This was an old East African practice, people in Ethiopia and SE Africa used to do it at one point too
I know and the Borana still do it. I haven’t found any references to Somalis doing it and the colonials surveyed almost every Somali group, why was there no mention of blood drinking? Perhaps sheikh Qudubi heard some people were doing it since he was out of the country for a long time?Or maybe some far away Somalis close to Rendille and Borana practiced it? I know Somalis and Samburu hated Each other, thus the Somalis would have looked down on their blood drinking practices.
while I agree some Somalis were ignorant of elements of Islam, I don’t agree with the assessment of the author about the lack of Islamic practice in the early 20th century. He made it seem like Somalis were almost stuck in a pre jahiliya stage or at the early stages of Islam.
The shafici madhab had strongly taken hold @ this point. Somalis were gaining knowledge of Islam under trees, then they would depart to seek more knowledge if they had the means. Sheikhs called axkaanley taught students of knowledge basic Islamic knowledge. The Sufi shrine tradition and the Dugsi culture was very strong. Some scholars living today count five generations of sheikhs in their family .When Richard Burton, who was pretending to be a Muslim scholar, was seen urinating in a standing position, they thought he was a gaal. I doubt people who were that committed were drinking blood. Alcohol was never widespread amongst nomads as well. Neither was khat even though Sheikh Qudubi holds it to be halal.Sheikh Qudubi himself had 200 books burnt by the British in Aden as he was seen to be causing problems between the Sufi brotherhoods. Not content with this, some years later, he returns to Somalia with a number of books to be handed out to students of knowledge. This shows there must have been a certain amount of literate men in Arabic and Islam. It was possible to learn Arabic without ever leaving Somalia.
The case was more that the revivalist movements and the ulema thought some Somalis were too lax with some elements of Islam. I don’t believe it was to the point alcohol and blood drinking was rampant. Sheikh Qudubi was decrying these things and exaggerates to warn the masses- as scholars tend to do.
You don’t get the dervish movement; the Bardheere Jihad; the Sufi tariqas; and, the emergency of early salafis, if you don’t have a large pool of Islamic adherents. The colonials depict Somalis as uneducated and illiterate about certain elements islam yet at same being “fundamentalist Mohammadans” who hated the kaffir ways of life .
having sai that, the article is a good read and it shows how connected Somalis were to the wider Islamic world.
it would be good if anyone had info about the Somali scholar from Azhar who approved Qudubis book .