Islamic Radicalization in Kenya

Garissa Market in Nairobi suburb Eastleigh (Dan Kori/Wikipedia) Islamic Radicalization in Kenya By William R. Patterson n September 2013, an attack carried of Eastleigh, known for its large Somali threat to its national interests in Kenya out by the al Qaeda–affiliated terror- ex-patriot population. Four other specifically and in the Horn of Africa I ist group al-Shabaab on the Westgate Somalis have been charged with helping more generally. shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, drew to plan the operation, two of whom had The first major terrorist attack to hit renewed attention to the extremist Kenyan citizenship and identification Kenya occurred at the U.S. Embassy in threat facing that country. At least four cards.1 This attack was only the latest in Nairobi on August 7, 1998. This attack attackers left more than 65 people dead a string of terrorist incidents stretching was carried out with a truck bomb, kill- after a multiday rampage. All four of back to the late 1990s. It should serve ing 214 people and injuring more than the known assailants were Somalis who as a stark reminder to the United States 5,000. On November 22, 2002, another had been living in the Nairobi suburb that terrorism remains a significant set of attacks included the detonation of a truck bomb at an Israeli-owned resort and the launching of missiles at an Israeli- chartered aircraft leaving the airport in Dr. William R. Patterson is a former Social Scientist with the Human Terrain System who served in Mombasa. Sixteen Israelis and Kenyans Afghanistan and has been selected to be a Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State. This article is a modified version that the author originally published while serving with the Human were killed in the blast at the hotel, Terrain System. though no one was killed in the attack on 16 Forum / Islamic Radicalization in Kenya JFQ 78, 3rd Quarter 2015 the plane. Al Qaeda was responsible for hood of Eastleigh. Ethnically, Kenya’s authority within the Muslim community, each of these attacks.2 Muslims are primarily Swahili or Somali, that authority came to be challenged Since those early attacks, the gov- although there are also sizable Arab and during the 20th century and remains an ernment of Kenya has become an Asian (predominantly Indian and Paki- area of contention between different important strategic partner in the U.S. stani) groups.5 Muslim groups today. Government’s counterterrorism efforts In addition to ethnic divisions among During the end of the 19th and in the broader Horn of Africa region. Kenya’s Muslims, there are also key dif- beginning of the 20th centuries, the ter- In October 2011, the Kenyan Defense ferences in the types of Islam practiced. ritories that make up Kenya today were Forces launched an offensive against Scholar Bjørn Møller writes that the colonized by the British Empire. The al-Shabaab called Operation Linda Nchi Kenyan Muslim community can be cate- interior of the country was chartered to (OLN)—Swahili for “protect the na- gorized as follows: the Imperial British East Africa Company tion”—in Somalia. While OLN enjoyed in 1888, became a formal protectorate in a majority of indigenous Kenyan the approval of most Kenyans, it also • 1895, and a colony in 1920. The Muslim Muslims belong to Sufi orders, espe- prompted criticism from Kenyan Muslim coastal area remained a protectorate but cially in rural areas communities. was administered in the same fashion as reformists, more conservative Isla- In 2012, Kenya passed a tough an- • was the colony, meaning there was little mists, are another primary grouping, titerrorism bill called the Prevention of practical difference.11 mainly in the cities and among Arabs Terrorism Act 2012. Though the passage Administratively, the British catego- a small sect called the Ahmadiya, of this bill was not as controversial as • rized people as either native or nonnative, which was responsible for the first some earlier iterations, it still elicited providing different privileges to each, with translation of the Koran into Kiswa- criticism from Kenyan human rights and nonnative receiving preferential treatment. hili, probably numbers no more than Muslim groups. In addition, riots blam- Swahilis did not fit easily into either of a few thousand ing the Kenyan police for the extrajudicial those categories. As Jeremy Prestholdt mainstream Sunni Muslims, mainly killing of al-Shabaab–linked Muslim • points out, “most occupied the awkward among Asians Youth Center (MYC) cleric Aboud Rogo3 position of having neither a recognized a small number of Shi’ites, also and the growing activity of the MYC are • African ‘tribal’ identity nor the higher mainly among Asians.6 indicative of increased Islamic radicalism legal status of Non-Native. By the end of in Kenya. This presents a substantial risk Muslims settled on Pate Island the colonial era, this nebulous position of terrorism against the Kenyan gov- (part of the Lamu archipelago in Coast contributed to perceptions of Swahilis ernment, Western targets in Kenya, and Province) as early as the 8th century. This as neither completely African nor, by neighboring countries in the region. presence grew considerably during the extension, Kenyan.”12 The legacy of that This article explores the development 12th century as trade increased in the division remains today as many contem- of radicalization in Kenya in recent Indian Ocean in general and along the porary Kenyans continue to see Muslims decades and the sociocultural and po- coast of East Africa in particular. The more as foreigners than as true Kenyans. litical factors that have undergirded it. earliest Muslim settlers came primarily Another colonial practice that Additionally, it highlights four general from what are now Oman, Yemen, and served to split Muslims from the larger factors influencing the rising threat of Iran, establishing communities along the society was the introduction and spe- Islamic radicalism in Kenya: institutional Somali coast, Lamu, Mombasa, Zanzibar, cial treatment of Christianity. Abdalla weaknesses; increasingly acute grievances and other coastal areas of East Africa. Bujra explains that Christianity came by the Muslim minority; the establish- As these settlers intermarried with each to predominate in Kenya, and Western ment of Wahhabi and other extremist other and with local people, Swahili cul- culture generally developed preeminence forms of Islam in Kenya, along with at- ture evolved over time. Islam became the through the school system and through tendant jihadi ideology and propaganda; core of Swahili culture, but the culture was examples set by colonial officials and and Kenya’s foreign and military policy, also influenced by many traditional aspects British settlers. Kenya’s Muslims became particularly as it pertains to Somalia. of indigenous African religious beliefs.7 culturally isolated as the Christian Church Lamu and Mombasa became the primary and Western educational system became Islam in Kenya areas of Islamic learning and scholarship established in the rest of the country.13 Approximately 4.3 million Muslims in Kenya.8 Swahili culture and Islam Not only was Christianity privileged, comprise a little more than 10 percent remained largely confined to the coastal but Islam was also denigrated. Bujra of the overall Kenyan population and areas where trade flourished, though Islam notes that “through Church activities about 30 percent of the coastal popula- eventually established a foothold in the and education, and later through the tion.4 Large concentrations of Kenyan capital city of Nairobi as well.9 Among colonial education and media, both Muslims live in Coast Province, North some of the settlers, particularly in Lamu, Church, Colonial Administration, and East Province, and the capital city of were sayyids, descendants of the Prophet the European settler communities Nairobi, particularly in the neighbor- Mohammad.10 Traditionally granted great propagated very strong anti-Arab and JFQ 78, 3rd Quarter 2015 Patterson 17 anti-Islamic misinformation and pro- for themselves in Kenya, many Muslims sayyid (also called masharifu), whose paganda. Hence Swahili/Arab political traveled abroad to the Middle East, par- power base remained centered in Lamu. influences essentially came to a halt in ticularly Saudi Arabia, for work. Authors Kresse explains that the conflict between [Kenya].”14 This political disenfran- Esha Faki Mwinyihaji and Frederick O. Khasim and the masharifu chisement has never been remedied and Wanyama note that: remains a major grievance of Kenya’s centered on the social and religious status of Muslims to this day. The employment sector was seen as closed to the masharifu, the descendants of Prophet The political disenfranchisement many Muslims. As a result of the oil boom Muhammad. In popular perception the of Kenya’s Muslims continued after in the 1970s and 1980s, many young masharifu, as holy persons with special Kenya’s independence in 1963. The Muslims went to work as expatriates in blessings, fulfilled an important religious Kenyan African National Union Saudi Arabia where the remuneration function of mediating between Muslim (KANU) immediately came to power was good with the minimal education commoners and God, via the Prophet and instituted one-party rule. KANU, they had. For almost two decades Saudi Muhammad, to whom they were said to strongly linked to Christian ethnic Arabia and the Persian Gulf served as a be especially close. But Sheikh Muhammed groups, was perceived as benefiting safe haven for some Kenyan Muslims to Khasim insisted, with reference to the those groups disproportionately while work and progress economically.18 Qur’an, that they did not have any such largely ignoring problems specific to special powers and, furthermore, it was up Muslims.15 Due to their marginalization One of the impacts of greater ex- to each individual to establish a direct con- in the political process and conse- posure to the Middle East—and Saudi tact to God through special prayers (dua), quential lack of influence in Kenyan Arabia in particular—was the introduc- independently.23 politics, dissent grew among Muslims.

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