Somali Muslim leaders sought constitutional limits on Christian proselytizing and Muslim judges

Evidence

Among such opinion makers were religious and traditional leaders. Particular Muslim leaders were not comfortable with some of the articles in the draft constitution and asked the president for changes. President Osman reported in his diary that they “want to amend art. 29 of the constitution taking out the words ’… and to teach their religion’ regarding the freedom of religion, because they do not want that the Christians have the chance to find converts among the Somalis. As it is evident they should understand that doing so as they claim, we should not expect to look for converts where other faiths prevail. They also demand the institution of ‘moral police’ to pursue objective stipulated in art. 50 of the same constitution. They demanded that the non-Muslim judges in the Judiciary be substituted or at least the President of the Supreme Court be a Muslim, in alternative create two positions of presidency: a Muslim judge to hear the Shari’a cases, and another to hear non-Shari’a cases. I told them that not only the judges, but all foreign experts will be substituted as soon as we do not need them, being natural that we cannot have full confidence in them, but for necessity we have to keep them as long as the sons of the Country are not ready to replace them.” — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 1345

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing article ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ — here Muslim leaders demand a ‘moral police’ in the Somali constitution, a direct echo of sumptuary moral-policing demands across Muslim and Christian history.
• DEFINE: Shows Osman’s rationale for retaining foreign judges and experts only until Somalis could replace them.