Somalia President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Some Background on Al Islah

Somalia’s new President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, selected by the new parliament last week, was inaugurated yesterday in Mogadishu. I talked a little about Mohamud’s background in a previous post, but I think it would be worthwhile to give some information about al Islah (Arabic: “Reform”), the movement to which he reportedly belongs.

The International Crisis Group’s 2010 briefing “Somalia’s Divided Islamists” (.pdf, p. 2, footnote 6) summarizes the group’s history:

A group of Saudi-trained clerics, led by Sheikh Mohamed Ahmed (“Garyare”), began a discreet campaign to organise Islamist
resistance to [former Somali President Siad] Barre [, who fell from power in 1991]. In July 1987, Garyare and his friends launched the al-Islah (Reform) movement in Saudi Arabia. It was accepted as a member of the Islamic Brotherhood (alIkhwan al-Muslimin) and formed an alliance with two Somali
armed opposition groups – the SSDF (Somali Salvation and Democratic Front) and USC (United Somali Congress). The alliance broke down after al-Islah failed to dissuade the Somali rebel groups from getting too close to Ethiopia.

A reader has provided me with several other sources on the movement, including the movement’s official website, available in Somali and Arabic. From the site’s history section (Arabic), we get a different account than Crisis Group’s. This account divides the movement’s genesis into three stages: “the stage of spreading the idea,” “the stage of assembling and organizing,” and “the stage of expansion and opening up.” The description of the second stage gives us a broad picture of the movement’s approach:

The Society of Islamic Reform was founded in 1978. Among its most prominent goals were reforming Somali society in every aspect of life and working to raise the level of individual and societal commitment to Islamic principles and values, in accordance with the approach of moderation and temperateness in  the aims of Islamic shari’a, in the framework of cooperation with local and practical reality.

The third section also lists the movement’s current policies, among them “a strict stance against internecine fighting,” cooperating with sheikhs and clan leaders to resolve conflicts, maintaining neutrality, and promoting education and the Arabic language.

Finally, another piece worth reading is this report on Al Islah’s stance toward the recent presidential elections. As of June, the movement’s founder denied that it would field a candidate. Mohamud, then, should perhaps not be seen as “Al Islah’s man,” but rather as someone whose ties include a tie to the movement.

Further links and discussion are welcome in the comments.

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