Postby MrHope4Peace » Sat Mar 21, 2009 8:07 am
read the following brothers and sisters:
Somalia
"Political Islam in a Troubled Nation:
Somalia Sheikhs, Warlords and Peacemakers
Islam, which unites Somalis across clan and regional lines, must be the backbone for any successful political solution to the war-weary country. Most people the author interviewed say Somalia's future lies not with a secular transitional leadership nor with Islamist radicals, but with a moderate Islamic leadership empowered by public support."
By Daniel J Gerstle | 02 March 2009
"During a UN child justice survey I led last spring across the northeastern African nation of Somalia, my friend Mohamed-Omer told me an illuminating story he heard from Islamic leaders in the coastal village of Qarxis. Their tale is set after more than a decade of failed government, interclan violence and economic hardship at a time when the question of what role Islamic leaders should play in government bears heavily on everyone’s mind.
A boy, left on his own after family members moved away in search of livelihoods, entertained himself by playing pranks: stealing goats, getting in fights and disobeying elders. Several times the boy hid nails on desert tracks so that when a truck drove by, the nail punctured a tire, the driver screaming in anger.
Clan leaders, acting in the vacuum left by the state authority, ordered the boy’s blood relatives to give livestock to the drivers to compensate them for their trouble. But the boy continued to disobey elders. When the village finally called on the local Islamic judge to find a solution, he ordered the boy to memorize Holy Scripture in the local mosque. After the wild boy began reading the scripture, his throat swelled shut. The villagers gathered to try to help him, but the sheikh at last declared that this was the will of God, the boy’s divine punishment. And the boy died. "
