SomaliNet Forums

Islam arrived early in the Horn, but not until the 7th or 8th century. Somalis existed then in the Horn, or at least our ancestors that we share with other related Cushitic speaking peoples such as the Oromo and Afar. We know that our ancient word for God is Waaq and/or Eebe and is definitely pre-Islamic. Eebe being the simple translation for the word God, but Waaq is a God's name. Is Waaq a deity of an animistic, polytheistic religion that our forefathers practised? Today a Somali may use Eebe to refer to Allah, but if you yell Waaq and people will think you'd been drinking.


Than again, the Axumite empire stretched all the way into Somali territory, and not just any Somali territory, but presentday Northwest Somalia. The land where the Somali ethnic group ultimately comes from, the 'Somali Ur' if you will. All the tribes have their roots buried there and oral history confirms this notion.

But it was under Christian rule, which doesn't mean that they were Christian subjects, but still, countless other ethnic groups similar to the Somali became Christians this way in the Horn, so could it be? I don't know, I really don't know.

So my question is, were Somalis Christians who converted to Islam or were we Animistic before we embraced Islam.

Bogus theories about Arab ancestry will be ignored. We are genealogically and culturally closer to Berbers than Arabs, and they're not Arabs at all. Stop embarrassing yourselves.

I just googled and I see that even most Ethiopians were not Christians under the Axumite rule, they were all idolators. A small group revolved around the throne were Christian, and Somalis definitely belonged to the periphery of that entire empire if anything. We most likely were idolators before we converted to Islam.

I wonder what the population was of what today is called Somalia around the 1th century, perhaps only a few hundred thousands.

We must have been majorly langaab back than.

starscream
somalis were pagans before islam.! they used to worship spirits and trees.
the names like waaq (Ancient pagan diety) indicates the presence of these faiths.!
cities like caabuqwaaq and ceelwaaq were Major religious centres and traces of pagan culture can still be found in far areas of central and southwestern somalia.in ceelwaaq it is reported that some of the natives up to this day practice and follow the ancient pagan way of live.!
the "NAyruuz" or dabshid -to jump over the fire to wash away the past sins and usher a fresh start of the year-is celebrated as socio-economic festival in some parts of southwestern somalia.
this festival is pre-islamic custom and probably originates from ancient india.!

Waaq=God, the Supreme being.

The religion is called Gada, and it still exists.

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Fiel ... igion.html