Teatime in Mogadishu

My Journey as a Peace Ambassador in the World of Islam

David W. Shenk, Ahmed Ali Haile

• Publisher: Herald Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780836195576
• eBook ISBN: 9780836197938
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

In 1991, Ahmed Ali Haile returned to the chaos of his native Somalia with a clear mission: to bring warring clans together to find new paths of peace—often over a cup of tea. A grenade thrown by a detractor cost Haile his leg and almost his life, but his stature as a peacemaker remained.

Whether in Somali’s capital, Mogadishu, or among Somalis in Kenya, Europe, and the United States, Haile has been a tireless ambassador for the peace of Christ. Into this moving memoir of conversion and calling, Haile weaves poignant reflections on the meaning of his journey in the world of Islam.

Part of the Christians Meeting Muslims series

CHAPTER 1

Muslim-Somali Heritage

Bulo Burte

(1953-68)

Say: He is God the One and Only;
God, the Eternal, Absolute.
—Qur’an

I AM Ahmed Ali Haile, the son of Ali Haile Afrahyare and Her-sia Shirar. My hometown is Bulo Burte in central Somalia. Bulo Burte, or Dusty Village, is a wind-swept enclave nestled against the Shebelli River, whose tributaries retrieve life-giving rainfall from the Ethiopian highlands far to the western horizon. The short rainy seasons can be fickle and sparse and the dry seasons long and dusty. Bulo Burte is the principal hub for the wide-ranging camel herding nomads who traverse a thousand miles a year in their grand circular trek in the scrublands of the vast eastern Horn of Africa, questing for water and acacia shrub. However, my family was not nomadic; we preferred the more sedentary ways of Somali town life.

My parents: Somali mavericks

My parents were Somali mavericks. My mother was fourteen or fifteen years old when she married my father; she was my father’s first wife, an exquisitely beautiful Somali maiden. However, their marriage was unusual for it was outside of the expectations of our clans. My mother and father came from two subclans that did not intermarry because the aura of my mother’s clan was deemed to be more powerful than my father’s clan. The sages of our clans believed that for pregnancy to happen there needed to be the right mixture of complementary power. Alas, since the power of my mother’s clan overwhelmed that of my father’s clan, her marriage would immunize her against bearing children to my father. So the clan elders advised my father to divorce my mother and find a new wife whose power complemented rather than overwhelmed his power.

My father loved his young wife, Hersia. So rather than divorce her, my father invited the elders of Hersia’s clan and his father-in-law to gather and bless his head with empowerment. At that time the elders also blessed my mother, declaring that she would bear eight sons. So my birth in 1953 in Bulo Burte, in central Somalia, was a special blessing, as were the births of my siblings. In fact, my mother bore nine sons, but one of them was a miscarriage.

Later my father married other wives as well. They bore him two additional sons and seven girls—seventeen children in all. The sons born to my mother were Mohammed, Mahmud, Abdullahi, Ahmed (myself), Hussein, Yassin, and then twins, Hassan and Othman. I was in the middle with four younger brothers. I became the leader and caretaker of my four younger siblings. It is amazing how scattered we have become: three of my brothers now live in the United States, two in Canada, three in Bulo Burte, and one in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Before his marriage in 1936, my father worked for the Italian military in their corps of engineers. After the defeat of the fascist Italian regime in World War II, my father was employed as a prison warden with the British military. He was placed in Mogadishu, in Johar, and then back in Mogadishu. Finally he was assigned to Bulo Burte where he was given an honorable discharge at about the time when British authority over southern Somalia ended and the European post-war peace agreements took effect.

These jobs introduced my father to a world beyond the horizons of Somali ethnocentrism. As a military officer, he earned the reputation of being a kind and fair man. When he left the military he developed a variety of businesses based in Bulo Burte: grain fields irrigated from the Shebelli River or dependent on rain, nomadic animal husbandry (cattle, camels, and goats), vegetable gardening, a general grocery store, and importing bananas from Merca, 160 miles (260 kilometers) to the south. Father worked hard and whatever he touched prospered.

The dusty village

Although Dusty Village might not be an auspicious name, we loved Bulo Burte. The wind-blown dust of the dry season not withstanding, this town was a delightful community. I consider the Bulo Burte of my childhood as a town with abundant social capital.¹ That is to say, we were a healthy society and my family represented the best of that health. The prophet Jeremiah describes the Rechabites, who embraced their father’s upright values (Jer 35:1-19); so also we children of Ali Haile Afrah cherished his wisdom. It is important for all societies to nurture their social capital; we nurtured our father’s social capital and determined not to deviate from his righteous example.

The tragedy of much of Somalia in the last two decades is that precious social capital has been squandered. Fifty years ago, my father worried about that. He fretted that his sons or daughters might become lazy and cease living life generously. He knew that laziness and selfishness erodes the qualities needed for a healthy society.

One of his proverbs stays in my soul:

Soor a la sheegay saara kac,

Soof a la sheegay sin u dhac.

The food is ready.
It is time to eat.
I will get up!

It is time to work.
Now I will lay down.
I can’t go to work.
I am sick.

His point was that people always arise from their rest when the food is ready; in contrast, too often we continue with our rest when there is work at hand. We need to arise for work just as enthusiastically as we arise when there is food.

A rich heritage

Both my father and mother came from respected family genealogies going back some fifteen generations. They were upright and generous. Mother never put water in the milk that she sold, so she was trusted by all. At mealtime she often invited the destitute from the byways around our home, from whatever clan, to join us for the evening meal.

The diversity of my father’s business enterprises ensured that our family always had plenty; even in famine we never went hungry. The integrity of his business dealings and township relations was such that he was respected by all. He paid no attention to clan, treating everyone equally. (That is one reason I will never mention the name of my clan in this memoir.) Father treated his workers fairly. He was considered a wise man, and his words did not go unheeded.

When I visited Bulo Burte some years ago shortly after my father’s death, some of his workers came to me to confess that they had cheated Father. I responded, “I know my father would have forgiven you and so do I.”

If a person was hungry, Father always gave generously, even beyond the required Islamic alms for the poor (zakat). On one occasion a relative came by who was in severe financial straits. Father gave him cash and a bull to take and sell for the additional money he needed.

One of my sisters protested, “Father, this bull is part of our livelihood and not to be given away.”

My father’s exuberant generosity surprised me. He asserted, “All that I have belongs to my children. You will have plenty even after the bull is sold.”

Years later I read in Luke’s Gospel about a father whose older son begrudged a calf for a festival welcoming his younger prodigal brother home (Luke 15:11-32). My father demonstrated the compassion of the father in that Gospel account!

I live gratefully within the shadow of the enduring values my parents modeled.

Childhood formation

I was a rambunctious child. When I was about five, I was loitering with friends in the shade of a tree where a donkey was tethered. Two of us climbed the tree and jumped on the donkey’s back. Of course he bolted in a terrible fright. I was hurled from the back of the donkey and fell on my right arm. Ever since that terrific fall I have suffered nerve damage in my right arm. My mother saw the hand of God in this, as she did in all the events of life. She confided that she always hoped at least one of her sons would devote his life to leading people in the ways of God. This injury was confirmation in her spirit that I should not pursue business or farming as a life vocation, but rather focus on learning and teaching the Qur’an.

That would be a different road than the one chosen by the more warrior-like men of my father’s clan. They were practical men, and commitment to belligerent conflict, when necessary, was quite in line with their worldview. My grandfather, Afrah-yare, was a recognized leader who was more impressed with the practical dimensions of survival than with time-consuming religious practices.

My more pious mother, on the other hand, cherished the more pacific lore of her people and communicated these values through her many proverbs and parables. One story she told, for example, was about a hungry beggar in rags:

Once, while the beggar rested under an acacia tree, a bird perched above him chirping, “Prosperity is not good for a man, prosperity is not good for a man, prosperity is not good for a man!”

Thereafter the beggar had the good fortune to be employed by a rich widow. Before long they married. But she warned her new husband, “Never look in the box under the bed. The day you look in that box our marriage will end.”

She and her husband prospered in their business enterprises. Yet he was not satisfied. He began to pester his wife, “I must also look inside the box under the bed. Why do you keep that secret from me?”

Because of his pestering she finally agreed. She called all the town elders and informed them of the agreement she and her husband had made before they were married, “The day my husband looks inside the secret box under the bed, our marriage will end.”

With excited anticipation her husband, the former beggar, opened the box in the presence of all the town elders. He was appalled to find that the contents of the box were his old, tattered and soiled beggar’s clothing. So his wife divorced him and sent him off with only his beggar’s clothes.

Truly the bird in the acacia tree got it right, “Prosperity is not good for a man!”

The moral was that the avarice of demanding everything will leave one in poverty. Such spiritual sensitivities of my mother’s have formed me deeply!

In 1965, when I was twelve, the rains failed. The Shebelli River, with tributaries in the Ethiopian Highlands, dried up. Our family migrated ninety miles south to Johar, where there was still some fleeting greenery for our starving livestock. Soon after, Mother had to return to Bulo Burte and I became responsible for the four younger siblings. As a twelve-year-old I learned to cook, organize, and lead. That event formed my leadership skills and taught me responsibility. When the rains returned, we also returned to Bulo Burte, but by then most of our livestock was gone.

Islam, my faith

Except for several obvious foreigners, all inhabitants of Bulo Burte were Muslims. In fact, with very rare exceptions, all Somalis were Muslims—including my parents. Most Somalis traced their genealogy to their prophet Muhammad. They believed that the blood of Muhammad and the faith of Islam flowed in their veins. This meant that to be a Somali was to be Muslim. So my identity was not only Somali, but also Muslim.

My mother’s influence nudged me into beginning the journey to Muslim spiritual leadership for which she felt I was destined. At four years of age I was able to touch my left ear with my right arm over my head; that meant I was mature enough to enroll in the duksi (Qur’anic school). I began memorizing the Qur’an in Arabic at the duksi. I approached this awesome commitment of receiving the powerful Qur’an into my being with appropriate sobriety. Although I struggled with the discipline of memorization more than some, I soon emerged as a leader among the students and became the teacher’s assistant. By the time I was twelve I sometimes led in the salat (ritual prayers) that the faithful performed five times daily. Our mosque was Sunni Islam, as were all the inhabitants of Bulo Burte. As a child I became my mother’s teacher, helping her learn some of the melodious cadences of the Arabic Qur’an. And I impressed upon her the central conviction of Islam: God is one.

As a devout Muslim, my mother received my teaching of the Qur’an with sober diligence. In fact, she developed the habit of reciting the Al Ikhlas² from the Qur’an 400 times every evening before retiring:

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

Say: He is Allah the One and Only;

Allah, the Eternal, Absolute;

He begets not, nor is he begotten;

And there is none like unto him.

Muslim authorities teach that this surah (chapter or section) is so central to the message of Islam that one recitation is equivalent to reading half the Qur’an.

I enjoyed studying Islam in the school within the mosque. There are four systems of Sharia (Islamic law) practiced by Sunni Muslims: Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, and Shafii. Somali Muslims follow the Shafii law that I studied after completing the memorization of the Qur’an and the rituals of prayer. The imam explained that there is a balance scale: submission to Islam is credited to the good side of the scale, and the wrongs that we do are placed on the debit side of the scale. At the final judgment, the shape of our scale will influence God’s determination as to whether we will go to paradise or hell. So I quite enthusiastically did my salats and tried to obey Islamic law, hoping to add to the credit side of my scale.

The house of Islam

The Muslim community was referred to as the ummah, meaning “mother.” The community has a mothering function, preserving, protecting, and nurturing the believer. The ummah is also referred to as the “house of Islam.” I learned that this house is supported by ten pillars, five pillars of belief and five of duty.

The five pillars of belief are 1) belief in God; 2) belief in the prophets; 3) belief in the books of revelation; 4) belief in angels; 5) belief in the final judgment.

The imam taught us that the five pillars of duty are 1) the confession that there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the prophet of God (shahadah); 2) prayers five times daily facing Mecca (salat); 3) giving alms to the poor (zakat); 4) daytime fasting in the month of Ramadan (sawm); 5) going on the pilgrimage to Mecca once in a lifetime if possible (hajj).

As a faithful Muslim believer, I enjoyed living within the security of the house of Islam. I believed in the five supporting pillars of belief and I faithfully practiced the five pillars of duty. I enjoyed and felt secure within the Muslim ummah. That was my community. Sheikh Rashid was the imam. He was very effective in nurturing within my young soul an appreciation for Islam and the Muslim community.

One special memory of my immersion into the life of the mosque was the evenings when we Muslim disciples would sit in a circle with the imam, as he would expound on narratives that are referred to in the Qur’an. That was a challenging exercise, because the Qur’an does not present narratives in a cohesive way. Bits of narrative are alluded to here and there in the Qur’an as well as in the Hadith (Muslim traditions). I was amazed at the way Imam Sheikh Rashid could weave these fragments into a cohesive story. I was especially intrigued by the story of Joseph.

Some years later I was astonished to discover that the Bible more fully describes many of these sketchy allusions than does the Qur’an. That discovery was significant in my teenage years when I began to develop interest in the biblical narratives. The seed of that interest was sown in my soul in those evening storytelling circles with the imam.

Although I was secure within the house of Islam, my study of the Qur’an did not answer several perplexing questions within my young mind. However, I never felt free to ask any of the imams these questions. Most perplexing to me was the insistence that Muslims must believe all the...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Teatime in Mogadishu
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Muslim-Somali Heritage Bulo Burte (1953-68)
• Chapter 2: From Islam to the Gospel The Hospital and May 15 High School (1968-72)
• Chapter 3: Christ or Success Nairobi (1973-74)
• Chapter 4: Pursuing Education The American Academy (1974-82)
• Chapter 5: Serving Within Muslim Society Somalia (1982-87)
• Chapter 6: Struggle for Inclusion the Muslim Community (1988)
• Chapter 7: Wounded Peacemaker Immersion in the Somali Conflict (1989-92)
• Chapter 8: Foundation for Peacemaking Expanding Horizons (1992-94)
• Chapter 9: Hope Within Conflict Somali Church and Daystar University (1994-2009)
• Chapter 10: Christ is my Center Reflection on my Destiny (2009-2010)
• Epilogue: Our Journey Martha Jean Wilson Haile
• Questions for Reflection and Discussion David W. Shenk
• Endnotes
• About the Author and Editor