Somalia Sufi forces organize to fight the ‘existential threat’ of Shabaab Wahhabis.
Somalia’s main Sufi movement, Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa, on Thursday wrapped up an unprecedented conference in Nairobi to strategize its response to the rise and radicalization of the Shabaab group.
Dozens of the usually quiet religious movement’s leaders have in recent days converged on Nairobi from Somalia and from Western exile to close ranks against what they see as an existential threat.
“The Shabaab are misguided people who have misunderstood the true values of Islam,” overall chairman Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Muhieddin told AFP before leaving Kenya Thursday.
Sufism is dominant in clannish Somalia, where Muslim saints are often also clan founders, but its leading clerics have voiced concern that hardline Islamist groups such as the Al Qaeda-inspired Shabaab were slowly eradicating it.
It emphasizes the mystical dimension of Islam and includes practices considered as idolatry by the followers of the Wahhabi sect adopted by the Shabaab.
Willow 10:02 am on November 5, 2009 Permalink |
Which is great and all, but I can’t help observing that Somalia was not renowned for its treatment of women *before* the Shabab took over either. (All the articles posted about Somalia lately have focused on the Shabab’s outrageous/lewd demands on women’s dress.) Assuming this article is correct in saying most Somalis are Sufi, then there were Sufis practicing extreme forms of FGM and marrying off prepubescent girls/preventing girls from being educated long before the Shabab came along.
Again, ontological differences, not practical ones. The first man interviewed in this article sounds much more concerned about the desecration of shrines than about social issues.
AA 1:38 pm on November 5, 2009 Permalink |
Something to think about when group calling itself Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa are Sufis!