid a salary. But I am not complaining at all because I was serving my Creator who is the best payer.”

Although Sheikh Kaweesi devoted much of his life to preaching the Koran, he always reserved enough time to attend to his personal businesses as a shop owner and farmer. He has a house in Lwanda Trading Centre where he is also village chairperson and he has another house at Kyakizige- Kiwaguzi in Lwanda Sub-county where he has a 20-acre farm of coffee and bananas. 

“The life of a sheikh is a life of sacrifice,” he says. “We do collect zakat [offertory] and some other offerings, but that money is not enough to pay a regular salary to a sheikh or a mwalimu, especially when it is remembered that only a few people pay their mosque dues. Sometimes, it is only possible to refund the sheikh’s transport and other such expenses. Yet other times it becomes really difficult. We must serve even in underprivileged communities that are not expected to make big offerings,” he says.

The new Kyotera/Rakai District Kadhi, Sheikh Amir Ssensalire, has a lot of praise for Sheikh Kaweesi whom he describes as humble and hard working. 

“When Sheikh Kaweesi became district kadhi we had a very small mosque, but due to his unique leadership, we now have a new and much larger mosque,” Sheikh Ssensalire says. “We also have rental business premises in Kyotera Town constructed under his leadership. They are a source of money to settle some financial issues like paying electricity bills and sustaining the district kadhi office.  We had no official car for the district kadhi, but we now have one. We will always remember his great service. 

Mr Hassan Kavuma, the chairperson of Kyotera Uganda Muslim Supreme Council, says the Muslim community in the area is deeply indebted to Sheikh Kaweesi for his dedicated service.

“He expanded Kyotera Central Primary School and the Uganda Muslim Supreme Council dispensary,” he says.  
Sheikh Abubaker Kalule, a deputy imam  at Kyotera District Main Mosque, says:  “His [Sheikh Kaweesi] trick was to welcome all children regardless of their faiths to the school. He also invited priests from the Catholic Church and the Church of Uganda to go to the school and conduct prayers for the children of those faiths. His other achievement is that he initiated the ongoing construction of the district kadhi’s office premises.  However, even if he retired at the end of 2019 we are yet to hold the official hand-over and farewell ceremony which we hope will take place in the not so distant future.”