Bashir Goth and His Views Towards Jihad/Jihadism

[Jacaylbaro]

In November 2003, a Somali journalist named Bashir Goth complained in the Addis Tribune about a group of Islamic clerics, the “Authority for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice,” who were “trying to impose draconian moral codes on Somaliland citizens.” Goth was himself a Muslim, but he objected to the Wahhabi Islam that Saudi preachers were bringing into Somalia.

 

Wahhabism, said Goth, was “an austere and closed school of thought,” deviating from the established schools of Islamic jurisprudence. “Wahhabism,” according to Goth, “is the only school that compels its followers strictly to observe Islamic rituals, such as the five prayers, under pain of flogging, and for the enforcement of public morals to a degree unprecedented in the history of Islam.” He characterized it as “a closed mind sect that turned Islam into a fragile creed that lives in constant fear of children’s toys and games such as Barbie dolls and Pokemon.” Wahhabi clerics, Goth noted, were challenging Somali Muslims: “They want to tell us that over the LAST 14 CENTURIES, our people have been practicing the wrong religion; that since the dawn of Islam, Somali people had lived in vain, worshipped in vain and died in vain. God help them, they all will be burned in hell because they did not follow the correct path -- Wahhabism.”

 

Their devotion to this “correct path” led them to despise numerous manifestations of Somali culture, despite its Islamic character. “These people,” Goth continued, “are out to eradicate our culture, our traditions, our songs, our poetry and our folklore dances….If we let them have their way, these prophets of ‘purity’ would soon be on a mission to destroy what has remained of our culture.” He listed several female Somali singers, warning that “the cassettes of their songs will be burned in the streets. Just remember Taliban.” Goth went on to explain that the jihadists also wanted to eliminate co-ed schools and compel Somali girls to go out only “fully shrouded with black from head to toe.”

 

The Wahhabi-influenced Islamic Courts Union that held power in Mogadishu for seven months in 2006 bore out Bashir Goth’s fears. It criticized indigenous Somali practices as not sufficiently Islamic. One militia commander, Mohamed Ali Aden, explained: “We’ve neglected God’s verses for so long. We want our women veiled and we want them at home. We men have to grow our beards.” The Courts forbade music (which is prohibited according to strict Islamic law), dancing and soccer within days of taking power. Women began to don Saudi dress, which covered their faces, rather than traditional Somali garb, which did not.

 

ICU militiamen were ready to enforce Islamic law with an iron fist: after banning all movies and television viewing, jihadists shot and killed two people who were watching a World Cup soccer match in early July. Raids in Mogadishu led to sixty arrests for the crime of movie-watching. Islamic Courts militiamen also raided a wedding reception in Mogadishu because men and women were attending the celebration together and music was playing. “We had warned the family,” explained Sheikh Iise Salad of the ICU, “not to include in their ceremony what is not allowed by the sharia law. This includes the mixing of men and women and playing music. That is why we raided and took their equipment. What was going there was un-Islamic.” In September 2006, the ICU closed down Radio Jowhar, a station in a town about fifty miles from Mogadishu, because it was playing love songs. ICU Sheikh Mohamed Mohamoud Abdirahman explained that the programming was “un-Islamic.” The station was later allowed to return to the airwaves, without music. The Islamic Courts even decreed that Muslims who did not perform the five daily prayers would be executed.

 

 

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[Caano Geel]

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