Somali Diaspora Stories of Marriages Gone Wrong

Editor's Note: This is the first article of a two-part series.

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I have lived and worked in the U.S. for a long time now, but just when I think I have seen enough of the life of Somalis in the diaspora, something new comes up.

I was driving through the large state of Texas on my way to California when a phone call from a friend interrupted my train of thought.

“Hassan, I will never talk to you again,” she said.

“What did I do?”

“Two years ago, you wrote about my brief marriage.”

“No, I did not.”

“In your piece, ‘Spouses in Crisis,’ you called it a ‘blink-and-you –missed-it’ marriage.”

“Did I mention your name and your former husband’s?”

“No.”

“Then it was not you. It was about a woman who was married to a control freak. Your ex was not a control freak.”

“Never mind, just forget about it,” she said and then changed the topic.

The example of my friend is by no means the exception. There are plenty of examples of similar incidents which I recount below. The following are true stories that have happened in the diaspora. The characters in these tales are neither friends nor foes. The stories have been relayed to me by reliable sources. To further protect their privacy, the names and locations are changed.

                          

I Object

 “Abdi” is a cleric based in Oregon. He has conducted a lot of marriages and is frequently called to travel to other states. He has a sense of humor and is quick to remind you that he is a man of religion. “Would you mind if I name-drop and mention God?” he inquired.

I asked him if he had ever conducted a marriage ceremony in which someone objected. He looked at me smiling and paused for a few seconds.

“Well, it happened to me not once, but twice,” he said. “In my line of work, I guess, it is an occasional occupational hazard.”

On those two occasions, Abdi was conducting a marriage ceremony and someone in the audience shouted at him to stop the proceedings. It is not part of Somali culture for an officiating cleric to ask if any of the attendees of a marriage ceremony have an objection, that famous “speak now or forever hold your peace” is unknown.

It turns out the brides were already married and about to make the cleric to commit a sin of betrothing them to someone else.

“In one case, a man said his brother in Kenya was still married to the would-be bride,” stated the cleric. This was an embarrassing moment, of course, he added, and he had no choice but to confer with the marrying couple in private to clarify the matter.

Unfortunately, in that specific instance, no marriage was performed.

Dowry Blues

“Ali,” a young man in his late twenties, lives in Columbus, Ohio. He has attended many weddings, he said. Columbus, after all, has the second largest Somali population in the U.S., after Minneapolis. One marriage ceremony however left a bad taste in his mouth.

“It was the weirdest marriage ceremony that I ever attended,” he said.

Ali explained that it was for a young couple in their twenties, and more than a hundred people were present when the ceremony commenced. The food was ready to be served and he could smell the aroma of the lamb, rice, and samosas. The officiating cleric asked the groom if the agreed-upon dowry of $10,000 was fine.

“$10,000?” the groom screamed.

“Yes, that is how much the bride is asking for,” clarified the cleric.

“No way, I can’t pay $10,000.”

“The dowry can be paid now or at a later date. It is a matter between you and the bride.”

“No, I can’t pay it now or later.”

The audience was shocked. Hadn’t these two young people already discussed how much money the groom would give to the bride?  A dowry is the money or the property the bride is entitled to before a marriage can be properly conducted. It can be a little money (sometimes even something symbolic) or a hefty sum, depending on what the bride wants. The groom has the option to decline the offer of course, but then there won’t be a marriage.

 In this case, the groom refused to budge, and the bride insisted on the $10,000.

“What happened next was disappointing and heartbreaking,” remarked Ali. “There was no marriage that day or later between the couple.”

Needless to say, according to Ali, nobody ate at that failed ceremony. One man was heard muttering, “What a waste.” Oddly, when asked what he meant, he mentioned the huge pile of food that was left untouched. The guests were so disgusted with the outcome that they declined to take any of the food.  

Ali has a piece advice for those who are planning to get married.

“Do everyone a favor and decide what your dowry will be before you drag us to an event where we will end up not enjoying the ceremony or the food.”

                         

Qudbo-Sireed or Secret Marriage

For “Shamso,” a woman in her forties, it was a different experience. She has four children from two previous marriages. A Somali man approached her and asked her to marry him. She had known him before in her town, and she said he was a respected man who handled himself well.

“The chemistry was instant and powerful,” she said smiling. “In fact, I succumbed to his magnetic personality.”

However, there was a stipulation in the man’s proposed union: It would be what the Somalis call “qudbo-sireed” (a secret marriage). He wanted to continue living in his place and Shamso would live in hers until they were ready to officially publicize their marriage and live together. Only five people would know about their matrimony. Shamso agreed.

“I have the benefit of hindsight now, and in hindsight, I realize this was a huge mistake,” she said with irony.

He brought three other men with him, a cleric and two witnesses. The marriage ceremony was short and afterward, Shamso simply drove home. After she reached her house and parked her car, however, she received a call from the officiating cleric. He was in a panic, she said.

“You know, I forgot to ask you about your dowry. How much is it?”

“$10,000,” she replied.

There was an awkward silence.

The cleric asked her if she could lower the amount because the groom was not well-off. She told him she had her reasons for asking for such an exorbitant amount.

“Let me ask the groom,” the cleric replied.

She could hear her new husband mumbling in the background. The cleric kept asking the husband if the sum was fine. The groom finally, and reluctantly, accepted it.

Shamso sensed that both the cleric and her husband were not happy with her.

“The blessed marriage is the one with a reasonable and less cumbersome dowry,” the cleric admonished her.

Well, after a year, Shamso’s new husband told her he wanted to get out of what he wryly called their “chaotic relationship.” It seemed fate had thrown her a real curve ball.

“I did have a premonition, from day one, that our union would be short-lived even though I cared a lot about the man,” she admitted.

She received no spousal support from him in that year.

Oh, and that controversial dowry?

Shamso did not collect a single dollar. She had a good job, and her husband simply wanted her to take care of herself financially while he collected all the fringe benefits that came with the institution of marriage.

“Unfortunately, I allowed him to do that,” said Shamso. “

Ten thousand dollars is not small change. Shamso confessed that it is a tidy sum “that can send any woman on a shopping spree.” However, she had a different reason for requesting that amount.

“I was sending him a message that marriage is a big responsibility and not child’s play,” she remarked.

Shamso is not the type of a woman that lets bygones be bygones. She decided that her husband had to pay a non-monetary price for his frivolous and laissez- faire attitude toward marriage. In what she would call “the most deranged vengeful action” she had ever taken, she told all the people in her town that she was married to him. He was so furious that he moved away to Wisconsin.  It turned out there were two other victims, just like her, and they also dumped him.

Hassan M. Abukar is a writer and political analyst. 

(Reprinted with permission from Sahan Journal, July 30, 2013) 

The Godane Coup and the Unraveling of Al-Shabaab

The week of June 19^th was a bloody milestone for the course of jihad in Somalia. Al-Shabaab leaders clashed in Barawe, a coastal city in the south. That conflict led to the killing of some of the top echelon of the terror group and the escape of others. What this violent encounter portends for the future, however, is far more serious than it appears at first glance.

In a single stroke, Ahmed Abdi Godane, the emir of Al-Shabaab who goes by the nom de guerre of “Abu Zubeir,” managed to re-align the radical group’s leadership dynamics and further consolidated his power by getting rid of his major detractors. His loyalists killed two co-founders of Al-Shabaab, including his former deputy and longtime friend, Ibrahim Al-Afghani, and chased away Hassan Dahir Aweys and Mukhtar Robow, the former spokesman for the terror group. Aweys is now in custody in Mogadishu, as the government decides his fate. Robow, on the other hand, is believed to have fled to the Bay and Bakol region where his Rahanweyn clan is based. Al-Afghani, Aweys, and Robow have complained about Godane’s authoritarian tendencies and the heavy-handed approach in dealing with foreign jihadists. On April 26^th, an Al-Shabaab assassin loyal to Godane attempted to kill the American jihadist and Alabama native, Omar Hammami, after the latter had gone public in criticizing Al-Shabaab.

Godane’s latest attempt to finish off his rivals in the movement has paved the way for his sole leadership of Al-Shabaab which has historically been ruled instead through collective leadership.  The clash offers a blunt assessment of what went wrong in the jihadi group leadership and how conflicts are resolved. Godane has opted for a violent method of conflict resolution which will likely lead to questions about his legitimacy as the supreme leader of jihad in Somalia. However, it is too early to gauge the impact this conflict may have on the young fighters of the militant group. At least currently, Godane has the support of Shaikh Hassan Hussein Adam, an influential young cleric based in Kenya and a sympathetic supporter of Al-Shabaab.  A month ago, “Shaikh Hassan,” as he is popularly known, issued a fatwa (religious edict) that permitted the extermination of Godane’s rivals because they were sowing discord and dissension in the ranks of the mujahidin in Somalia. 

The escape of Mukhtar Robow also poses a serious problem for Godane. Most of Al-Shabaab’s foot soldiers belong to the Rahanweyn clan. In a country where clan loyalty sometimes supersedes religious loyalty, it is not clear what Robow’s influence will be on his fellow Rahanweyn fighters. Hassan Dahir Aweys’ surrender to the Somali government is not likely to cause any ripple effects for the Al-Shabaab fighters because the septuagenarian radical leader and his group, Hizbul Islam, only joined Al-Shabaab in 2009. Robow, however, has been a major leader of Al-Shabaab since its formation a decade ago and, hence, his loyalty remains unquestioned.  

The recent clash is likely to dampen and perhaps even rupture Godane’s ties with Al-Qaeda central and further cements the perception in some Al-Qaeda circles that Al-Shabaab is interested in a local jihad rather than a global one. Two months ago, Ibrahim Al-Afghani wrote an open letter to Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the leader of Al-Qaeda, in which he criticized Godane for targeting foreign jihadists, imprisoning them in secret detention centers in the areas the terror group controls, and even killing them. For the last several weeks, reports that are critical of the course of jihad in Somalia have appeared on websites sympathetic to Al-Qaeda. The American jihadist, Hammami, was most vociferous in his lashing out at Godane and publicly requested that Al-Qaeda intervene. There were even unconfirmed reports that Al-Qaeda had asked Al-Shabaab to appoint Ibrahim Al-Afghani as its emir but Godane maneuvered to block that al-Qaeda instruction. At any rate, the recent upheavals in the Somali branch and the purging of some of its leaders will not endear Godane to Al-Qaeda central. In addition, the marginalization and hunting down of foreign fighters, such as Omar Hammami, will also soil the reputation of Al-Shabaab as the main attraction for global jihad.

For the last few weeks, Al-Shabaab has increased its attacks in Mogadishu delivering the perception that the militant group is still a force that can destabilize the nascent government of President Hassan Mohamoud. To the contrary, the recent spike of violence in the capital is an indicator that the group is far weaker than it was thought to be earlier. The group has been successful in attacking soft targets, such as the UN compound, perhaps to distract its fighters from debilitating fragmentation among its leaders. It is unlikely that this terror group will vanish from the political scene in Somalia in the near future, Godane and his followers will continue to exploit the government’s inability to exert its control outside Mogadishu. Godane’s coup, while in essence, a movement that is eating its own children, may, indeed, pave the way for the fragmentation of the militant group along clan lines. The nagging question then will be to what extent Godane, a northerner operating in the deep south of Somalia, is able to remain head of what is generally a southern jihadi phenomenon? Moreover, the influx of foreign jihadists into Somalia has, for all practical purposes, decreased and further eroded the place of that country in the annals of global jihad.

Hassan M. Abukar is a Somali writer and a political analyst.

(Reprinted with permission from African Arguments, 7/2/2013)