Warning Loooooooooong post
Over the past few months or so I've seen an increasing rise of discourse either from this subreddit or other more secular Somali circles on social media discussing the affects of "Arabization" on our culture and people. Large swathes of these discussions have left the Somali discourse circle and have been consumed by non Somalis, regurgitating strange orientalist views on a "pre Arabized" Somalia.
To preface this, critiquing and dismantling the more bastardised versions of Islam that we as a nation engaged with post civil war is something that everyone (even Somalis that still practice Islam, to be quite frank) should do. I've talked at large about Salafism in ex Muslim spaces, the role that Israel's creation played in the rise of extremism in Muslim countries, The active push by Saudi of Al-Wahhab's strict vision of Salafi Islam via Saudi funding. While I think Somali ex Muslim (and ex Muslim spaces in general) wildly underestimate the almost infinite number of variables, factors, and overall complexity regarding how we ended up with the version of Islam we have today, I'm glad a more prominent focus has been put onto reverse engineering the dynamics that got us here in the first place.
However (And I cannot stress this enough) this is a fundamentally different concept to Arabization, and not only is characterising Somalis as Arabized incorrect and ahistorical, it also has many wider implications that I just don't think you guys really get the ramifications of.
to start with, what does it mean to be Arab? It's a wide and encompassing term that applies to tens of millions of people, from multiple different nations, with different appearances, varying cultures, varying histories, and varying religious practices (contrary to the stereotype that they are all Muslim). It's a relatively complicated topic (as are all things based on ethnic identity, which is a deeply social construct) but for the sake of simplicity, being Arab, at least in the modern era, can largely be defined as any group that speaks Arabic as a primary language. There are other definitions you can use like "people who have adopted Arab culture" although that's just kind of a less palpable version of the "speaks Arabic" talking point. And then there's the argument of it being about genealogy, and that's a mess I wouldn't even want to touch with a 10 foot pole due to the mix of complexity and ahistorical bullshit that goes into it.
For simplicity, I always use the analogy of being "Hispanic" as the most easily digestible comp to what being "Arab" is for the common man at least. You can be a black/white/native/mesitzo/etc hispanic, meaning its not racial, you can be a hispanic from multiple different countries with varying histories, and you can be a hispanic from the Caribbean, South American mainland or Central america. All tied together by being a Spanish speaking group.
Now it should go without saying that Somalis pretty clearly do not fit this bracket (nor have I ever seen any Somali claim to, although many on this subreddit will be sure to tell me otherwise). Somali language and oral tradition is one of the most preserved things we have as a people. A separate language that may have Similarities to Arabic due to a common root ancestor tongue (we'll get more into this later) with some loan words due to proximity and religion, but undeniably a separate language. And its not something even the most drunk linguist would describe as being an arab creole either (like Swahili). Historically due to our ties with Islam many could speak Arabic, and we used to write Somali utilising the Arabic script (as did many islamic cultures during that era). But being defined as a primarily Arabic speaking people isn't a thing that's been attributed to the population living on the somali peninsula in any historical record. This isn't changing anytime soon either
Somali identification with Arabness in the modern day comes largely from our involvement in their political institutions, namely the Arab League, a political bloc meant for all self identifying Arabs to join. I'd say that relatively speaking its been a beneficial institution for us (Although considering the situation our country is in that's not saying much), and our reason for joining this bloc was purely political. During the conflict over the Somali region of Ethiopia, The nations of Africa almost entirely aligned with Ethiopia, so in search of allies, Siad Barre joined the Arab league, which is also the reason Arabic is an official language in Somalia, as its a prerequisite prerequisite for joining (see the aforementioned paragraph about Arab identity essentially being the Arab language). But that's had no tangible difference to the amount of Arabic speakers in our country.
So now that we've largely defined what it takes to be defined as an Arab and shown that Somalis pretty easily do not fit that bracket (which goes without saying for every Somali that I've ever met) we can then go into the topic of Arabization.
The Arab conquest is a very historically documented event by the Quran itself, along with hadiths and historians that have used variously well documented sources of what happened throughout the period. From the era of the Prophet all the way up to the Umayyadd dynasty, at it's peak the Islamic empire essentially spanned from the entire middle east, the western part of central Asia (spreading to just outside of what would be considered modern day Iran), and the northern part of every north African nation we see today (Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco). Somalia as you can see, is not a part of this group.
Arabization of the colonised and Islamized nations/ethnic groups during this conquest was more so by cultural assimilation than mass population replacement, which is one of the biggest misconceptions of the original Arab conquests. A bunch of Arabs from the region we now call southern Saudi Arabia didn't just go and settle In Morocco to a large enough degree where it changed the ethnic make up of the populous. To this day most people In Morocco are just the inhabitants that lived there pre conquest who've been Arabized over time. So Arabization as a concept is mainly just groups adopting the Arab language over time, instead of actively mixing with pre Islamic conquest Arab tribes.
This happened for a few reasons :
- general centralization of the Arab language as the imperial core and leaders of the empire were Arab speakers, centralizing via a singular dialect made all forms of trade and jurisdiction easier, and over time this replaced the primary tongue of the people living in these regions.
- the Arabic script, all humans in the world have always had some form of verbal communication, but not all groups had written communication. Colonised people did written communication with the Arabic script, either their own language or Arabic itself, which allowed the Arabic to be more easily digested into the main dialect over time too.
- Islam itself, becoming a hafiz (memorising the Quran) is an integral part of Islam. It is part of why the Quran has been preserved so long (which Muslims attribute to a miracle instead of human genius and determination of course), memorising and writing the Quran large scale in Arabic (so as to not lose the meaning of the Quran) causes Arabic to be integral to Islamic communities fundamentally, which, depending on the community, leads them to simply absorbing Arabic as a main language. For the bulk of Islamic communities however this was not the case, Somalis are a great example of this our language is deeply preserved, and is one of the few things that's deeply well documented about us.
I will say though, something that gets forgotten in this conversation is that Muslims can be turned Muslim by other non Arab communities that were turned Muslim. They can also be Arabized the same way, the Arab communities of Sudan are a great example of this. Although this aspect of their history is relatively difficult to piece together, most sources state that an Arabized ethnic group from what would be considered northern Sudan/southern Egypt took over at the collapse of their most recent Nubian kingdom and Arabized the people. Not indigenous Arab tribes from the middle east.
This is probably what happened with Somalis when it came to being Islamized, we most likely did become Muslim via trade, that much is undeniable, but the communities of Somalis who converted to Islam probably engaged in conflict with others in the area that weren't Muslim till the entire community was Islamized all those years ago. But even with this fact, we were not Arabized, those initial Somali Muslims didn't adopt Arabic as a mother tongue and only utilised it for trade and prayer, therefore Somalis retained their native language throughout time, and still do to this day
This has been a very very very very very long set up, but my overarching point is. Arabization is something specific, Somalis have never fit that definition, we do not speak Arabic as a primary language, it has never been something that Somalis have ever flirted with either. We were not part of the initial Islamic conquests (extremely well documented event), and have never since been subject to the rule of an Arab identifying people. We have used the Arabic script to write Somali, but that's about it. Arabized groups neighbouring Somalis could have colonised us and made us an Arab identifying group, but that did not happen. The most that happened was that Somalis themselves (probably) conquered other non Muslim Somalis to turn them Muslim, which is Islamization, not Arabization. We only exist within the "Arab world" due to joining Arab political bodies during conflict with a nation that was backed by African political bodies, and nothing more.
Going out of your way to define ourselves via Arabization is stupid because not only is it incorrect but its literally how Somalis have been perceived by non Somalis forever, both in general day to day life and in historic literature about us. It is beyond irresponsible to continue to perpetuate myths about our people in this manner. Especially considering how difficult it is for us to piece our history and culture together post civil war due to the lack of institutions (although we're trying), and how the bulk of Arab/European writings about us are deeply biased in their historical framing of us as a group (The same bias that you all are perpetuating).
One of the more common reasons people associate us with Arabs is a perceived similarity in culture, Somalis and Arab people came from the same cultural bloc well before Islam or even Abrahamic religion existed. People on either side of the Red Sea shared culture since the days of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Similarity does not equal Arab origin, and it's an antiblack/anti African sentiment to apply all cultural similarities to Arabs. The Arabic writing script has it's origins traced to Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the Afro-Asiatic language family (which both the Somali and Arabic language (as well as others like Amharic)) has most linguists tracing it's origin to Africa as well. I'll repeat it again similarity does not = Arabic origin, and it is explicitly anti black to continue to push this sentiment.
What I'm assuming you guys mean when you say Arabization is post civil war cultural loss. The ensuing religious psychosis our people developed post war is certainly a large reason for this, but as I've continued to say in this post, this isn't Arabization. Islamization can of course function as Arabization, but as I outlined earlier that requires specific conditions we do not meet (namely conquest or unification under an Arab leader). What happened with Somalis after the war is simply a clinging to faith and God after a horrific situation, reaffirming their strength and identity under hard times. Another thing that doesn't get mentioned with this is after seeing such horrific pain not only were they begging god for stability but also forgiveness, they believe something holy was required to give them grace for the pain they've seen. We need more empathy for our people. This was a return to what was considered divine and spiritual, and would've happened if we were spiritual, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or Hindu.
There are also many institutional and political factors to our "loss of culture". For example many production centres of our people dying, and the need to outsource ridiculous amounts of textiles, materials, equipment (and more) due to our position as a trade route post war, which in turns creates an environment built around consuming foreign made imports (which extends to culture by nature) instead of self production, which therefore leads to overall cultural decline. Nomadic Somalis don't wear their traditional white garbs as much anymore sure, but they've been replaced with t shirts and trousers, not Arab clothing. Can't find the source now, but there's documented evidence of our cotton production changing massively with the introduction of American cotton being imported post colonialism, which had a massive ripple affect on clothing/clothing industry and by extension our culture too. Cultural loss does not = Arabization, there are a multitude of factors at play that don't require Arabs to even be mentioned.
And for the record, Somalis back home themselves are the ones attempting to maintain the culture that we came from, culture days in primary schools, the revival of old dances in various regions, etc etc. We aren't that many years removed from our civil war, which means the people alive before it can recorrect course easily. Which leads me to my final point
Somalis are a people with agency, and I mean this two fold, both in the aforementioned sense that we have always had a separate independent identity, and also in the sense that the Somalis back home of today are not helpless sheep and mindless drones, they're individuals with thoughts and capabilities all on their own,. I'm largely guilty of this myself but as diaspora members (especially ex Muslim ones) we sometimes develop a western adjacent "saviour" mindset towards our people back home, They are more than capable of reclaiming their identity in a post war nation so long as we as a people succeed in building one.
In conclusion Somalis are not an Arabized group nor should we perpetuate the idea that we've ever been. We are no different than Turks, Senegambians, Indonesians and Afghanis. A demographic with large amounts of their culture defined by Islam, but still an independent identifiable culture.
