In the footsteps of Imams with a radical agenda

A group of the suspected jihadists arrested at Musa Mosque.   [PHOTO: STANDARD/FILE]

By ISHAQ JUMBE

Muslim leaders have contributed their voices to a national chorus condemning what many see as religious radicalisation and resultant militancy at the Coast.

Scholars, leaders of mainstream Islamic groups, politicians and analysts agree that the radicalisation is the foundation for the propagation of ideas and practices that seek to drift faithful to embrace Al Qaeda and Al Shabaab ideologies.

According to scholars, as a necessary first step, radical sermons seek to return faithful to religious orthodoxy and austere lifestyles, which in many cases conflict with modern consumerism and Western lifestyles. Gradually, radicals seek to change society and reorder it along what they consider to be acceptable dictates of religious law after persuading or forcing society to their banner.

Observers in Mombasa believe that the drift by preachers and faithful at the Musa Mosque towards radicalism and dispersal of revolutionary ideas followed a familiar path anchored on the role of individual preachers, local events, government policies and global factors.

According to Mohamed Hyder, the chairman of Muslim Civic Education Trust, radical sermons were planted at the Coast close to 15 years ago. But some accounts indicate militancy first rose here in the early 1990s following in the steps of the defunct Islamic Party of Kenya (IPK).

The family of former Mombasa Mayor Ali Taib established Masjid Musa in the early 1970s.

Following the death of the family patriarch, the running of the mosque was left in the hands of the family and other Muslim agencies.

During the IPK insurgency in the 1990s that rocked the nearby Sakina Mosque, “orphans” of the banned political party (IPK), including the late Sheikh Aboud Rogo, sought refuge at Masjid Musa. Following the infiltration of Al Shabaab insurgents in the region, Masjid Musa cemented its reputation as the hotbed of jihadism in Kenya through the preaching of its Imams and invited clerics.

“That’s the time the Taib family left the running of the mosque to a selected committee who were at constant loggerheads with the preachers,” an insider source told The Standard on Sunday.

Committee after committee wrestled for control of the mosque from the radical preachers until an idea was mooted that a retired government employee, who was reputed to command respect in the community, takes up the leadership of the committee of the Musa Mosque to establish a sense of normalcy.

Mosque affairs

“Islam Oshan was expected to control the Jihadists who had taken over the affairs of the mosque. And he would have succeeded were it not for the late Sheikh Rogo and his fiery sermons,” our source intimated.

Thereafter Rogo, an accomplished Islamist with alleged links to Al Shabaab and Al Qaeda, became its most important Imam and following the 2002 terrorist attack against Israeli property in Mombasa, Rogo’s stature rose and with it the importance of the Musa Mosque.

Another notable radical who made the mosque his spiritual home was Sheikh Ibrahim Amur, who was killed by unknown assailants last year in Mombasa.

Another reputable Imam who passed through the mosque is terror suspect Sheikh Shariff alias Makaburi, who was Sheikh Rogo’s co-accused in many terror trials and is also accused by the UN and US of having links with Al Qaeda throughout East Africa.

The late Al Qaeda leader for East Africa Fazul Mohamed Abdullah is also said to have lived in the neighbourhood and occasionally prayed at the mosque. Reports also show that the late Al Qaeda leader Swaleh Nabhan Swaleh, who was killed in Somalia years ago, and the late Samir Khan regularly preached at the mosque.

Through their preaching and charity work, these preachers created a captive clientele and a generation of radical youths that soon spread out towards Kisauni, Kwale and other parts of the Coast, where Government officials began to suspect that Rogo and his accomplices were not only plotting religious incitement but also recruiting local youths for Al Shabaab missions in Somalia.

For most of the time and despite the fiery sermons issued there, authorities tended to ignore Musa Mosque but infiltrated it using double agents and Intelligence officers.

According to Prof Hyder, radicalisation of Masjid Musa and any mosque in impoverished sections of society can be traced to the role of individual Imams and preachers.

But he says socio-economic, political and global factors play a role in the spread of radicalism.

Prof Hyder says lack of jobs and education tend to attract youth to radical mosques where didactic and redemptive sermons are delivered.

Hyder also believes that Government policies that were perceived to marginalise the Coastal strip and suppress modern Islamic colleges made uneducated youths to drift towards Rogo and like-minded preachers. He says faithful in the region also acquired new thinking from global events.

Matters boiled over with the killing of Rogo in August 2012 following which his disciples demanded that the killers be named. Rogo’s supporters staged violent protests from Masjid Musa and other radical mosques in Kisauni, which resulted in wanton destruction of property, death and burning of churches.

Oshan and his committee had a tough time controlling the restless followers of Rogo. His disciples, led by the late Sheikh Ibrahim Amur, stepped into his shoes to continue with the evening lectures. Rogo’s sermons were distributed on tape in the region and fiery foreign preachers were invited to preach there too.

Violet protests

Amur’s killing led to widespread riots in Majengo and Kisauni sparking new trouble for the committee, which came under intense pressure to tame worshippers.

The mosque committee was summoned to the Coast provincial headquarters October last year after the killing Sheikh Ibrahim and three other occupants of a car he was driving in near Bamburi Police Station.

The four had just left Masjid Musa after Ibrahim delivered a lecture. At the Provincial Commissioner’s office, Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph ole Lenku delivered the president’s directive to the committee saying that lectures in the mosque had to be discontinued forthwith.

Youths had also burnt the nearby Salvation Army Church following Sheikh Amur’s murder.

Thereafter, the committee banned unauthorised sermons and announcements. A podium from which Rogo preached was taken away.

“The youth did not take notice of the directive and even brought a preacher from Tanzania to a newly appointed Imam, leading to intensification of militant lectures. There was nothing the committee could do besides take away the podium from the mosque and hide it,” a worshipper who gave his name only as Nabeel told The Standard on Sunday.

A bitter row erupted last November when the Jihadist supporters of the late Rogo demanded the return of the “shuhaddaa podium” (martyrs’ podium). The committee refused to heed to the demand.

The last straw that broke the committee came when radical youths from Masjid Musa violently took over Sakina Mosque throwing out long serving Imam Sheikh Mohamed Idris and Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya Secretary General Sheikh Mohammed Khalifa from the pulpit.

Emboldened by the takeover, the youths were now on a roll and they seized another mosque – Umar Ibn al Khattab, in Kisauni. The committee lost control of the youths.

According to Oshan, serving in the committee become a risky affair and that is why its members withdrew from the mosque, leaving it entirely in the hands of the Jihadists.

“The planned convention that was interrupted by the police (on Sunday) was the first among many that had been planned by the group in a series of others aimed at converting the mosque into a fully functional Jihad centre,” said Nabeel.