Jews in Somalia?

[Vacelere]

I saw a thread in this website about how that the article in Wikipedia about Mogadishu was edited in a way to create a link between Judaism/Hebrew language to Mogadishu and few days I go I found out this video


So my question here is why these things start to come out and who could be the benefactor from this propaganda

 

[Ha Lima]

There were never Ethnic Somali Jews in Somalia. Before Islam we had our own distinct religion that looked more like other indigenous African reiligion. And with Israel and USA trying to forcibly mass immigrate palestinians to Somaliland Im not surprised that they’re suddenly pushing this kind of propaganda.

 

[Burqad]

There were never Ethnic Somali Jews in Somalia. Before Islam we had our own distinct religion that looked more like other indigenous African reiligion. And with Israel and USA trying to forcibly mass immigrate palestinians to Somaliland Im not surprised that they’re suddenly pushing this kind of propaganda.

1.
Before Islam we did not exist.

2.There are no such thing as an “African religion” because some African nations were cawaan worshipers while others were monotheistic.

3. that is fake and won’t happen

 

[Midas]

Before Islam we did not exist.

I hope your trolling when you say this because it's pretty clear that somali identity was already well defined in the preislamic period. The 2 biggest pieces of evidence we have for this is

1) the existence of a poetic tradition with no arabic influence and the clearly secular nature of the poetry and certain refrences in proverbs and sayings points to the preislamic roots still there

2) the fact there is this tradition of ancestral veneration which seems to have become syncretized with the visiting of saintly tombs in the Islamic tradition. Ive mentioned this before but you won't find anywhere else in the muskim world where people visit the tomb of clan ancestors

3) this is an extra one but the existence of a non-islamic somali calender


The reason none of this is obvious is that somalis basically have an extremely similar culutral context to the part of the Arabian penisula in which Islam arose. So some practiced where abandoned and others syncretized

 

[Burqad]

I hope your trolling when you say this because it's pretty clear that somali identity was already well defined in the preislamic period. The 2 biggest pieces of evidence we have for this is

1) the existence of a poetic tradition with no arabic influence and the clearly secular nature of the poetry and certain refrences in proverbs and sayings points to the preislamic roots still there

2) the fact there is this tradition of ancestral veneration which seems to have become syncretized with the visiting of saintly tombs in the Islamic tradition. Ive mentioned this before but you won't find anywhere else in the muskim world where people visit the tomb of clan ancestors

3) this is an extra one but the existence of a non-islamic somali calender


The reason none of this is obvious is that somalis basically have an extremely similar culutral context to the part of the Arabian penisula in which Islam arose. So some practiced where abandoned and others syncretized

The ethnogenisis of the Somali people does not mean the pre-existing people who were ancestral to the current inhabitants of the Somali peninsula, but rather similar to how Polonian or French ethnogensis came from conversion to Catholicism, the ethnogenisis of a common Somali people came from the faith of Islam. It is nonsensical to say that the wends or obodrites were polish.

Ethnogenesis - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Midas]

The ethnogenisis of the Somali people does not mean the pre-existing people who were ancestral to the current inhabitants of the Somali peninsula, but rather similar to how Polonian or French ethnogensis came from conversion to Catholicism, the ethnogenisis of a common Somali people came from the faith of Islam. It is nonsensical to say that the wends or obodrites were polish.

Ethnogenesis - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Are you being serious ?
I dont know how you can compare somalis to poles and French who clearly formed from a mix of several diffrent ethnic groups to somalis. The genetic divergence between us and our neighbors is massive and its very clear that somalis were nomadic pastoralists who owned camels in the preislamic period. So what exactly would have caused us to change our ethnic identity? Its not like we didnt have towns/urban centers before Islam and there wasn't any mass migration either ?

Your argument would make sense if there was some sort of new technology or social structure introduced that caused a massive change and forced multiple diverse groups into fusing. There isnt anything like this that happened in somalia.

Nobody would say that islam led to the ethnogenisis of turks or Persians and that before islam there was no such thing as turkic or persian identity

 

[Riftvalley]

More Hindus probably travelled to Somalia than al yahuud.

 

[Guure⁸]

1.
Before Islam we did not exist.

2.There are no such thing as an “African religion” because some African nations were cawaan worshipers while others were monotheistic.

3. that is fake and won’t happen

How we didn't exist while dozens of pre-islamic sources mention us?

 

[Khal Mah Oma]

More Hindus probably travelled to Somalia than al yahuud.

Hindus going to Somalia to promote their “caste system” and Somalis putting them into the 4.5 system.

Hindus:

 

[Guure⁸]

Hindus going to Somalia to promote their “caste system” and Somalis putting them into the 6.5 system.

Hindus:

4.5?

 

[Khal Mah Oma]

4.5?

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[The alchemist]

The ethnogenisis of the Somali people does not mean the pre-existing people who were ancestral to the current inhabitants of the Somali peninsula, but rather similar to how Polonian or French ethnogensis came from conversion to Catholicism, the ethnogenisis of a common Somali people came from the faith of Islam. It is nonsensical to say that the wends or obodrites were polish.

Ethnogenesis - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

You're wrong, and somewhat right in another way. You are right in one thing: what defines our ethnicity today in terms of values and how we see ourselves as people cultivated mostly in the Islamic period, but we've had an epochal period in our ethno-graphic anthropological historical timeline that stretches much deeper, concluding that, as a people, we have a much greater depth of temporal existence. We were the same relational population before the Islamic period, meaning, we had a coherent ethno relation, only mixing among ourselves, keeping lifestyles and attitudes from those roots. This goes back to when we came. Our foundation as a coherent group goes back 2800 years. At several points in that history, we've had cultural, social, and religious change.

So to put it simply, we as people existed way prior, although the introduction of Islam defines who we are today by far, since that is the latest and strongest reference point.

I've proven comprehensively through interdisciplinary evidence that is hard and established that prior to Islam and during, Somalis had strong ethnic and relational concepts since we arrived in the region, relative to other Ethiopians with whom we strictly did not mix. Ancient Somali clans used to mix highly amongst each other as today, but no gene flow with Ethiopians. They kept the same cultural foundations and had the same genes. This is impossible to say; they did all that while not relating to each other in an "ethnic" sense.

I reject the extreme and unrealistic views that some hold that Islam does not define much of our current ethnic definitions and lifeways. That is simply nonsense. Much of our ethnic value system is at the core of Islamic, with Islamic history having the greatest gravity that we shift from, and much of what has happened since Islam defines most, if not almost everything, we are today.

But the bottom line is, we're of a coherent population continuity with diachronic change in religion and lifeways (though lifeways such as subsistence, pastoral, farming, and trade all established before the Islamic period). Somalis did not appear out of nowhere upon the introduction of Islam, nor were the clans hard barriers of ethnic associations whatsoever, as proven by genetic realities. As a people, we descend 100% from those pre-Islamic ancestors who were already a coherent people. In fact, we are probably the only population that can say this. The Italians, heavily mixed. The Greeks...well, they were never homogenous unless you go way back in time and only take one regional snapshot. The Chinese, a historical mixed bag. All the Europeans, well, I don't even have to mention it since only a few centuries have had the entire region revamp.

The only people that we can say are like us are Arabs, but I don't think you would ever say that Arabs did not exist before they were Muslims.

It is important to bring realism to this narrow definition that has little explanatory power to define our history and existence through it as a people. Populations don't suddenly pop up into existence. But to straighten it out without confusion, we are not a people like the Polish that became a people from the Roman Catholic religious shift. Those people distinguished themselves because of it, unlike us, who were already a coherent, distinguished people that became Muslim and ever since moved away from some previous collective traditional identities and beliefs that tied into the perception of being. Islam was introduced to the people.

Our ethnogenesis is diachronic -- Somalis were already a coherent population before Islam, and Islam, rather than creating us, consolidated and redefined a new identity that shaped another part of our history that we largely draw upon and descend from. So, like this Islamic period of our history is what we are and mostly draw upon, but we were a people, although in many ways very different, before Islam. People change through time. Similar to you, I reject people who say "Somali" and Islam are two separate thing, and that our identity is secular with Islam being an extension of what people choose to believe. That is nonsense. Much of Somali identity itself is nested from Islamic values and history so much that if you think in the nationalist or secular ethnic identity, you're more so innovating something new than distilling Islam from Somali identity. That is why often people who leave Islam struggle not just with spiritual issues but their sense of identity is uprooted. That is why they attempt to shift the definition and create new grounds like the Western world so people like them can redefine what is a Somali so they feel included, now having effectively rejected the core part of the collective values.

I remember one fellow who I am sure meant well said, Islam and Somali are two different things. I mean, correct. One is ethnicity, and one is deen. But what a Somali is cannot be defined much without Islam. So what it means to be Somali has Somali at its core. There is a reason why ethnographers and anthropologists first figure out the belief systems of people, since that pretty much defines the core of who those people are, it influences their lifestyle, social behavior, all their values, the way they conduct themselves as a collective unit, gender relations, gender roles, hierarchies, etc., etc. So yes, Islam and Somali are not interchangeable, obviously. But you cannot know the Somali without knowing about their belief system, that is, Islam.

This is the balanced and true position. Saying we did not exist is quite ridiculous, and for those who try to reduce how our ethnic definition is going to place Islam central to it are also very wrong. I know you mean well, but it goes way too far.