The Sufi orders in Somalia: Qadiriyya, Ahmadiyya and Salihiyya

What a Sufi order is

A Sufi order (Arabic tariqa, Somali tariiqo, "path") is a brotherhood of Muslims who follow a chain of teachers back to a founding saint. Members meet for dhikr, the chanting of God's names and religious poems, sometimes with rhythmic movement. In Somalia, members were called daraawiish (dervishes) and their leaders sheekh (Library of Congress, Somalia: A Country Study, 1992).

Sufi orders appeared in Somali towns in the 1400s and "rapidly became a revitalizing force". The Library of Congress study adds that "most Somalis were nominal members of Sufi orders but few underwent the rigors of devotion to the religious life" (same source). A man usually joined his father's order, so lineages were often linked to one order.

The three main orders

Qadiriyya

The oldest Sufi order in Islam, founded in Baghdad by Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (died 1166). It reached Harar in the 1400s and spread among Somalis and Oromo in the 1700s, often under Somali sheikhs (Library of Congress, 1992). One account says Sharif Abu Bakr al-Aydarus of Aden brought it into the Horn in 1503 (Islam in Somalia, Wikipedia, citing Mohamed 1977).

It later split into two Somali branches:

• The Zayla'iyya, after Sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Zayla'i, who taught at Qolonqol and died in 1882 or 1883 (Library of Congress, 1992). See Sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Zayla'i.
• The Uwaysiyya, after Sheikh Uways al-Barawi (1847 to 1909) of Barawa. He studied in Baghdad around 1870, returned in 1883, wrote devotional poetry and tried to write Somali hymns in Arabic letters with his own spelling system (Library of Congress, 1992; Uways al-Barawi, Wikipedia, citing Samatar 1992). He founded the farming village of Biyooley. See Sheikh Uways al-Barawi.

Other Qadiri teachers include Sheikh Sufi (Abd al-Rahman bin Abdullah al-Shashi, 1829 to 1904) of Mogadishu, whose tomb draws yearly visitors (Shaykh Sufi, Wikipedia). See Sheikh Sufi.

Ahmadiyya (Idrisiyya)

Founded by Ahmad ibn Idris al-Fasi (1760 to 1837) of Mecca. It was brought to Somalia by Sheikh Cali Maye Durogba of Merca, a poet who joined the order on pilgrimage. His tomb became a place of pilgrimage. The Library of Congress study calls it the smallest of the three, with "few ritual requirements beyond some simple prayers and hymns" (Library of Congress, 1992).

Salihiyya

A dispute over the Ahmadiyya's leadership among its Arab founders led Muhammad ibn Salih to found the Salihiyya in 1887. It spread first among the Somalis of the Ogaden (Library of Congress, 1992; Salihiyya, Wikipedia, citing Andrzejewski 1994).

• Sheikh Maxamed Guuleed (died 1918) founded Salihiyya villages among the Shidle on the middle Shabelle, then among the Ajuran (Library of Congress, 1992).
• Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan was the best-known Salihiyya figure. He led the Dervish resistance against British, Italian and Ethiopian rule from 1899 to 1920. See the Dervish movement and Sayid Maxamed Cabdulle Xasan.
• Sheikh Xasan Barsane led resistance in the Shabelle valley and died in an Italian prison. See Sheikh Hassan Barsane.

The Salihiyya rejected asking dead saints to intercede with God (tawassul), which the Qadiriyya accepted. The anthropologist I. M. Lewis describes this as the main teaching dispute between the two (Salihiyya, Wikipedia, citing Lewis, Saints and Somalis, 1998, p. 38).

A smaller order, the Rifa'iyya, an offshoot of the Qadiriyya, was found mainly among Arab families in Mogadishu (Library of Congress, 1992).

The rivalry of the 1900s

Sheikh Uways and Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan led rival orders and attacked each other in Arabic poems. Uways accused the Salihiyya of allowing the killing of scholars and of refusing to honour saints such as al-Jilani (Uways al-Barawi, Wikipedia, citing Abdullahi, The Islamic Movement in Somalia, 2015, p. 73). Uways was killed in 1909, and his tomb at Biyooley is a place of pilgrimage. Castagno's Historical Dictionary of Somalia says he was killed by Dervishes (Castagno, 1975, via the Internet Archive). The linguist Mauro Tosco gives the date as 19 April 1909 and writes that he and all but one of his disciples were killed "by the rival clan of the Jidle" (Tosco, "Somali writings", Afrikanistik-Aegyptologie-Online, 2010).

The jamaaco: farming villages of the orders

Sheikhs asked lineage elders for land to build a mosque and a village. The land was usually given freely, often between two clans or by a river, and counted as "given to God". The village worked as a buffer between rivals. In 1819 Sheikh Ibraahim Xasan Jebro founded the first such village on the Jubba river, at Baardheere (Library of Congress, 1992).

In the 1950s there were more than 90 jamaaco in the south with about 35,000 members, mostly in Bakool, Gedo, Bay and along the middle and lower Shabelle (same source). The study says jamaaco members farmed together and were the only farmers who cleared brush around fields to cut tsetse fly breeding.

Saints and blessing

Leaders of orders were believed to carry baraka, a blessing from God that could remain at their tomb after death. Followers visit the tombs, especially on the anniversaries of the saint's birth and death (Library of Congress, 1992). See saints, shrines and siyaaro.

The orders since 1991

From the 1970s, Salafi teaching spread and criticised tomb visits and some Sufi practices. See Islamic movements since 1950. In 2008 and 2009 al-Shabaab destroyed Sufi tombs and killed Sufi clerics. A Sufi body formed in 1991, Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a, then took up arms against al-Shabaab in central Somalia (Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a, Wikipedia, citing the Mapping Militants Project; BBC, "Somali rage at grave desecration", 2009). See Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a.

Read further

• B. G. Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods in Nineteenth-Century Africa (Cambridge University Press, 1976).
• Said S. Samatar (ed.), In the Shadow of Conquest: Islam in Colonial Northeast Africa (Red Sea Press, 1992).
• Scott S. Reese, Renewers of the Age: Holy Men and Social Discourse in Colonial Benaadir (Brill, 2008).
• I. M. Lewis, Saints and Somalis: Popular Islam in a Clan-Based Society (Red Sea Press, 1998).