Paper short abstract:

Nasser’s Egypt was a key actor in the Somali struggle for independence, supplementing its political actions with religious appeal. The paper deals with Nasser’s attempts to include Somalia in the Arab world and concludes that this involvement promoted an internationalization of Somali local Islam.

Paper long abstract:

Facing the overlap between the chain of Muslim brotherhoods and clan agnatic lineages in Somali Islam, the Egyptian Azharite mission in Somalia promoted the innovative forces of the Shāfi'ite tradition, connecting local Islam to some foreign, namely Egyptian, strains. This influence resulted in a more rigorist Islam, which, particularly in urban environment, successfully opposed the syncretism of Somali Islam and the authority of local Wadaad-s with the final effect to enable the development of some un- or even anti-Sufi sheikhs. In addition Egypt directly funded many schools according to its own pattern, that had a very modernist/Islamist background, in which the Qur'ān is only one subject among others, such as hadīth (tradition), Islamic history, law, and 'aqīda. A clanless Islam would find the favour with the political plans of the main Somali party, the Somali Youth League, because the achievement of a national and unitary society took for granted the relinquishment of clannish legacy. The paper assess the interactions between local actors vs. different international players on the eve of Somali national independence and devotes special attention to the ten years period of the Italian trusteeship over Somalia (1950-1960) as premise of further internationalization or Middle East orientation of Somali Islam as well as politics.