Islamic movements in Somalia since 1950: Salafis, Islah, the courts and the Sufis

In short

For centuries Somali Islam was taught through the Sufi orders and local scholars. From the 1950s new movements arrived that wanted a stricter or more political Islam. This page lists each, when it began and what the sources say it did. Armed groups that came out of these networks have their own pages, linked below.

1950s and 1960s: Cairo and the Gulf

Many Somalis studied in Cairo in the 1950s and 1960s. The Library of Congress study says Egyptian ideas of "Islamic socialism" under Gamal Abdel Nasser "appealed to a number of Somalis" (Library of Congress, Somalia: A Country Study, 1992). Others studied in Saudi Arabia and brought back Salafi teaching, which rejects tomb visits and the intercession of saints that the Sufi orders practised (Abdurahman M. Abdullahi (Baadiyow), The Islamic Movement in Somalia, PhD thesis, McGill University, 2011).

The 1961 constitution declared Somalia an Islamic state while guaranteeing freedom of religion (Library of Congress, 1992). The Somali historian and Islah leader Baadiyow, whose 2011 McGill thesis is the main study of these movements, divides their history into phases from 1950 to 2000 (McGill eScholarship).

Late 1960s: the first Salafi groups

Two Salafi organisations formed in the late 1960s (Mapping Militants Project, Stanford, "Al Ittihad Al Islamiya", 2019):

• Wahdat al-Shabaab al-Islami (Union of Islamic Youth), mainly in the north, led by Sheikh Cali Warsame.
• al-Jamaaca al-Islaamiya (the Islamic Group), mainly in the south.

Their founders aimed "to combat Western influence and support the creation of an Islamic state in the Horn of Africa" (same source).

1969 to 1991: under military rule

After the 1969 coup, the government arrested religious leaders who protested its "scientific socialism" (Library of Congress, 1992). In January 1975 it executed ten scholars who opposed the new Family Law. See the 1975 family law and the ten scholars.

• 1978: Islah. The Islah movement (Xarakada Islaax) was founded in 1978 as Somalia's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. A Chatham House summary says it "adopted a modern and moderate approach to Islam, promoting peaceful Islamic reforms during the period of dictatorial rule" (Chatham House, "Islamism and Politics in Somalia", meeting summary, 12 June 2012). Baadiyow, a senior Islah figure, was one of the founders of Mogadishu University in 1997 (Abdurahman Abdullahi Baadiyow, Wikipedia).
• About 1984: al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (AIAI). The two Salafi groups merged; Sheikh Cali Warsame became leader. Some sources give 1983. AIAI did not announce itself publicly until after 1991 (Mapping Militants Project). See al-Itihaad al-Islamiya.
• Tablighi Jamaat, a South Asian preaching movement, also spread, and with it a small number of Somalis now follow the Hanafi school instead of the Shafi'i (Islam in Somalia, Wikipedia).

According to the scholar Afyare Elmi, these groups grew as the state weakened but did not take up arms against the government before it fell (Islam in Somalia, Wikipedia, citing Elmi, Understanding the Somalia Conflagration, 2010, pp. 58–59). In 1990, about 60 prominent Somalis, writing as "Islamic Call", published a manifesto asking Siad Barre to step down (same article, citing Massoud 2021).

1991 to 2006: courts, charities and armed wings

• Sharia courts. Within weeks of the state's fall in January 1991, scholars set up local Sharia courts to stop clan revenge killings and restore order (Islam in Somalia, Wikipedia, citing Elmi 2010, p. 63). By 2000, eleven courts in Mogadishu had joined as the Islamic Courts Council (same article). See the Islamic Courts Union, 2006.
• AIAI's armed years. AIAI's first recorded attack was in Bosaso in January 1992; it then fought alongside the ONLF across the Ethiopian border. Ethiopia attacked its bases in 1996, and on 4 January 1997 it announced it would become a political party. Many former members moved into health, education and business (Mapping Militants Project; Islam in Somalia, Wikipedia, citing Elmi 2010).
• Islah took part in the 2000 Arta peace conference that formed the Transitional National Government (Chatham House, 2012).
• Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a, a body of Sufi scholars, formed in 1991 to oppose the Salafi groups (Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a, Wikipedia).

2006 to today

• The Islamic Courts Union held Mogadishu and much of the south in the second half of 2006 until Ethiopian forces entered in December (Islamic Courts Union, Wikipedia). See the Islamic Courts Union.
• Al-Shabaab grew out of the courts' armed wing, in which former AIAI commanders such as Hassan Dahir Aweys held leading roles (Mapping Militants Project). From 2008 it destroyed Sufi tombs and killed Sufi clerics; Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a then took up arms against it (Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a, Wikipedia, citing the Mapping Militants Project). See al-Shabaab, Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a, Hizbul Islam and Islamic State in Somalia.
• In government. The 2012 constitution says all power belongs first to God, makes Islam the state religion and bases the constitution on the Qur'an and Sunna. These clauses were approved unanimously by the drafting delegates (Islam in Somalia, Wikipedia, citing Massoud 2021, p. 202).

Where these movements meet daily life

The US State Department notes that externally funded madrasas give cheap basic education across the country and "many taught Salafist ideology" (US State Department, International Religious Freedom Report 2023, via ecoi.net). See Qur'an schools and religious learning.

Read further

• Abdurahman M. Abdullahi (Baadiyow), The Islamic Movement in Somalia: A Study of the Islah Movement, 1950–2000 (Adonis & Abbey, 2015) (publisher).
• Afyare Abdi Elmi, Understanding the Somalia Conflagration: Identity, Political Islam and Peacebuilding (Pluto, 2010).
• Mark Fathi Massoud, Shari'a, Inshallah: Finding God in Somali Legal Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
• The Sufi orders in Somalia.