In August 2019, a plane landed at Mogadishu Airport as TV cameras
focused on who would be the mysterious official to step from the aircraft. Then,
a tall, young, and handsome man dressed in an Arab Thawb (garment) emerged
and walked down the steps accompanied by his equally good-looking and a
youthful brother. Abubakar Mohamed, a popular Somali social media cleric, and
his brother Omar Mohamed were greeted on the tarmac by another boyish-looking Somali
official, Abdinur M. Ahmed, Director of Communications -- Office of the
President. Abdinur, as he is popularly known, greeted and hugged Abubakar and
his brother, and then the trio walked to the airport’s VIP waiting room. This
unique airport reception for a visiting cleric was an example of a clear
government policy to latch into popular religious celebrities, co-opt them, and
use them to serve like Roman Praetorian guards who would vigilantly defend the
government.
In the past few months alone, the Ministry of Religion and
the Ministry of Sports and Youth have sponsored and supported public lectures by
Abubakar and Sheikh Kenyawi, both from the diaspora, at Mogadishu’s Konis (now
renamed Engineer Yariisow) Stadium. Sheikh Kenyawi spoke about the theme of forgiveness
and Abubakar delivered a speech about the role of youth in society.
The hype of these lectures was just a crude form of Mogadishu performance art.
And then, there was the April 2019 conference in Mogadishu
for Somali clerics sponsored by the Ministry of Religion.
Abubakar: A Millennial Preacher
Abubakar Mohamed, a Somali resident of the Netherlands, emerged
on social media several years ago. He has no religious training, nor does he
serve as an imam of a mosque. His topics are mostly spiritual and relate to self-help.
The range of his religious lessons is at best limited and at times redundant. Mostly,
he gives short talks on social media and has a tendency to appear occasionally
with other clerics, depending on where he is visiting. He travels a lot and
claims that he is running three separate businesses. He has written a
self-published book in Somali, Ku Raaxeeyso Noloshaada (Enjoy Your Life)
and was a guest at the Mogadishu Book Fair (MBF). The book, as its title
indicates, is specifically geared to a wider audience and explains that one can
solve problems—any problem—if certain steps of self-improvement are taken. Abubakar
has a laid-back and encouraging personality. His approach of preaching, in
short, can be summarized as, “Don’t worry, be happy.”
Abubakar talks a lot about love. While traveling, he preaches
about the importance of love in one’s life and the joy of the beautiful faces
of people he meets. “I swear by God, I love you,” he says. The audience, who
are mostly impressionable youth, applaud and cheer. In Mogadishu Stadium, he
told his audience they were “the most beautiful people in the world and not
even in China and America can people like you be found.” However, Abubakar’s
emphasis on love has raised eyebrows among some people because of his marital
status. He is single.
While visiting Britain, an interviewer asked Abubakar why a
handsome, healthy, and religious young man
like him is still single. Abubakar giggled nervously and then fumbled for
words. “You know, I am asked this question four or five times a day,” he
responded. It was obvious he did not want to answer the question and he spent a
minute or two beating around the bush. “I am having difficulty making a choice
among many women,” he mumbled, smiling. Then the interviewer came to his rescue
and asked if wanted to marry a pretty woman or a religious one. “A religious
one,” Abubakar said bashfully.
Abubakar elaborated on the type of woman he would marry:
“Someone who is kind, pretty, and makes me smile when I see her from two
kilometers away. A woman whom we can
understand each other.” Subsequently, what followed was an alarming statement
which had a whiff of narcissism to it, or perhaps it was youthful hubris. “I
want someone who likes what I like, hates what I hate, and who will take care
of me,” he said.
While in Mogadishu, Abubakar and his brother met senior
government officials, including Prime Minister Hassan Kheyre. They also visited
schools, the Grand Mosque of Is-Bahaysiga, and Lido Beach. Their
presence in the capital was a publicity stunt for the government because the
duo are popular with the youth—inside and outside the country—and they are
preachers known for talking about safe topics. Abubakar and Sheikh Kenyawi will
not talk about hard-hitting subjects such as corruption, security lapses in
Mogadishu, the thousands of Somali youth who have left the country, risking
their lives in search of a better life in Europe, and the ever-growing disparity
between the privileged few and the masses.
Like any social media phenomenon, Abubakar’s rise might be
ephemeral and, hence, the star that burns so brightly could get extinguished
quickly.
On April 21, 2019, the Somali federal government sponsored a
conference for a limited number of Somali clerics. President Mohamed Farmajo opened the
gathering and Prime Minister Hassan Kheyre closed it
three days later. It was an environment suffused with self-congratulation.
Somalia, like any Muslim country, has a coterie of clerics
close to the government. These clerics provide legitimacy to the regime, especially
when the main, virulent opposition group in the country is Al-Shabaab, an
organization with radical religious ideology. The terror group contends that
the federal government is un-Islamic and, hence, must be violently removed.
Participants in the Mogadishu conference were mostly clerics based
inside the country, although two clerics from Minnesota (Hassan Jaamici and
Abdirahman Sheikh Omar) were also invited. The goal of the conference was to show
the public that the religious scholars are in congruence with the government in
a) the war against Al-Shabaab, b) the dispute between the federal government
and regional states, and c) the political stalemate between the government and
opposition groups. Figures like Sheikh Bashir Ahmed-Salad Warsame, Sheikh Nur
Barud Gurxan, Sheikh Ali Wajiz and Sheikh Somo were in the forefront. These
clerics have historically supported the government, regardless of who has been the
head of state. As a result, Al-Shabaab targets these clerics and, hence, the government houses, feeds, and
protects them.
Last year, one of these clerics, Ali Wajiz, was giving a
Friday sermon at the mosque in Villa Somalia when the sermon suddenly
degenerated into a shouting match. An opposition lawmaker had interrupted Wajiz
for spewing venom against government critics. Wajiz went on a tear and asked
the lawmaker to shut up. Then, the cleric accused the lawmaker of “taking
bribes from the United Arab Emirates.”
The clerics at the April conference vowed to resist
Al-Shabaab and called the group heretical. Sheikh Abdirahman Sheikh Omar from
Minnesota warned the terror group that he and the other clerics would wage an
all-out war against them “if the terrorists do not repent and lay down arms.”
Sheikh Hassan Jaamici, also from Minnesota, declared that he
and other clerics were willing to go to Al-Shabaab and negotiate with them. If
not, “I am willing to put on a military fatigue and
fight them,” he added. His willingness to fight the group astounded Abdirahman
Baadiyow, an advisor of the prime minister, who exclaimed: “Are you serious?”
Jaamici answered, “Yes, I am serious.”
Sheikh Jaamici said he is an avowed supporter of President
Farmajo’s government and his party’s slogan, N&N, which stands for “Nabad
& Nolol” (Peace and Life). Then the cleric turned to the president, who
was in the audience, and told a story about a government critic he had spoken to
who was surprised that Jaamici was a supporter of N&N. “Do you know that
N&N is in the Quran—specifically in Surat Qureish,” he
said. Jaamici added that if Muslims followed the Sharia, they would get peace
and life. Suddenly, there was an awkward silence and the statement set off
sirens in some heads. Farmajo must have felt embarrassed because the wrench in
his eyes was noticeable. No one in his government ever thought of linking the
Quran to his party’s slogan of N&N, not in a million years. Unfortunately,
the cleric’s dubious assertion, perhaps straining credulity, negates the real
conditions of Mogadishu where neither peace nor viable life are far from being
attainable. Paradoxically, Jaamici’s statement pointed to a far more insidious
problem: the extent some clerics would go to in aligning themselves with the
government. In a way, clerical criticism of the government is in short supply
these days.
Several years ago and during the presidency of Hassan Sheikh
Mohamoud, Sheikh Nur Barod Gurxan stood in a public gathering and lashed out at
President Mohamoud for hiring “the worst kind of government officials.” The
president, a hard-nosed, thick-skinned politician, smiled and remained unfazed.
Mohamoud, with all his failings, was a different president who regularly met
with the press, held public gatherings in which he was often taken to the
cleaners, and did not eschew meeting with his subjects. These days, Sheikh
Gurxan, though still a supporter of the government, dares not criticize the
government publicly.
The intersection between politics and religion is not a new
phenomenon. What is odd is when political power, as is manifested by the
government, becomes beholden to glitzy social media where it is all style and
no substance and where the government’s
main function of protecting and serving its people is relegated to the
background.
