Somali problems are local and the ulema need to shift their view

It was past noon—12:00 sharp. Friday prayer was still an hour away, but the khutbah, the sermon that comes first, would begin in five minutes. That’s the rhythm of Fridays.

The moment I stepped into the mosque, I was absorbed by it—the crowd, the scent, the atmosphere. A sacred hush cloaked the space. I caught the clean, comforting smell of freshly laundered clothes. A trace of old Arabian oud curled in tendrils, warm and smoky, wrapping itself around your senses like an embroidered shawl. Somewhere, adorned curtains swayed. Incense drifted near the walls—faint, but persistent. Bodies pressed close, shoulders brushing.

The main prayer hall was flung wide open but already overflowing. Men sat shoulder to shoulder, heads bowed. Some eyes closed in quiet reflection; others stared ahead, thoughts miles away. The murmur of pre-khutbah seeped like fog through cracked walls before slowly dying out. Prayer mats pressed so close together, the rows looked like one continuous thread. On the opposite side, behind a lattice-patterned dividing wall, was the women’s section—quieter, more contained, but just as full.

For a moment, I just stood there—stranded, unsure, scanning the crowd for a place to land. There was a spot—small and tight, hemmed in by knees and elbows—but something made me hesitate. Maybe it was the press of people. Maybe it was the urge for space. I turned instead towards the side staircase, hoping the second floor might offer a little more room. Maybe even a bit of quiet.

I drifted towards the steps and began the climb. The tiled stairs creaked beneath my feet—and under the feet of a few others with the same instinct. A boy clutched his father’s sleeve just ahead of me. Behind, a man exhaled with a quiet growl as he mounted.

My intuition was right. It was quieter up here, at least for now. The second floor always felt slightly removed—like watching a tide from a higher shore. Calmer. More still. There was room to breathe. Room to sit without brushing knees with a stranger.

This mosque is only five minutes from home—a walk I could do with my eyes closed. I know every crack in the pavement, every bend in the road. But I don’t come here much. Not on regular days. Fridays are different.

Fridays carry a quiet kind of gravity. A sacred pull. It’s not just about the prayer we say, but the way we stay. It’s about presence. You show up, see familiar faces, exchange a few nods, maybe a quick handshake. Sometimes it’s just a glance across the room at someone you recognise—and somehow, that’s enough. It’s a ritual that feels as much communal as it does religious. Maybe even more.

At 12:05, five minutes after I find my place, the imam steps up. He adjusts the mic, clears his throat, and begins the khutbah. The Arabic flows out—steady and melodic—like a river I’ve waded into but never fully felt. It’s part prayer, part sermon, part tradition. And just like that, the room stills. A hush rolls in—not empty, but full. Heavy with attention. Holy.

All around me, men sit in stillness. Backs straight. Heads lowered. Hands resting neatly on knees or folded quietly in laps. No one shifts. No one hisses. No one checks their phone.

Well, except me.

Most Fridays, by now, I’m already scrolling. Mindlessly. News headlines, sports updates, random social posts—anything to fill the space, to pass the 40-minute khutbah time. The Arabic is beautiful, yes. But for me, it’s like watching a film in another language with no subtitles. I catch a word here, a phrase there, but the meaning slips through before I can hold onto it.

And honestly, it’s not just the Arabic.

Even when the imam switches to Somali, I still find myself drifting. My thumb finds the screen again. Not because I’m addicted to my phone—not really—but because the sermons don’t always land. They follow a familiar arc. A sequence I’ve heard a hundred times. I can predict the next sentence before he even says it.

Still, I stay. Not for the words, but for the moment. For the ritual. For the pull.

Well, this Friday was different. Something about it just felt off—or maybe, more accurately, alive. I was drawn in. My attention, for once, wasn’t drifting. As soon as the imam began the second half of the khutbah, I found myself already taking notes, with a hint of frustration building at some of his points and the issues he was discussing.

The central theme of his khutbah was the concept of Ummah. For those who may need a bit of clarification on what this means and what it entails, I owe you an explanation.

In the simplest terms, the word Ummah is an Arabic term referring to the collective community of Muslims worldwide. But it carries a meaning that reaches far beyond the limits of what we conceive as a modern nation-state. It is not defined by borders or flags. Instead, it speaks to a deeper connection—a unity of people who share the same faith; that is to say, Islam. This unity is not based on race, language, or geography. It is built on values, a shared faith, and a set of beliefs. While some see it as an abstract idea, for many Muslims it is rooted in their theology. And in that sense, the Ummah is a community held together not by law or politics, but by faith.

To be part of the Ummah is to belong to something greater than one’s own belonging—that is to say, his culture, his political affiliation, his state. Many Muslims believe that state lines and modern nation-states should not define who they are. Their identity, they believe, stems from faith, not from a passport. For them, the Ummah offers a vision of wholeness: one people, under God, guided by the same teachings.

Back to the imam. He spoke about how we, as Muslims—over a billion of us, scattered across continents, cultures, and languages—are meant to stay united. How we’re supposed to feel like one body, one soul, despite differences in culture and tradition. He stressed, over and over again, that this unity isn’t just a virtuous idea—it’s something God has commanded. And everyone should do his or her part in uniting the Ummah.

He kept circling back to this idea, hammering it in with passionate repetition. And then came the part that really grabbed me: his reference to the conflicts, poverty, and social crises plaguing the Muslim world. He didn’t sugarcoat it. He said plainly that these divisions—these wars and infightings—are symptoms of what he called a “deeper illness”: a fragmented Ummah. In his view, if the Ummah were not divided by the modern global structure of the world, the Muslim world would have been a very different place—free from internal conflict and crisis.

But here’s where I found myself deeply unsettled—almost disturbed—by the whole message. As powerful and passionate as the imam’s words were, they felt hollow against the reality he himself is living in.

Just a few hundred kilometres from where he stood giving that lecture, people—our own people—are fighting. Not over religion. Not over justice. But over old clan rivalries, hollow pride and territory. Nothing of substance. Just ancient and primitive clan animosity. Not liking someone because of their lineage. 

To the far east, there’s another conflict—one that’s dragged on for nearly two years now. It barely makes headlines anymore. People have normalised it. Displacement, death, and despair have become background noise. And let’s not forget that this infests most, if not all, of the Somali-inhabited regions—including the ongoing campaign against ISIS, which contains radical foreign fighters from around the world, claiming to be liberating Somalis under the guise of what is most dear to them: religion.

All of this—and, most recently, the troubling news about territorial gains by Al-Shabaab, another internationally recognised terrorist organisation—blurs the lines between state, clan, and chaos. It’s all part of the same broken mirror Somalis refuse to look into.

So, when I hear a sermon calling for the unity of over a billion Muslims worldwide, I can’t help but wonder, how can we preach unity on a global scale when we’ve failed so completely at a national, even local level?

We are not only talking about the present; looking back, there’s the legacy we still carry from one of the most brutal civil wars on the continent—a war that lasted more than three decades and left nothing untouched. It shattered families, destroyed cities, and swallowed whole generations. It buried dreams before they even had the chance to breathe. A war that left a scar so deep, Somalis still rank among the worst in almost every global index one can think of: education, health, governance, economic opportunity.

So, when I hear a sermon calling for the unity of over a billion Muslims worldwide, I can’t help but wonder—how can we preach unity on a global scale when we’ve failed so completely at a national, even local level? How can one speak so boldly about the brotherhood of the Ummah when just across town, people won’t even greet each other because of clan resentments? It feels painfully hypocritical. Or maybe just heartbreakingly disconnected from reality.

This is not specific to this mosque, nor is it an attempt to single out this particular preacher. What we’re contending with is much deeper—an age-old issue that has haunted the conscience of many Somalis. It's as if we’ve been conditioned, almost fated, to see the world through a single lens: a strictly religious one. And while that lens might sound enchanting to some, as it reaffirms their religious conviction, it undoubtedly narrows how we view the world, blinding us to the realities of our worldly problem.

In a broader sense, it’s an idea that stems from an eccentric allure with the globalisation of Somali local problems. In the psyche of Somalis, the issue is often framed by many religious scholars as part of a broader, global Muslim struggle—a perspective that places emphasis on global narratives over local realities. Faith, politics, and public discourse are all oriented towards global concerns, with the centre of attention situated beyond Somalia’s borders. A predisposition that often results in the neglect of local issues—which directly affect Somali communities—in favour of distant global causes that have minimal tangible impact on Somalis. 

It feels as though the Somali Ulama lack independence, and that their theological thought and interpretations are shaped by their affiliations with various schools of thought rather than thinking about how our faith can serve and improve us. 

The Sexual Offenses Bill - a bill aimed to criminalize sexual violence, child marriage, sexual harassment, and other forms of gender-based violence, failed to move forward due to significant pressure from influential religious scholars, who increasingly act as both lawmakers and enforcers of public morality.

In his analysis of Somali religious scholars, the acclaimed Somali academics Abdi Samatar and Ahmed Ismail Samatar identified three types of Somali religious figures in the early 21st century—an observation that feels even more relevant today: politicians, terrorists, and an ambivalent group. Despite their differing roles, all three, they argue, have deviated from the traditional role of the Ulama, whose historical responsibility was to unify the Somali community and protect its collective interests.

Instead, they stressed, these contemporary religious figures have become increasingly focused on policing morality and personal behaviour—particularly by enforcing strict interpretations of Islamic conduct, often centred on less significant but more controversial matters such as “dress codes for women” and the like. They frequently resort to “public shaming and sanctions” for those who defy their definitions of proper behaviour, reflecting, as he argues, their intolerance towards democratic values and open, pluralistic dialogue.

This is a painful truth, and our observation of these recent phenomena supports Samatar’s analysis.

When the Council of Ministers approved the Sexual Offences Bill—a bill introduced to replace the outdated Somali Penal Code of 1964—it was seen as a progressive step towards addressing crimes related to sexual violence. The original version of the Sexual Offences Bill, first drafted in 2018 with strong backing from civil society organisations and international partners, aimed to criminalise sexual violence, child marriage, sexual harassment, and other forms of gender-based violence. It also sought to protect the rights of women, children, and survivors of sexual abuse.

However, the bill failed to move forward due to significant pressure from influential religious scholars, who increasingly act as both lawmakers and enforcers of public morality.

Take, for instance, the case of Sheikh Mohamed Ummal, a prominent religious leader, who publicly criticised, in a very derogatory manner, Somali MP and then cabinet minister Hon. Khadija (AUN), for wearing clothing he deemed “un-Islamic.”

One may be justified in questioning: if religious scholars are so determined to shape law and public morality, why not focus that energy on addressing contemporary local challenges—such as corruption, poverty, or education—instead of trying to globalise our suffering or dictate personal freedoms under the guise of religious piety?

There is an alienation of intellectuals, those capable of providing nuanced analyses of Somali societal "illness.”, while Somali problems are often misinterpreted as uniquely and inherently rooted in broader Muslim struggle, minimizing complex local realities.

The problem confronting us now places Somalis in a difficult position. First, many religious scholars, influenced by foreign schools of thought, remain entrenched in sectarian ideologies. Such rigid adherence to sects leaves them little to no freedom to address Somali issues without framing everything within a broader global narrative. Second, there is an alienation of intellectuals—those capable of providing nuanced analyses of Somali society's “illness.” Third, Somali problems are often misinterpreted as uniquely and inherently rooted in the broader Muslim struggle, minimising complex local realities.

The Somali problem cannot be analysed nor understood through the narrow use of faith. We must recognise that Somali problems are our own; they are not mere chapters in a global story. Framing them as such distances us from the lived realities of our people: the daily struggles on the ground, the pain echoing in the streets, and the truths obscured by hollow spiritual slogans. Without this shift, we risk detachment—floating in abstract ideas while our communities drown in crises.

Yes, being Muslim is undeniably a principal part of Somali identity. Acknowledging this, Samatar writes, “Islam played a defining role in the life of the Somali people for the past five historical eras.” There’s no denying that Islam has shaped Somali culture, values, and daily life in profound ways. But faith should guide and empower Somalis, not blind them. Somalis must recognise that some of those who share our beliefs, whether individuals or nations, have also contributed to our suffering—whether directly or through silence.

As painful as it may be to admit, we cannot speak of unity among hundreds of millions when our own homes are in flames. We must first look inward, confront our own truths, and rebuild from within before we can genuinely reach out.