SUFI POETRY IN SOMALI

In their zeal to make their audiences intimately familiar
with the teaching of Islam, the Somali shaikhs not only

translated into Somali some of the most common Arabic

eulogistic names of God, but also used the Cushitic pre-

Islamic name Eebbe to refer to Him instead of suppressing
it as a pagan survival.l The Name Eebbe appears both
in the secular and religious poetry of the Somalis and its
presence in the religious poetry can be illustrated in
this extract of a Sufi poem in which the poet asserts the

doctrine of Divine Unity:

Abaarkaa u horreeya

Eraygaan ku hadlaayo

Eebbahay Axad weeye.

Aaddanow Nebigiina

Uunkiisii u abuuree

Ergo 100 diray weey~.

First and foremost

The words which I say are:

God is one.

And the exalted Prophet

Was sent to the earth

To the creatures of God.

(Text '1, 1-6)

In addition, there are other pre-Islamic religious terms

and concepts which have quietly found their way into the

terminology of Islam among the Somali~. The term wadaad,

for instance, which is not of Arabic origin is universally

used by the Somalis to refer to a shaikh or any man of

re~lglon. ,. .' 2, Moreover, the Somali concept of belaayo

48.