My thoughts and the Garissa attack

On a Saturday afternoon earlier this year, I was invited for lunch to a relative’s house in Westlands, Nairobi. I decided to have my midday prayer at the Westland’s mosque before joining my relatives. At the mosque, I noticed a Somali man to the right of where I was seated. He certainly wasn’t the only Somali man in that mosque that day but the exact reasons why I noticed his presence in the mosque is something I would probably never find out. Later, while I was leaving the mosque, I saw the same guy squatting next to a beggar – he was most likely helping the poor man.

Earlier, while leaving my house, my wife had informed me of her younger sister’s colleagues who were joining us for lunch. Unfortunately, since my appointment was a long standing one, I couldn’t cancel it. I thus excused myself from the lunch being prepared for our guests. After the meeting with my relatives, I rushed back home to at least meet with our guests before they left.

Arriving at home, I was a bit surprised to realize that one of our two guests happened to be the guy I saw in the mosque. While my sister-in-law was introducing him to me, I told him about my seeing him at the mosque earlier for the midday prayers. He acknowledged his presence in the mosque but couldn’t remember seeing me. This gentleman’s name was AbdiHamid. His friend, Dhugad, was also at the mosque, however, I couldn’t remember seeing him.

Sadly, two Fridays later, my wife called me from her office informing me of an Alshabaab attack at Mogadishu’s Central Hotel and that AbdiHamid who was in that hotel was missing. Later, AbdiHamid’s body was found. Incidentally, AbdiHamid was also attending Friday prayers at the hotel. His being a Muslim was certainly not in doubt because I met him at the mosque in Nairobi for Duhur, prayed Asr together at my place (the only times I met him) and the last I heard of him, he was killed while leaving a prayer hall.

The ones who killed him cannot certainly claim to be more pious than him. To the contrary, I believe the ones who kill innocent human beings are the filthy dogs that deserve to die a painful death. They certainly couldn’t accuse him of being a kuffar for he was clearly a Muslim. Probably, AbdiHamid’s only sin, in the eyes of his attackers, was the fact that he worked for a western organization – as if that were an abhorrent sin. Far from.

Ironically, the ones who killed him, used weapons which were most likely to have been manufactured by non-Muslims. The attackers had actually lived in the West and perhaps still have very close relatives over there. I have always believed that what is good for the goose is also good the gander. So, do we also look for the relatives of these attackers in the West and “neutralize” them – to borrow a Kenyan security parlance – for living in the West? I wouldn’t actually advise anyone to sink to the lowly depths of the Shabaab dogs.

Be that as it maybe, the same filthy dogs attacked my hometown of Garissa, yesterday. This time round, they separated the Muslims from the non-Muslims and, in cold blood, murdered close to 150 innocent people. The only crime these people seem to have committed was being non-Mulims, as if that were a sin punishable by death during the noble prophet’s time. So, the Muslims in Mogadishu deserve to be killed but the ones in Garissa and Mandera deserve not to be killed? Well, I thought, an ideology needed to be at least consistent for it to be believable. I have heard of other cases where innocent civilians – even non-Muslims – were spared.

Unfortunately, from experience, many people who do not overtly subscribe to this misguided ideology would silently rejoice at what happened in Garissa. One such person, is a commenter on the Guardian’s website who goes by the name of Darwishland. Sadly, to him, what happened in Garissa would not have happened if the Kenyan army “did not invade Somalia”. So, why exactly was AbdiHamid killed for he didn’t work for the invading army?

And, why should Kenya - for the better part of half a century - bear the responsibility of housing hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees within its borders and yet not have the right to pacify the part of Somalia that borders it? Mark you, a good number of these refugees fled from Somalia during the worst famine in decades that happened under the watch of Alshabaab. It is common knowledge that whereas drought is a natural phenomenon, famine is caused by political actions and Alshabaab was the entity in control of the worst affected areas in southern Somalia, then. Thus they should bear the greatest responsibility for causing that famine of 2011. Though there were other reasons, this was one of the reasons why Kenya “invaded Somalia”.

Unfortunately, our so called religious leaders are responsible for the mess we are in at the moment. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack, I attended Friday prayers in one of the mosques in Nairobi. As a Muslim – or so I think I am – I expected to be guided on what to do when such things happen. Unfortunately, the only thing that happened was condemnation of certain publications in Nairobi which ironically reminded me of a satirical piece by Amin Amir where President Hassan Sheikh’ achievement were noted to have been condemnation of everything that happened – that seemed to have been the only good thing his government was good at.

While condemnation is one thing, the most important thing that needs to be done by religious leaders is to guide the naïve and impressionable youth (and all else as well) to first have the attributes of a good human being even before becoming good Muslims. These needs to be subjects of all Khutbas in all the mosque continuously. In the absence of that, unfortunately, we will continue seeing people professing the Muslim faith but somehow – overtly or covertly – believing that for them to be pious Muslims they need to be horrible human beings that can’t socialize with people of other faiths. It is as if being a good human being is somehow mutually exclusive to being a good Muslim.

My condolences goes to the families of those affected in yesterday’s barbaric attack. Those young boys and girls did not have to die in such a beastly way.  I also pray for the quick recovery of the injured ones. May Allah also grant AbdiHamid Janatul Firdows.