BRIEF HISTORY:
BRIEF HISTORY:
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN SOMALIA
1. The early missions and missionaries
In 1886 a French Roman Catholic mission setup a mission base and established a school at the port town of Berbera in the then British protectorate of Somaliland. (Isse 1974) About the same time the Franciscan mission of the Roman Catholic Church and the Swedish Overseas Lutheran Mission each setup a mission base in Mogadishu and Kismayo towns respectively. Soon the harvest was plenty and the church was growing rapidly. About ten year later when Sayid Mohamed Abdullah Hassan, the insurgent Muslim fundamentalist leader whom the British called the Mad Mullah of Somaliland arrived at Berbera town.There was a Somali church with hundreds of members, mainly young people and children in the boarding school. One day Sayid Mohamed met two of the Christian children;
one of them was wearing a wooden cross around his neck and talked to them. “Are you Somalis?” He asked them.
“Yes, we are Somalis.” They answered.
“Tell me your names?” “My name is John and this is my friend James.” Said one of the children.
“Are you not Muslims?” Sayid Mohamed enquired, while stripping off forcefully the cross necklace from the boy’s neck.
“No, we are not, we are Christians.” Said the second young boy with awe. (Isse 1974) Sayid Mohamed left the boys very angry and swearing that he will fight with the Christians without reservation.
Ioan M. Lewis, a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics wrote: “The sheikh come into contact with the French Roman Catholic mission, which had opened a station in the north of the protectorate in 1891. This was originally at Berbera, but had now moved to Daimole, inland the road towards Sheikh. The story goes on that Sheikh Muhammad met a boy at the mission school and asked him his name. To his amazement and wrath, the boy replied, ‘John Abdullahi’. An other account relates the Sheikh met a party of boys from the mission who when he asked what clan they belong to – the stock Somali inquiry to elicit someone’s identity- replied, ‘the clan of the fathers.’ (In Somali, reer fadder), thus apparently denying their Somali identity (many of the boys were actually orphans).” (Lewis 1980,67). Sayid Mohammed aroused the modern Muslim fundamentalism in Somaliland and later founded his Dervish insurgent organization. Few decades later the church was declining. Its members either Martyred, denied their faith and turned to Islam or exiled from the country.
The Swedish Overseas Lutheran Mission, the first Christian mission expedition arrived at Kismayo portal town in 1880s and setup a mission station there. Soon they expanded their mission work to Margarita (Jamame) Mugambo and Alexandra (Jilib) and other places. They started clinics and schools as well as a church. Then Jubbaland region was part of British Kenya. The Swedish Mission worked among and preached the Gospel to the Somali clans and the Bantu plantation workers. They faced not limitations and enjoyed the British protection. The church grew tremendously. Few decades later there was a church with hundreds of Somali members. The church at Kismayo and Margarita continued to grow until Jubbaland was divided into two parts and Jubba river valley was annexed to the Italian Somali protectorate. Then the Italians expelled the Swedish Lutheran Mission from Somalia, and the church property was either taken over by the Roman Catholic Church or destroyed by the Somali Muslims. Persecution and church collapse occurred in the wake of the Lutheran mission expulsion. Although Jubba valley was until recently where most Somali Christians in Somalia lived, that church is gone forever.
2.The ten years of the church stability
During 1950s several Christian missions arrived in Somalia and Somali inhabited territories of Ethiopia and Kenya. But only three, namely The Swedish Lutheran Mission, Mennonite mission and Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) left with their footmarks among the Somalis. Almost all the surviving first generation Somali believers are those who attended the mission schools at Mogadishu, Jiohar, Mahadai, Sheikh, Kismayo, Berbera, Jigjiga, Jamame and Kallafo. Most of these schools were run either by SIM, the Lutherans or the Mennonite Mission. This time the church revived and started to grow, but more cautious and hideous. Small group house churches sprung up in several towns throughout the Somali territory. As the church started to grow, so was the persecution, murdering and forced exile.
3. The church under the socialist state
In 1969 when president Mohamed Siad Barre’s Socialist Military government came to power they introduced what they called scientific socialism, a Maoist kind of cult. They confiscated all the properties owned by the Christian missions and churches including the schools and clinics. Some of the missions and church organizations were also expelled from the country. (Eby 2003) In 1974 president Siad Barre introduced a new law, which, contrary to traditional Islam, gave women the same inheritance rights as men, and in January 1975 executed ten of those religious sheikhs who preached in the mosques against the new law. Twenty-three others received long prison sentences. “By this action, taken in international women’s year, the government demonstrated its secular, reformist intentions –but at the cost of raising in an acute form the whole question of the Islamic identity of the Somali people.” (Lewis 1980, 213) Muslim fundamentalism started to revive. Underground Muslim fundamentalist organizations both local and international sprang up throughout Somalia and the neighboring countries with the aim of establishing Islamic state in Somalia and the neighboring countries. Muslim Brotherhood and Muslim Youth Union come first through the north, particularly Hargeisa and spread their ideologies throughout the country. Later on the more radical Alitihadul Islam (The Union of Islam) and others followed. The first and foremost objective of each and every one of these organizations was and still is to eliminate Christians and Christianity from among the Somali people. They claim that Somalis are 100% Muslim people, which is far from being true. During president Said Barre’s rule, in the 1970s and 1980s they used their influence in the government, their financial strength and the public against the church. They influenced the government to ban the printing, importing, distributing or selling of Christian literature in the country. The government and its National Security Services (NSS) secret police threatened, arrested, tortured, and murdered Somali Christians. Literally, Freedom of religion was stated in the national constitution, but practically no one applied it. Many Somali Christians lost their jobs and businesses; others to survive abandoned their faith or immigrated to the western world. Those lucky enough got jobs with western embassies and international organizations in Mogadishu. 4. The collapse of the state and the church When president Said Barre‘s government was ousted from power in 1991 and national government of Somalia fall apart, Muslim fundamentalist organizations become stronger and more powerful to do whatever they wish in Somalia and even it’s neighboring countries. Fundamentalist Organizations set up a committee of several sheikhs to search and identify all Somali Christians, whether they were in or out of Somalia. They also appointed a group of armed young men to execute all Somali Christians. Sheikh Suley, a well-known Somali clergy, led both the committee and the armed group. According to Islamic sharia, any adult who abandons Islam and converts to other faith is "murtad" and should be killed, that is legal and unquestionable. Since January 1991 over a thousand Somali Christian adults were killed in Somalia and the neighboring countries of Yemen, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti. Many more were wounded and either became refugee to other countries or denied their faith to save their lives. Hundreds of Somali believers left Somalia and became refugees and still many more believers remain underground in Somalia. The Muslim fundamentalist ambitions of eliminating the Somali church are far from being over. They followed those who took refuge to Kenya and the neighboring countries. Many are persecuted, beaten or charged with false accusations in Nairobi by the Muslim fundamentalists. In May 2001, a Somali Christian man by the name Bashir was tranquillized by his relatives by force and abducted to Somalia through Wilson airport without the governments knowledge of his being abducted. Later we heard he was murdered in Burao, Somalia. In February, 2003 when three Somali Christians went to Eldoret town and requested to participate the ongoing Somali peace conference and represent the Somali Christian community, the peace conference nearly collapsed. Most of the several hundreds of participants rejected the idea of Somali Christians participating the conference and representing Somali Christian community.
On 9th February 2003 the umbrella of the Somali Muslim religious groups, a powerful religious organ met in Mogadishu and issued a memorandum. They stated in their memorandum and press release which was broadcasted or published by several local and international radio stations, newspapers and websites several articles concerning Somali Christian believers. They also asked the participants of the peace conference not to accept any Somali who is claiming that he or she is Christian to participate the conference and sit with them. The articles were include:
1. Somali Christians abandoned Islam and must be killed;
2. Somali Christians can neither inherit nor inherited;
3. Their marriage to their spouses must be dissolved;
4. Somali Christians forfeited their Somali ness [citizenship];
5. Once they die, Somali Christians cannot be buried in Somali soil. (Baaruud 2003)
Fourteen sheikhs representing different major Somali clans signed this memorandum. Some of them are those who authorized and organized the campaign to eliminate Somali Christians from the horn of African region.....MORE SOMALI MISSION.ORG