Salihiyya

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Salihiyya is an Islamic order ( Tariqa ) within Sufism , which is particularly widespread in Somalia and the neighboring Ethiopian region of Ogaden . Founder is from the Sudan native Sheikh Sayyid Muhammad Salih (1854-1919).

Emergence

In the 17th century the first Sufi sheiks came of the 13th century in the Maghreb founded Schadhiliyya - Order on Egypt to Sudan. As an organization, this order appeared from the 19th century in Sudan under the influence of the Sufi scholar Ahmad ibn Idris al-Fasi (1760-1837). Ibn Idris, from Morocco, had never been to Sudan and spent most of his time in Mecca and southern Arabia. He preferred and taught in Mecca, without formally establishing his own brotherhood, the rules of the usual shadhiliyya. Nevertheless, some of his students began their own careers in Mecca and first spread his teachings as Idrisiyya. The most influential students Ibn Idris included Muhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi (1787-1859), who in Cyrenaica the Sanussiya - founded Order, Muhammad al-Majdhub as-Sughayir (1796-1833), the missionary from 1815 to the east of Sudan and there founded the influential Khatmiyya brotherhood and the third Ibrahim al-Raschid (1813–1874), who was with Ibn Idris when he died. Al-Raschid initially followed al-Sanusi, separating from him in order to form his own tariqa, the Raschidiyya, in competition with the Khatmiyya in his home country Sudan . Al-Rashid's popularity in Mecca, especially among wealthy Indian pilgrims, led him to amass a considerable fortune which he sent to his family in the Shayqiyya region of northern Sudan. After his death the Raschidiyya was split again, several branches of the brotherhood emerged outside of Sudan, the most famous of which was the Salihiyya in Somalia.

distribution

Muhammad Salih, (also: al-Amin w. Muhammad Salih b. Al-Tiweym) was born in al-Kurru , in the religious and political sphere of influence of the Nubian Shayqiyya, which stretched north of the 4th cataract , from the area around al-Kurru in the west to another focus further east around Shendi . He studied Maliki law with his father Muhammad (Wad al-Sughayr) in his homeland , went to his uncle al-Raschid in Mecca and, when the teacher died in 1874, "officially" succeeded him. Around 1887 he established a separate branch of this order under the name Salihiyya in the tradition of Ibn Idrisis. His teaching spread from Mecca; with pilgrims she reached India and East Africa. The Salihiyya doctrine was particularly successful along the Somali coast, where it was spread by influential Somali people who had returned from the pilgrimage . Muhammad Salih went back to Sudan and taught some Shayqiyya people in the area south of Shendi. There he founded a mosque and a spiritual center (Chalwa) in the village of Salawa-Tabqa, where he later died . Like al-Rashid, Muhammad Salih also combined religion with trade, from which, like the arable land cultivated by his tariqa, he obtained surplus, which he passed on to his family.

The largest Sufi community in Somalia is the Qadiriyya - brotherhood, which spread in some settlements in East Africa from the 1820s and was the driving force in Somalia from the end of the 19th century with Sheikh Uways ibn Muhammad al-Barawi (1847-1909) . The fiercest competition was the Salihiyya; Uways and some of his followers were murdered in 1909 by members of the Salihiyya in southern Somalia, the center of their Qadiriyya movement. One of the Somali people who spread the Salihiyya doctrine among their clans was Muhammad Qulid al-Rashidi, who won many followers and was economically successful by establishing some agricultural settlements. Sheikh Muhammad Gulayd († 1918), a former slave, was the first to introduce the Salihiyya to the area of Jawhar north of Mogadishu. In addition, some smaller groups emerged such as the Dandarawiyya and the Rifaiyya, which are popular as offshoots of the Qadiriyya among the Arab inhabitants of Mogadishu .

The most famous Salihiyya preacher in Somalia was Mohammed Abdullah Hassan (1864–1920), a Somali from the north ( Somaliland ), who spent a year and a half in Mecca in 1894 and was initiated into the order by Muhammad Salih because Salih was asked by his fellow believers was that he had to send a local to propagate his tariqa in Somalia. Mohammed Abdullah Hassan was also influenced in Mecca by the extremely conservative reform ideas of the Wahhabis .

When he returned home, he was so successful that he declared himself the leader ( Khalifa ) of the Salihiyya in Somalia. Like his rival Uways, he wrote poetry in Somali . Upon his arrival in Somalia, the puritan Abdullah Hassan, who was later called "Mad Mullah" by the British because of his fanaticism, came into conflict with the more moderate Uways because he preached against the consumption of tobacco, Kath and against the veneration of saints. With his faithful he formed an armed force and from 1899 led a 20-year jihad against all infidels. This meant the British and Italians present in the country and the Christian Amhars in the Ogaden. He wanted to spread his Islam there and in 1900 he was the first to attack the Ethiopian garrison Jijiga because of a provocation , but was repulsed in battles that were costly for both sides. Until the year of his death in 1920, Abdullah Hassan's Darawiish (dervish) army offered the fiercest resistance to the British colonial presence in Somalia and the Ogaden.

The death of the Qadiriyya leader Uways came as a shock to the country and was venerated as a martyr by many Somalis outside the Brotherhood. The religious dispute between Qadiriyya and Salihiyya in Somalia had also intensified during the time of Abdullah Hassan because the Qadiriyya supporters worked together with Christian Europeans in their areas. In addition, the Qadiriyya stood for a long-established mystical form of Islam that included ecstasy and popular belief, while the Salihiyya waged holy war not only against the Christians but also against their Muslim allies and, at least under Abdullah Hassan, made every concession to them rejected cultural tradition. However, Mad Mullah did not enjoy the full support of all Salihiyya and was not recognized by the leadership in Mecca in his day.

present

By contrast, Abdallah Hassan is revered as the second national hero after Mohammed Gran by almost all Somali, regardless of their membership of the Salihiyya order . His poems are still passed on among the people today. Like the other brotherhoods, after the time of the fanatical Abdallah Hassan (especially in Northern Somalia and the Ogaden), the Salihiyya are widespread wherever religious duties may be supplemented by traditions. This happens in the country and with nomads who travel in small groups, often with a religious scholar traveling with them. Otherwise, they receive visits from traveling preachers of a particular Sufi order. In most cases a family or a clan belong together to the same brotherhood.

Since the 1990s there have been political efforts by groups like the Ahlu Sunna wal Jama'a (ASWJ), which brings together sheikhs who strive for a traditionalist Islamic renewal and want to unite the three Somali tariqas. With this they want to counter the influence of even more radical Islamists. The relationship between the various Islamic camps is not always free of conflict. The northern part of Somalia, including Somaliland, is more susceptible than the south to the spread of strict Wahhabism because of the greater experience there with the Salihiyya under Abdallah Hassan.

literature

  • Scott Steven Reese: Urban Woes and Pious Remedies: Sufism in Nineteenth-Century Benaadir (Somalia). In: Africa Today, Vol. 46, No. 3-4, 1999, pp. 169-192

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Knut S. Vikor: Sufi Brotherhoods in Africa. In: Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels (eds.): The History of Islam in Africa. Ohio University Press, Athens (Ohio) 2000, pp. 455-459
  2. ^ Albrecht Hofheinz: More on the Idrisi tradition in the Sudan. ( Memento from June 22, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: Sudanic Africa 2, 1991
  3. ^ Ali Salih Karrer: The Sufi Brotherhoods in the Sudan. C. Hurst, London 2002, pp. 109-110
  4. ↑ Christine Choi Ahmed: God, Anti-Colonialism and Drums: Sheikh Uways and the Uwaysiyya. In: Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 96-117
  5. ↑ Lidwien Kapteijns: Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. In: Nehemia Levtzion, Randall L. Pouwels (Ed.): The History of Islam in Africa. Ohio University Press, Athens (Ohio) 2000, p. 235
  6. ↑ Jay Spaulding, RS O'Fahey, Lidwien Kapteijns: Enigmatic Saint: Ahmad Ibn Idris and the Idrisi Tradition. Northwestern University Press, Evanston (USA) 1990, pp. 164f. ISBN 0810109107
  7. ↑ Vikor, p 459
  8. ↑ Hans Müller: Horn of Africa. In: Werner Ende and Udo Steinbach: Islam in the Present. CH Beck. Munich 2005, pp. 454, 459, 460, 464
  9. ^ Moderate Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama'a defeats extremist Al Shabab in central Somalia. Somalinews, December 28, 2008
  10. ↑ Jeffrey Gettleman: Islamist Militants in Somalia Begin to Fight One Another. The New York Times, December 28, 2008