Udun,
I have enormous respect for the Sufis, especially Aweys al Qadiri, but I am less impressed with the Nejdian philosophies, especially as practiced by the Sayyid MAH.
As volunteer guests of the Government, we were told, and made a sincere effort, to avoid mentioning either qabiil or religion. While most of us were nominally either Christian or Jewish, I am not aware that any of us either had religious materials or were in the least way evangelizing. That just wasn't the game. I know I made no such efforts.
Grant,
Sayid Mohamed Abdulle Hassan's efforts were to reject colinialism. Three things trigerred his mission to resist British, Italian, and abyssinian expasionism and dictations on the Somali people. First, it was the British asking him to pay duty fee when he got off the boat at Berbera. His main problem was how can a non-Mulsim foreigner asked him to pay duty fee in his country, and who gave them the aouthority to make such decisions? Secondly, the British Governor in Berbera asked Somalis to stop the Sheikh who was doing the Adaan (the call to prayer) from waking him up in the morning. Thirdly, When Sayid Mohamed A Hassan arrived in the city of Shiekh, he found a church that housed Somali kids. He has asked them about their families and their clan. The orphaned kids responded: The Father. I each question that was asked, the kids responded "the Father". Knowing where they were heading with their responses, that had strucked Sayid MAH, and he decided to do something about it. His main goals were rejecting foreigner coming, spreading their faith, and dictating their will on the Somalis. He has also rejected many non-Islamic practices that Somalis were doing like going to graves and begging, and many heretic activities which had nothing to do with Islam.
For Sheikh Aweis, to my knowledge, his way of spreading Islam was to preach the faith and don't engage in armed struggle. He has actually done his part to spread Islam, but his goal was co-opting European colonizers intead of confronting them.
Those are the differences that I have found between those two Somali religious men. I personally leave it to the Muslim theologians to decide which was the best approach Islamically, but I know there were many Muslim revolutionaries in those days, and they have all adapted armed resistance.
