GROWING WAHABI INFLUENCE IN ETHIOPIA - AMHARA

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ADDIS ABABA 001672 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/06/2019 TAGS: KPAO KISL KIRF SCUL PROP ET SUBJECT: GROWING WAHABI INFLUENCE IN ETHIOPIA - AMHARA REGION AND THE "JAMA NEGUS MOSQUE" REF: 08 ADDIS ABABA 3230 Classified By: Ambassador Donald Yamamoto. Reasons 1.4 (B) and (D FIRST OF THREE CABLES ON COUNTERING WAHABI INFLUENCE IN ETHIOPIA -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) PAO visited Dessie, in Wello province of the Amhara Region, June 3-5, to visit the Jama Negus Mosque, which is a site for a potential Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP) grant proposal for FY-10. A major Sufi shrine, the mosque is the focal point of the &Moulid al-Nebi8 (&Birthday of the Prophet8) celebrations each year in which more than 100,000 people converge on the hills surrounding the mosque to celebrate this high holy day. As Wahabism does not recognize moulids as being &Islamic,8 encroaching Wahabism in the area has led to conflicts with the local community over these celebrations. With over 150 mosques built in the region by Kuwaiti NGOs in the past ten years, pressure to curtail popular (mainly Sufi) celebrations of the faith, and Wahabi-style veils increasingly common throughout the countryside, the Ethiopian Muslim community in the area is under growing cultural and religious pressure to adopt Wahabi ways. END SUMMARY. -------------- -------------- KUWAITI MOSQUES AND SAUDI VEILS DOT THE COUNTRYSIDE -------------- -------------- ¶2. (C) In the wake of two AFCP projects in Ethiopia specifically targeted to the Muslim community (FY-06 Sheikh Hussein Shrine in the Bale Region and FY-09 Teferi Mekonnen Palace in Harar),the Islamic Affairs Supreme Council (IASC) approached the Embassy about a restoration/conservation project for the Jama Negus Mosque in Dessie, about 400 km north of Addis Ababa in the Wello province of Amhara Region. PAO visited the mosque with a LES and a Muslim official from the area. During the 8-hour drive to Dessie, the official pointed out numerous &cookie cutter8 mosques that were built by Kuwaiti NGOs over the past ten years. Each one, he said, cost about USD 30,000 to build and over 150 have been built to date from the Dessie area north to Tigray region. Easily spotted, each one is green, one-story, with a square minaret. While attractive and fitting in with the local landscape (unlike the steel-and-glass mosques built in other areas),these were clearly distinguishable from the more traditional Ethiopian mosques. ¶3. (U) At the same time, many women were seen throughout the villages wearing the traditional Wahabi-style face veil that was not seen in Ethiopia until recent years. Although no men were seen sporting the &Wahabi beard,8 the number of veiled women was very high. In fact, the IASC representative who accompanied us said that they estimate about 40% of the people in that region are now Wahabis. Women of all economic classes were seen wearing the veil, from the poorest wood carriers bent double under their load of wood in the hot sun or working in the fields, to wealthier women in cars and on horseback. -------------- -- OVERVIEW OF THE MOSQUE AND THE PROPOSED PROJECT -------------- -- ¶4. (U) The mosque itself is situated on a high hill, about 40 km and 2.5 hours by SUV from Dessie. The site centers on the tomb of Mujahid, an early Muslim &saint8 who introduced the celebration of the Prophet's Birthday to the area. In the ensuing 200 years since Mujahid died, this mosque has become the focal point of moulid celebrations in Ethiopia, attracting large numbers of people to the three-day celebrations. Our source said the number of people who come each year is over one hundred thousand, a number that was easy to believe when he pointed out all the hills around the mosque that are covered with tents and people sleeping in the open air during the celebrations. The number is so great, he said, that the faithful have to rotate through the site in shifts in order to accommodate the large number of people who come mostly by foot from long distances to reach the site. ADDIS ABAB 00001672 002 OF 003 ¶5. (U) The mosque complex is built around the tomb of Said Mujahidin, who was born in 1744 in Wello, in the village of Dure. Local tradition has it that Mujahidin successfully completed his Islamic education and founded the site in order to celebrate the Moulid al-Nebi, the Birthday of the Prophet. He organized the first celebration of this Moulid in 1764 when he was just 20 years old. This makes the age of the site to be 245 years old. Recognized early on as an important Sufi teacher in his region, Mujahid's celebrations of the Moulid grew in importance as Muslims from throughout the area and beyond began to make his mosque a pilgrimage destination, much like the Sheikh Hussein Shrine in Bale. The site has thus become a center for the expression of Ethiopia's indigenous Muslim/Sufi culture and a &hot spot8 for Wahabi influence in the region. ¶6. (U) Architecturally, the structures on the site are not that old. Although Mujahid died in 1807, at the age of 63, the building that shelters his tomb (and the tombs of his family) was built by the Italians in the late 1930s. The current mosque, a simple wattle and mud structure, is about 35 years old. This simple structure has been rebuilt a number of times over the years and is not important architecturally, but the site itself is of spiritual significance. ¶7. (C) The importance of the site, however, lies in its status as the first place where Ethiopian Muslims celebrated the Moulid al-Nebi, one of the most important celebrations for Ethiopia's largely Sufi Muslim community. After the local Islamic Affairs Council was repeatedly turned down by Arab NGOs to repair and preserve the site, the council turned to the Embassy for support in the wake of the AFCP grant for the Sheikh Hussein Shrine that has just been completed months before. In doing so, the Council representative pointed out how support for this project will be seen not just by Muslims in the Dessie area, but will be known across Ethiopia because of the large numbers of pilgrims who visit the shrine every year. Embassy likewise believes it is in the U.S. national interest to support this project and will work with the council in FY-10 to submit an AFCP grant proposal. -------------- IASC'S GROWING CONCERN ABOUT WAHABIS -------------- ¶8. (C) In the meantime, the IASC continues to be very concerned about growing Wahabi influence in Ethiopia. The newly appointed Council is decidedly anti-Wahabi and speaks openly of their concern about Wahabi missionaries and their destabilizing influence in Ethiopia. In a recent meeting with PAO, the Council Vice-President asked that the USG undertake a special effort to provide schools for pastoralist children in Afar, Somali, and Gambella regions because the people are generally uneducated and children end up getting their education only from small madrassas that are propagating Wahabi thought to children of all ages. Providing small schools, he said, would help these communities to become more settled and would undercut Wahabi missionaries who are currently making significant inroads into those communities. ¶9. (C) That same Council member also told PAO how Wahabi NGOs are laundering money to support their operations in Ethiopia. Large numbers of Ethiopians work in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries as domestics, laborers, and other unskilled occupations, as well as in better paying skilled jobs. Many of these people send money home through the &Hawala8 system, whereby money is paid to an operative in the Arab countries and money is then paid out in Ethiopia to family members. There are low or no fees for this service, thus enabling the Ethiopian to send more money home than he/she would be able to do through Western Union or commercial bank transfers. The operative then buys appliances or other durable goods with cash that are then smuggled into Ethiopia through Somalia or Djibouti, sold on the open market without taxes (but at a substantial mark-up that is still below the going market rate),with the profits accruing to a Wahabi NGO. Through this mechanism, the NGO leaves no financial trail that can be followed by the GoE as everything was handled in cash. Ethiopian Muslims are thus able to send more money home to their families and Wahabi NGOs increase funding that cannot be tracked through the financial system. ADDIS ABAB 00001672 003 OF 003 ¶10. (C) As a result of Wahabi activism in Ethiopia, conflicts have arisen at several universities between Muslims and Christians as Wahabi activists seek to establish first &prayer rooms8 and then mosques on campuses. Conflicts within the Muslim community have also arisen over control of mosques, which imams should be allowed to preach, and over control of Islamic education. The IASC wants to build an Ethiopian Muslim theological school so that young Ethiopian men will not have to go to the Middle East to study in preparation for becoming Imams, as they must now. These young men are increasingly studying in Saudi Arabia due to the generous scholarships and subsidies available there, and when they return to Ethiopia to take up their posts in new Saudi-funded mosques, they continue to receive subsidies from Saudi Arabia or Islamic NGOs. Unfortunately, the Sufi-dominated Muslim community in Ethiopia does not have sufficient funds to start their own theological school, nor can they counter the financial advantage Wahabis have in Ethiopia. -------------- -------------- WHY SHOULD THE U.S. CARE ABOUT WAHABISM IN ETHIOPIA? -------------- -------------- ¶11. (U) As a result of traditional Sufi tolerance, and Ethiopia's long history of significant Muslim, Christian, and Jewish co-existence, a very real culture of tolerance and mutual respect between the faith communities has developed over the centuries. This development was also helped by the presence of a sizable Jewish community in Ethiopia that long pre-dated the advent of Christianity in the Horn of Africa. In spite of occasional inter-communal conflicts, the Ethiopian record of inter-faith co-existence remains quite good. Both Muslim and Christian leaders speak out often and forcefully of the need to respect the other faith, to have peace between the communities, and otherwise to teach tolerance and mutual understanding by example and not just by words. ¶12. (C) With the advent of Wahabism in Ethiopia, however, this delicate balance is in danger of being upset. Conflicts have begun first within the Muslim community, but have also begun to spread out to include Christian groups as Wahabis seek to assert themselves on college campuses and in smaller towns outside the capital. The threat of inter-communal conflict in Ethiopia between Muslims and Christians, as well as between Muslims themselves, can only give a foothold and operating space to Salafist and extremist groups that might seek to exploit the situation. ¶13. (C) In a shift from past practice, the IASC is now completely purged of Wahabi members. In a luncheon with PAO and the CJTF-HOA Chaplain, the Council members acknowledged that the Council is now all Sufi and in their public statements they repeatedly make reference to Ethiopia's tradition of religious tolerance and co-existence with the Christian communities. As the Ethiopian government appoints the members of the Islamic Council, it is clear that the GoE shares this concern about growing Wahabi influence and is supporting moderate Muslim leaders in trying to counter that influence. -------------- CONCLUSION -------------- ¶14. (C) Although Wahabi influence continues to grow in Ethiopia, there are signs that many Ethiopians resent their presence and want to engage them actively in a real debate for the hearts and minds of the Ethiopian Muslim community. In fact, there is a growing perception that they are victims of &Arab Cultural Imperialism8 and want to fight back against this threat to their own indigenous cultural traditions. They cannot do it on their own, however, but need help to counter the money and infrastructure that Wahabi NGOs bring to this fight. Post believes there are ways to counter this growing influence through aggressive cultural programming, as will be outlined in the second and third parts of this series. YAMAMOTO