Dr Zakariya Weyrax Warsame

Is the Old Somali Sheikh with the Illuminating Faynuus Hidden Under His Garment—Claiming the Power of the Awliya, Invoking Sheikh Jaylani, and Deceiving Us for Money and Influence—Back, Only This Time Speaking Arabic and Selling Houses in Jannah?

There are questions a people eventually has to ask itself—questions that are uncomfortable, questions that offend the sensibilities of the pious, and questions whose answers may threaten ideas that have become too sacred to examine. For Somalis, I believe we have arrived at such a moment.

Our country has been broken for more than three decades. Since the collapse of the Somali state in 1991, we have endured civil war, clan conflict, displacement, terrorism, political fragmentation, foreign intervention and an almost generational failure to reconcile. We have rebuilt houses, businesses, telecommunications networks, masjids and fragments of government. We have produced new political conferences and new constitutions. We have raised an entire generation in the shadow of war. Yet beneath all this rebuilding, the fundamental wound remains: we have never truly made peace with ourselves.

There is something particularly strange about this condition because Somalis are not a people who lack a common identity. Quite the opposite. We possess one of the strongest shared identities in Africa. We share a language, an extraordinary oral tradition, a common history and, above all, a profound attachment to Islam.

Indeed, perhaps this last fact is precisely where we need to begin asking difficult questions.

Somalis are an intensely Muslim people. Islam is not simply a religion that many Somalis happen to practise; it is woven into our understanding of who we are. It is our vocabulary of morality, our source of ultimate legitimacy and, for many, the unquestionable foundation of personal and collective identity. That depth of faith is a great strength. But every source of authority can also become a source of vulnerability.

What if our reverence for Islam has become so absolute that we have become reluctant to question the particular interpretations of Islam presented to us by those who claim religious authority? What if we have become so afraid of questioning an interpretation that we have forgotten that questioning an interpretation is not the same thing as questioning Islam?

This is the question I believe Somalis need to confront—not because Islam has failed us, but because we may have failed to ask whether the forms of religious authority that have become increasingly influential in our society are actually helping us confront the extraordinary historical problem before us.

It is easier to see what I mean if we consider that history does not always repeat itself in the same form. Sometimes it simply changes its language. Perhaps the best way to understand the question is to look backward before examining what has changed. Do you remember the old stories of another kind of Somali religious authority? Before the civil war, there were men who presented themselves as awliya—holy men possessing extraordinary spiritual powers. Stories were told of sheikhs who would sit before ordinary people with a faynuus hidden beneath their macawiis, creating the impression that something extraordinary was happening. They might invoke Sheikh Jaylani, claim the power of the awliya, perform supposed miracles, or cultivate an aura of sanctity around themselves. Ordinary people, believing they were in the presence of someone specially favoured by Allah, would give them money and gifts. Today, many of us remember these stories almost with amusement. They belong to a religious culture we congratulate ourselves for having outgrown. And perhaps, in some respects, we did.

The growth of more scripturally rigorous Salafi-influenced religious movements after the civil war challenged many of these practices. Superstition was attacked. Fabricated miracles were exposed. Claims of supernatural powers were subjected to scrutiny. The Qur’an and Sunnah were brought back to the centre of religious discussion. For many Somalis, this represented genuine religious renewal.

It is important to be fair about what this transformation represented. These movements did not emerge in a vacuum. They challenged forms of religious practice that many Somalis regarded as superstition. They questioned claims of supernatural power. They emphasised the Qur’an and Sunnah, attacked fabricated miracles and sought to replace inherited religious customs with what they regarded as a more rigorous and textually grounded understanding of Islam. It would be intellectually dishonest to pretend otherwise. Nor should every Salafi-influenced Somali, or every person associated with Itixaad, Ictisaam or similar movements, be placed into one undifferentiated category. Their politics, scholarship, temperament and objectives have not been identical. But this transformation also created something else: a new kind of religious authority.

I say this as someone who is himself a product of that transformation. I grew up within the Salafi-influenced religious tradition, and much of my own religious education and maturity was shaped by it. I owe it a genuine debt for teaching me to question superstition, to take the Qur’an and Sunnah seriously, and to distinguish religious evidence from inherited custom. Precisely because I came through that tradition, I do not believe examining its assumptions, institutions or consequences is an act of hostility toward it. It is, rather, an act of intellectual responsibility. After years of living within this tradition, I have increasingly found myself questioning not simply what it teaches, but whether the system we have built around it is still achieving what it set out to achieve. And perhaps that is precisely why the question that follows is so difficult: what happens when a movement that taught us to question inherited religious authority eventually gives rise to forms of religious authority that become difficult to question themselves?

The difficulty lies in a distinction Somali public discourse often refuses to make. There is Islam, and there are Muslims; there is revelation, and there are human interpretations of revelation; there is the Qur’an and Sunnah, and there are people who interpret, explain, prioritise and apply them. To question the latter is not necessarily to question the former. Yet in Somali society, these things are frequently fused together. The preacher who presents an interpretation of religion can acquire a level of moral authority that makes his ideas almost immune from examination. A person who challenges him can quickly find himself accused of ignorance, modernism, Westernisation, disrespect for religion or even disbelief.

This creates an intellectual environment in which religious ideas can become insulated from the very scrutiny we routinely apply to every other institution in society. We have no difficulty questioning presidents, politicians, clan elders, foreign governments, businessmen or academics. Yet when a religious interpretation becomes socially powerful, we often lower the intellectual guard we apply everywhere else. The person speaking in the name of religion can become strangely protected from scrutiny simply because his argument is wrapped in religious language.

Perhaps that is precisely what we should no longer do.

We should be willing to ask not only whether a religious position is textually defensible, but whether it is actually producing the moral and social transformation a society desperately needs. Something can be literaturistically correct while being practically inadequate to the circumstances in which it is being applied. And if a religious framework can remain authoritative despite repeatedly failing to address the problems before us, then we have to ask a more uncomfortable question: what, exactly, is sustaining that authority?

You already know the answer, even if you don’t want to say it. The old system. The same promises. The same emptiness. The new authority is sustained by the same vulnerability it claims to have replaced. This is why the comparison is no longer avoidable. So let me ask you plainly: Did we eliminate the old religious deception, or did we merely make religious authority more sophisticated?

The trick of the deception is that it no longer looks like deception. It comes dressed as knowledge. The modern religious personality does not need to sit in darkness with a torch beneath him and claim supernatural powers. He does not need to call himself a wali or perform a supposed miracle. He can possess genuine knowledge. He can speak fluent Arabic. He can quote Qur’an and hadith. He can cite classical scholars. He can deliver a sermon entirely convincing on a textual level. Yet none of those things, by themselves, make him immune from human motives, financial incentives or the abuse of authority.

This is where the distinction between textual correctness and practical integrity becomes crucial. The old charlatan exploited people’s belief in his supernatural status. The modern religious authority may possess real knowledge and still exploit something else: people’s fear of Allah, their desire for Paradise and their reluctance to question someone speaking in the language of religion. The methods are not the same. The theological claims are not the same. And it would be unfair to suggest that they are. But perhaps the vulnerability being exploited is remarkably similar: the ordinary believer’s assumption that the man standing before him has a special claim upon his conscience. If that is true, then we have to ask whether we have actually escaped the old problem or simply replaced the theatrical miracle with the sophisticated sermon.

And this brings us to something even more uncomfortable: what happens when religious authority and money become intertwined?

The moment the person delivering the religious message becomes financially dependent upon the audience receiving it, an uncomfortable question emerges: can the message remain completely independent of the money? If the answer is yes, then wonderful. But we should not simply assume it.

Look at the world that has developed around some of our most prominent Somali religious personalities. A prominent sheikh may be invited to a congregation and expected to have his flight paid for, accommodation arranged and expenses covered. That is understandable when someone is travelling to provide a service. But increasingly, religious speaking can resemble a professional circuit: one masjid, another city, another conference, another lecture, another fundraising campaign, another invitation, another payment, another audience. Eventually, religious authority can begin to resemble a profession in the ordinary commercial sense.

There is nothing inherently wrong with earning a lawful living. But when the product being sold is religious authority, we must ask whether different ethical standards should apply. Historically, the religious scholar was not necessarily dependent upon the congregation for every aspect of his livelihood. In many Muslim societies, scholars had independent means of support, family wealth, endowments or other forms of income that gave them a degree of independence from those to whom they preached. That independence matters.

But the financial ecosystem surrounding some of our most prominent religious figures raises a different concern. A sheikh gathers an audience. The audience trusts him because he speaks in the name of religion. He invokes the Qur’an, the Prophet ﷺ, Paradise, Hell, reward and sin. Then he asks the audience for money. Sometimes for a masjid, a madrasa, a well, an orphanage or a humanitarian project. Many of these causes may be completely legitimate. But the mechanism deserves examination because the person asking is not merely another fundraiser. He is a religious authority, and his words carry spiritual weight.

The listener is therefore not simply thinking, “Should I donate?” He may also be thinking: “What if I don’t?” That is a completely different psychological proposition. The ordinary fundraiser asks for your money. The religious fundraiser can, intentionally or unintentionally, make you feel that your relationship with Allah is implicated in the decision. That is where the line between persuasion and emotional pressure becomes dangerously thin.

For the Somali mother or father living on a modest income, the calculation is not so simple. There is rent, school expenses, elderly parents, children who need clothes, perhaps debt, perhaps a medical bill, and perhaps relatives in Somalia whom they already support. Then a prominent sheikh tells them about a masjid that needs funding. He tells them of the immense reward, reminds them that charity does not diminish wealth, speaks about Paradise and urges them not to miss the opportunity. The decision no longer feels like an ordinary financial choice. It can begin to feel like a test of faith.

The imam is not the custodian of Paradise. No Somali sheikh possesses the keys to Allah’s treasury. And no preacher can guarantee a person’s place in Jannah because he donated to his particular masjid. These should be obvious statements. Yet in the emotional atmosphere of religious fundraising, the distinction can become blurred. And this is precisely where we need to stop and ask whether we have actually escaped the old pattern of religious manipulation—or merely given it a more sophisticated vocabulary.

I believe Somali religious leaders need to be held to a much higher standard. The poverty and religious devotion of an audience should never become a fundraising mechanism. If a family cannot afford to give, they should not be made to feel that they have failed Allah. If a parent chooses to spend limited income educating their children, feeding their family or caring for an elderly parent, they should not be made to feel that they have somehow missed a greater religious opportunity.

And this raises another uncomfortable question: what does Islam actually ask of us when charity comes into conflict with responsibility to our own families?

We should be careful here. Islam clearly encourages generosity and charity, and there are different forms and priorities of spending that scholars have discussed in detail. But surely we should be able to acknowledge the basic moral principle that a person’s obligations to those who depend upon him cannot simply disappear because a microphone has been placed in front of him and a fundraising appeal has begun. The Somali parent should not have to choose between feeding his children and proving his faith to a religious audience. Nor should the believer be made to feel that spending money on his child’s education, his family’s health, his elderly parents or his household is somehow spiritually inferior simply because it does not produce the emotional spectacle of a masjid fundraising campaign. A religious leader should never need to make you feel spiritually inadequate in order to fund his institution.

Perhaps the more difficult thing for a religious leader to say would sometimes be: “Take care of your family first. Educate your children. Pay your debts. Look after your parents. Give to charity when you can.” That message may raise less money. But perhaps it would reveal more about the integrity of the person delivering it. And if a leader is willing to say that, then surely he should also be willing to ask: do we actually need another masjid? This is a question many Somalis ask privately but rarely say publicly. Why can religious institutions not cooperate? Why does every religious personality, organisation or group seem to require its own masjid, its own fundraising campaign and its own financial apparatus?

And then there is the question nobody wants to ask: has the masjid, in some circumstances, become an institution of personal wealth and influence rather than simply an institution of worship?

That is an uncomfortable question, and it should remain uncomfortable. But discomfort is not an argument against asking it. When an imam controls fundraising, charitable appeals, religious legitimacy and access to a large community of emotionally receptive believers, there is an enormous concentration of moral and financial authority. Such authority requires accountability. Who audits it? Who examines the accounts? Who protects ordinary Somalis from emotional manipulation?

This is not about who is corrupt and who is not. The issue is larger than the masjid, larger than fundraising, and larger than any individual religious leader. It is about whether the religious leadership we have built is still capable of confronting the reality in which we actually live. It must do more than tell us what is permissible. It must understand trauma, history, politics, Somali culture, the economics of the families sitting before it, and the psychology of a population that has lived through thirty-five years of war. It must be capable of asking not merely, “Is this correct?” but also, “What does this produce?”

Because that is the question that matters now.

After thirty-five years, what has all this religious authority produced?

We are still killing one another with a casualness that would shame the dead. Still walking past emaciated children with hollow eyes on the streets of Mogadishu, Kismaayo, Garowe and Hargeisa, their mothers begging while we discuss the finer points of aqeedah and fiqh. Still flying home to Somalia for luxury holidays while families in the camps watch their children fade. Still using the word “brother” as a shield for everything we refuse to do for actual brothers. Still building. Still fundraising. Still preaching. Still reciting. Still debating what is correct. Still congratulating ourselves on our religious seriousness—while a wounded mother sits in the corner of the masjid, waiting for someone to see her.

At what point are we allowed to ask whether something has gone wrong?

Not whether Islam is wrong. Not whether the Qur’an and Sunnah are wrong. But whether the human system we have built around them is still doing what it was supposed to do.

That is where we have arrived.

Something is missing.

Perhaps the courage to find it begins with asking the questions we have been too afraid to ask. And perhaps the most uncomfortable question of all is this: Did we really rid ourselves of religious deception—or did we simply teach the old awliya charlatans to speak better Arabic, quote more scripture and wear a cleaner robe?