Recently, I came across news reports on the activities of a group of clerics calling themselves 'the Authority for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice' trying to impose draconian moral codes on Somaliland citizens
 I cannot sit back and watch these people humiliate our women, destroy our beautiful culture, hijack our religion, and denigrate the reputation of our country worldwide...

Nowadays, it is sad to see
 that the ideal harmony between Islam and Somali culture is swept aside by a new brand of Islam that is being pushed down the throat of our people - Wahhabism. Anywhere one looks, one finds that alien, perverted version of Islam that depends on punctilious manners more than it depends on deep-rooted faith. A strange uniformity
 has crept into the social manners of our people. The unique fashion and identity of our people has changed forever. We have become a people without fashion, without culture, and without identity


It is a pity
 to see that, at a time when Saudi Arabia, the home of Wahhabism, is reassessing the damage that Wahhabism and extremism had done to their country's name and to the reputation of Islam all over the world
 that Wahhabism has to find a save-haven in our country."

Wahhabism is an austere and closed school of thought promulgated by Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab Najdi in the 18th century. [It discards] Islam's
 four legal schools as corrupted
 [whereas] traditional Somali religious scholars read all four schools of thought (madahib) with equal respect and open mind
 Wahhabism, is the only school that compels its followers strictly to observe Islamic rituals, such as the five prayers, under pain of flogging, and for the enforcement of public morals to a degree unprecedented in the history of Islam
 Where[as] Wahhabism sows hatred and rancor even among Moslems, Sufism preaches sulh-e kull (universal peace) and Mahabbat e-kull (universal love).

For these fanatics, the breast of the countryside mother who suckles her baby while selling milk in the streets of Hargeisa is a sin, not motherhood as many of our ordinary souls would see it. It is this obsession with sex, this concept of viewing women only as an object of sex, created for man's libido relief, that turned women's body into a thing of shame
 If we let them have their way, these prophets of 'purity' would soon be on a mission to destroy what has remained of our culture. The melodious voices of
 of our women singers we will be history. The cassettes of their songs will be burned in the streets. Just remember Taliban. They want to edit, re-write and censor the treasures of Somali oral literature. Future generations will not be able to enjoy our beautiful folk dances


It is time to tell these sick men that the bare breast of the woman suckling her child is not about pornography, but about motherhood. The girls and boys sitting next to each other in class are not indulging in a sex orgy, you demented paranoiacs, but enjoying a healthy educational environment. The girl walking in the street without a headcover and wearing a big smile is not about flirting; it is about beauty of life. The woman holding a lively conversation with a male friend in a coffee house or a shopping mall is not about illicit affairs; it is about a much-needed human relationship and a healthy exchange of intellectual ideas. The woman wearing the traditional diric and hagoog and regally strolling in the street is not about indecency but about culture. The nightingale voices of our female singers are not about eroticism, you philistines, but about art, music and enjoyment of one of God's marvelous gifts
 " It is time we have to speak out. If we don't do it today, we won't be able to do it tomorrow. Because there will be no tomorrow as our country descends into 7th century Arabia.