Islam in Somalia: faith, the Sufi orders and religion in law

Who believes what

More than 99 percent of Somalis are Sunni Muslims, according to the federal religious affairs ministry. Other faiths together are under 1 percent, including a Christian community of about 1,000 (US State Department, International Religious Freedom Report 2023, via ecoi.net).

Most Somalis follow the Shafi'i school of Islamic law and Ash'ari theology, a pattern that held for generations. In recent decades Salafi teaching has also grown (Religion in Somalia, Wikipedia, backup).

How Islam arrived

Islam reached the Somali coast early, carried by Arab and Persian traders between the 7th and 10th centuries (Religion in Somalia, Wikipedia). Zeila on the Gulf of Aden and Mogadishu on the Indian Ocean became centres of Muslim trade and learning.

In Mogadishu, the Fakhr al-Din Mosque carries an inscription dating it to 1269, naming Sultan Fakhr al-Din. Its marble mihrab came from India (Archnet: Masjid Fakhr al-Din; Wikipedia). The Jama'a Xamar Weyne mosque may be older, dated by some to 1238 (List of mosques in Somalia, Wikipedia).

The Sufi orders (tariiqo)

For centuries, Somali Islam was taught through Sufi brotherhoods. Each had its own teachers, settlements and poems of praise.

• Qadiriyya: the oldest and most widespread order in Somalia, named after Sheikh Abdul Qadir al-Jilani of Baghdad. The Somali historian Abdurahman Baadiyow describes its great sheikhs in Banadir (Baadiyow, "The prominent Sheikhs of the Qadiriyya order in Banadir", WardheerNews).
• Ahmadiyya: strong in the south. Its followers Sheikh Cabdi Abiikar and Sheikh Xasan Barsane fought Italian rule and died in prison (Religion in Somalia, Wikipedia).
• Salihiyya: a reform order founded in Sudan, spread in the north by Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan. It was strongly anti-colonial (Salihiyya, Wikipedia). See the Sayyid and the Dervish state.

Sheikh Uways is credited with founding the farming settlement of Beled al-Amin, where followers worked the land and studied together (Uways al-Barawi, Wikipedia). The anthropologist I. M. Lewis studied such communities in Saints and Somalis: Popular Islam in a Clan-Based Society (Red Sea Press, 1998).

Great scholars

Sheikh Uways al-Barawi (1847–1909). A scholar from Barawa who led a Qadiriyya branch, the Uwaysiyya, that spread across East Africa. He wrote religious poems in Somali using Arabic letters. He died at Biyoole in 1909 (Uways al-Barawi, Wikipedia, citing Bradford Martin 1993).

Faith in the law

The Provisional Constitution of 2012 says: "Islam is the religion of the State." No law may conflict with "the general principles of Shari'ah" (Constitution of Somalia, Article 2). It protects the right to practise religion but bans spreading any religion other than Islam (US State Department, via ecoi.net).

In daily justice, most areas use three systems side by side: customary law (xeer), sharia and the penal code. Elders often look to local xeer before sharia (same report). See xeer, Somali customary law.

The Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs arranges Hajj travel for Somali pilgrims and regulates religious teaching (same report).

Faith in daily life

Most Somali children begin at the Qur'an school (dugsi or malcaamad). They write verses on a flat wooden board (loox) with a stick pen, and learn the spelling of the Qur'an through Somali (Geeska, the Somali Qur'an school; Traditional education in Somalia, Wikipedia). The Ministry of Endowments has started a national count of Qur'an schools (Eastleigh Voice).

Why it matters

Islam is the faith almost every Somali shares. For centuries scholars and Sufi teachers moved between clans and regions, teaching all. Shared faith has long been one of the bonds of the whole nation.