Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Practitioners of Islam first entered Somalia in the northwestern city of Zeila during prophet Muhammad's lifetime whereupon they built the Masjid al-Qiblatayn; [1] as such, Islam has been a part of Somali society since the 7th century. [2] Practicing Islam reinforces distinctions that further set Somalis apart from their immediate neighbors.
Somali Sufi religious orders (tariqa) – the Qadiriyya, the Ahmadiya and the Salihiyya – in the form of Muslim brotherhoods have played a major role in Somali Islam and the modern era history of Somalia. [23] [25] [26] Of the three orders, the less strict Qaadiriya tariqa is the oldest, and it is the sect to which most Somalis belonged. [27]
According to John Fage and I.M. Lewis, the main inhabitants of Zeila were ancestral to the Somali tribes who historically resided in the region. [28] [29] According to British explorer Richard Burton, al-Maqrizi mentions the "Kingdom of Zayla" using the Harari moniker. [30] The Somalis were among the earliest converts to the Islamic religion.
Ruins of the Sultanate of Adal in Zeila, Somalia. Islam was introduced to the northern Somali coast early on from the Arabian peninsula, shortly after the hijra (aka migration to Abyssinia). Zeila's two-mihrab Masjid al-Qiblatayn dates to the 7th century, and is the oldest mosque in Africa. [32]
Islam has been a core part of Somali national identity for the entirety of its modern history. A 1961 constitution established Islam as the state religion, and later governments have maintained this policy. [1] The Somali Democratic Republic, which existed from 1969 to 1991, propagated an ideology merging elements of Islam and Marxism. [2]
The history of Islam being practised by the Dir clan goes back 1400 years. In Zeila, a Dir city, a mosque called Masjid al-Qiblatayn is known as the site of where early companions of the Prophet established a mosque shortly after the first Migration to Abyssinia [12] By the 7th century, a large-scale conversion to Islam was taking place in the Somali peninsula, first spread by the Dir clan ...
Salihiyya (Somali: Saalixiya; Urwayniya, Arabic: الصالحية) is a Tariqa (order) of Sufi Islam prevalent in Somalia and the adjacent Somali region of Ethiopia. It was founded in the Sudan by Sayyid Muhammad Salih (1854-1919). The order is characterized by fundementalism.
Somalia, [a] officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, [b] is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti [14] to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, the Gulf of Aden to the north, and the Indian Ocean to the east.