Salihiyya (Somali:Saalixiya; Urwayniya,Arabic:الصالحية) is aTariqa (order) ofSufi Islam prevalent inSomalia and the adjacentSomali region of Ethiopia. It was founded in the Sudan by Sayyid Muhammad Salih (1854-1919). The order is characterized byfundamentalism.
The order ultimately traces its origins back to the Sufi scholar of Moroccan originAhmad ibn Idris al-Fasi (1760-1837). His followers and students spreadal-Fasi's teachings across the globe. His nephew, Sayyid Muhammad Salih, was one of them; he spread the Idrisiyya to the Sudan and Somalia, establishing his own eponymous path, the Salihiyya.[1] A former slave, Muhammad Gulid (d. 1918), was instrumental in popularizing the Salihiyya in theJowhar region of Somalia, while Isma'il ibn Ishaq al-Urwayni spread it in theMiddle Juba region.[2]
The Salihiyya path which rejectsseeking intercession fromSaints in one'sinvocation of God, which it labels as Shirk[3] and is staunchly opposed to theQadiriyya order (which is the largest and longest-established in Somalia), taking issue with the Qadiri doctrine ofTawassul (intercession), while the Qadiriyya upheld the traditional Sufi belief in the power of intercession held bySaints.[3] The Salihiyya was also militantly anti-colonial.[4]Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, a Salihiyya shaykh and poet, spread the Salihiyya (particularly inOgaden) and led anarmed anticolonial resistance movement in the Horn of Africa under the auspices of the order.[5]
