In “Somalia, Reclaim Your True Religion” in the Washington Post blog, Bashir Goth says “good riddance” to the Islamic Courts, and calls upon Somalis to recover their cheerfully syncretistic and relaxed cultural Islam — which is hardly at all jihad-oriented, although it still makes life very difficult for women and preaches contempt and hatred for non-Muslims, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s forthcoming memoir, Infidel, makes clear.
Goth concludes:
Now, it is time for the people of Mogadishu to reclaim their freedoms and their true religion. Time to read the Quran with piety and not with politics; time to perform Dhikr in the Sufi Qadiriya style; time to dance in weddings and listen to the music of our late melody queen Magool, which the Islamists wanted burn. It is time to let our women come out to the sunshine and swim with their children in the lido beach; time to shave the beards, watch cinemas and let our youth revel, sing, dance and ring in the New Year with Mohammed Suleiman’s eternal lyrics “… kii noo hagaagee, noqo loo hanweynyahay.” (…Be a year that brings us good fortune and high expectations.”
Bashir Goth’s piece did not originate with the WaPo; it initially appeared in Awdalnews on December 29, and has been widely reprinted. And it turns out that the Post cut out a bit of the last part of the article. Here it is from the Australian e-journal On Line Opinion, with the piece missing from the Post in bold:
Now, it is time for the people of Mogadishu to reclaim their freedoms and their true religion. Time to read the Koran with piety and not with politics; time to perform Dhikr in the Sufi Qadiriya style; time to dance in weddings and listen to the music of our late melody queen Magool, which the Islamists wanted to burn.
It is time to throw away the Arab head rags; the sign of the shabby dressed Islamists, and time to be proud of our native names, cleansing our ears of the alien Arab nom de guerres of the Islamists.
It is time to let our women come out to the sunshine and swim with their children at the Lido beach; time to shave the beards, watch cinemas and let our youth revel, sing, dance and ring in the New Year with Mohammed Suleiman’s eternal lyrics ” “¦ kii noo hagaagee, noqo loo hanweynyahay.” (“¦ Be a year that brings us good fortune and high expectations.” Amen.
The Post joins the Khaleej Times of the UAE in not wanting to offend the delicate feelings of Arab jihadists. It’s a pity that they chose to excise this passage, since it illustrates an important reality: many non-Arab Muslims resent and despise Arabs, and practice a cultural Islam shorn of some (but not all) of the features that are at variance with Western concepts of human rights and human dignity. This fact could be useful to those who are trying to defend us against the global jihad, if they chose to take notice of it.
Incidentally, a commenter at the Post site, “sheikhabdullah,” immediately expressed his disapproval on the grounds of Islamic purity, as Islamic hardliners always do:
It sounds like you are saying “it’s time to leave Islam!”. You are obviously ignorant about what is permitteted in Islam, what is not permitted, and why. You are calling for Sufism, which has deviated from the path of true Islam. Therefore, you are calling to “kufr”, disbelief. “Wahhaabi” Islam is true, and Sufis is bid’ah [innovation]. You cannot find Sufism in the Qur’an or Sunnah, but “Wahhaabism”, the teachings of Sheikh Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhaab are based soundly on Qur’an and Sunnah. You saying nothing except ignorance. Long live the Union of Islamic Courts. True Islam will reign victorious. It is not over yet.