Salafis are predators.
I remember having a conversation with an cadaan youth worker. She said to me, she's constantly struck about how little somalis know about their religion compared to other Muslims.
When i thought about it, my parents aswell as a lot of other Somali parents are very casual about religion. growing up I wasn't taught about religion, you were just Muslim. In some Somali homes you'll find that, the only one who prays is the father. Also "Our" Islam is often a mixture of our cultural norms, and traditional beliefs. For example how many of us were told things that had no significence to Islam was actually written in the quran by our mothers? when its just our culture.
The ignorance of our religion is what makes some people subscribe to salafism. They see the extremeness and passion for Islam that they didn't see in their homes. And they are led to believe it must be true Islam.
No i disagree i think you are speaking from own life experience. I think Somalis in general are not ignorant of their own religion, its not like we became muslims yesterday. The youth however is another factor.
Religion and culture mix. The interpretation of Islam vary. Like i explained there is not one true authentic monocultural Islam which is what Salafist preach, they shun religious diversity within Islam. The religion of islam is a traditional Somali religion. The unique Somali expression within this faith is not homologous but in Somalia , the Somali traditions are distinctively Somali. Which is why there is a necessity to Somalinize Islam instead of falling victims of other people’s interpretations, which is what is happening to the youth.
The problem however is that the Somali youth lack a religious identity, couple that with a significant section of them being Irreligious you have them more suceptible to psuedo religious brainwashing & radicalization.You will see an awful lot of them call their parents 'jaahils' just for being Non Salafis. Disobeying them becomes a doddle after that ineel waa iska 'jaahil' eh. The girls marrying all these ex convicts? Salafis. Waxaan wada tentska jiidanayya? Salafis. The boys and girls running off to Syria/Iraq bringing cimri degdeg to their parents? 'Salafis'.
Lack of religious identity is why somali youth turn to Salafism and become radicalized in larger proportions to other ethnicities/nationalities.
This is no different as to why Somalis in the diaspora run off after black urban culture (gangs,drugs, violence, Anti-intellectualism) it all comes down to a lack of identity. When you lack it you will attach yourself to all sorts of desctructive crap.
You may ask yourself why is that? Why do they lack religious identity. Well, this is a common side effect of the civil war. We lack religious intellectual capital, meaning we have zero true authentic Somali Islamic institutions , scholars and books. That produce our own content , with our own interpretations that speak to our reality.
Compared to other muslims ethnicities , for example Asian Muslims they have two homegrown religious movements/schools of thought, namely Barelvi and Deobandi. I don't agree with either but they do serve an important function which is shielding their youth from the snares of Salafiyyah. Almost every Pakistani/ Indian mosque is either barelwi or deobandi. They lecture in their local languages, produce books, have schools and institutions of higher Islamic learning in every country they reside in.
We dont have any homegrown schools of tought or intellectual scholars & institutions, simply because of the civil war and the total statelessnes of Somalia.
We instead now choose to go to war against our own religious identity and belittle our own islamic traditions, because our religious-cultural agency is low. So we have only ourselves to blame for our current circumstance.
The free scholarships doled out by the alcoholic Al Sauds has also turned our scholars from benign Shafici Sufi scholars to extremist Salafis.
We either fund & promote our own cultural Islam or get corrupted by foreign interperations & ideologies which will do a disservice to our development.