Between Somaliweyn and Islam-weyn

A political folktale recounts that Mohamed Siad Barre was once asked about the borders of his country. He reportedly replied that wherever there is a woman with braided hair, wearing a waistcloth and tending livestock, that land belongs to Somalia. This quote has no clear source, as far as I am aware, and does not appear to be an official statement. Still, it captures the essence of a state border defined by ethnic identity—an unstable foundation compared to one based on geographical territory. 

In the mid-20th century, Somalis were swept up in what was called the “wind of change”, which blew in from two directions. From the Arab world, Somalis absorbed pan-Arab nationalism calling for Arab unity and Arabism (al-‘Urubiyyah), a notion shaped by movements and leaders such as Michel Aflaq’s Arab Renaissance movement and the Nasserism led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. Many Somali intellectuals had passed through Aden and Cairo. Secondly, on the African front, they were influenced by Black African independence movements, which had begun to rise after long being suppressed. 

These two experiences, which converged in the Somali context, shared a common theme: a thirst for freedom and pride in ethnic and racial identity. In the Somali case, this became the ideal of “Greater Somalia”. Indeed, there is a strong argument that the idea of Somali unity was largely shaped—albeit in different ways—by the colonial policies of the Italians and the British, each pursuing their own interests. For example, between 1936 and 1941, the Italians promoted the idea of Greater Somalia as part of their ambition to control the entire Somali Horn. The British adopted a similar tactic between 1941 and 1950. Ernest Bevin, then-Labour foreign minister, for example championed the idea of a unified Somali state covering the Somali peninsula.  

This ideal and sentiment guided Somalis following the independence of the first two Somali territories: British and Italian Somaliland. They established a Somali “state” whose ambitions were to have borders defined by wherever Somalis lived—a highly ambiguous and dangerous basis for statehood, given that ethnic identity, especially among a people like the Somalis, is not always territorially fixed. This also put Somali ambitions on a collision course with its neighbours in Kenya and Ethiopia. The result was a political imagination at odds with reality as the world no longer aligned with their hopes. Eventually, the Somalis launched an external war and then later turned on one another in a series of civil wars and devastating collapses that undid more than had been achieved through statehood. The political dream of “Greater Somalia” ultimately ended in the bitter proverb talo aan la ruugin, waa lagu rafaadaa, which roughly translates as: “a decision not deeply contemplated leads to suffering.” 

Elsewhere, in the middle of the last century—specifically in 1924—the Ottoman Empire, which held the status of the Islamic caliphate, collapsed, leaving behind abandoned lands and scattered sentiments throughout the Muslim world. This gave rise to religious-political movements advocating for the revival of Muslim unity and the restoration of the Islamic Caliphate. The first and most notable of these were the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, and Hizb al-Tahrir, founded in Jerusalem in 1953. Muslim intellectuals from Cairo to Bombai wrote extensively about how to revive the institution.  

This gave rise to what became known as “Political Islam”, and its proponents were labelled “Islamists”. It was a political ideology rooted in religion, aiming to unite believers without reference to fixed territorial borders—despite the fact that, historically, even at its height, the Ottoman Empire ruled less than half the global Muslim population. 

Somalis encountered these ideologies relatively early, around the mid-20th century, but they truly took hold in the 1970s and beyond. Like many other Muslim societies, a significant number of Somalis embraced the ideals of Political Islam, which seeks the return of the caliphate and the implementation of Sharia at the state level. These movements flourished particularly in the Middle East (the Arab world), the Indian subcontinent (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and by extension Afghanistan), and the Somali Horn. This was not accidental; these regions all shared political conditions that made them fertile ground for such ideologies: failed projects of statehood based on ethnic or national identity. 

For example, during its liberation from British colonial rule, the Indian subcontinent split into two nations based on religious identity: Muslims formed Pakistan, while India, despite presenting itself as a more ecumenical state, had a clear Hindu majority. Both states were founded on meta-geographical identities. The result was the death of millions during population exchanges, alongside new conflicts rooted in the very religious identities and ethnic-based tensions they had previously attempted to suppress. Pakistan, the Muslim state, experienced civil war between its western and eastern regions due to ethnic and territorial divisions. India and Pakistan continue to clash over Kashmir—a nuclear flashpoint even after 78 years. 

The Arab world and Somalia share the common failure of statehood projects built on ethnic identities that ultimately did not materialise as envisioned. 

When these ethnically rooted political ideologies failed, they paved the way for religious ones that disregarded territorial boundaries. This Islamist ideology advocates for a global Muslim state that rules over all Muslims, regardless of where they live or which borders they inhabit. Like ethnic nationalism, the foundation of this ideology—religion—is not stable. 

In reality, there has never been a time when all the world’s Muslims lived under a single state, except during the very early years of Islam, when Muslims were few and confined to a small part of the Arabian peninsula. Likewise, the notion of all Somalis ever having been united under one state is historically unfounded. However, this reality check is not something Islamists are willing to entertain—just as pan-Somali nationalists tend to ignore the impracticality of their own vision. 

These two political ideologies—ethnic nationalism and religious Political Islam—are deeply intertwined. Though fundamentally different, they often borrow each other’s slogans and emotional appeals and are both thoroughly postcolonial. Ethnic nationalists aim to unify people by language or phenotype which religion may divide; thus, they tend to be suspicious of religious ideologies. Meanwhile, Islamists aim to unify by faith, which ethnicity may divide; hence, they are often hostile to ethnic nationalism. 

Still, both share a common obsession with the united community and territorial expansion. Since neither identity—ethnic nor religious—is clearly tied to geography, both ideologies lend themselves to political overreach. Hence, the pan-Somali idea of Soomaaliweyn and the Islamist dream—which we might as well call Islam-weyn—are tightly interwoven. Even if their core premises contradict one another, they frequently draw on each other’s rhetoric and emotional resonance. They are more concerned with the past than the future and tend to focus more on redemption from colonialism than on advancing human welfare, which should be the primary motivation for government.  

Both political ideologies are marked by superficiality and emotionalism. This is because, just as the Muslim countries of the world can share a broader sense of unity, the Somali people can also share a general unity across many dimensions. However, the idea of establishing a single state solely on the basis of shared ethnicity or faith is a vision that lacks foundational depth. A state built on the principle of “wherever a person who declares the Shahada is found” or “wherever a woman with braided hair is herding goats” is, in essence, a stateless fantasy. 

Even more dangerous is the way these two ideologies reinforce one another at the level of thought and emotion. Today, the pan-Somali political ideology that has gained widespread traction among Somalis is one of the most fertile sources nurturing militant Islamist groups such as al-Shabaab.