The Islamic Courts Union (ICU) was a legal and political organization founded by Muslim clerics from the Abgal subclan of the powerful Hawiye clan that operated from 2000 to 2006 in Mogadishu. These Islamic courts adjudicated personal status and criminal law matters according to Islamic law (shari’a). Because they were backed by clan-based ICU militias, they were extremely effective in maintaining order. Abgal clerics did not start the courts in a desire because they promoted Islamism, but rather because they...

The Ogaden is a pastoral region within southeastern Ethiopia named for the Ogadeeni, a prominent Somali clan. Though claimed by Somalis, the region was granted to Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II in 1897 by the British after he had taken it in military conquest in 1887. The region was later annexed to Italian Somaliland in 1936, then returned to Ethiopia by the British in 1948 over the protest of some of its inhabitants, which was deeply upsetting to Somali nationalists.

The Ogaden is the site of ongoing conflict between the Ethiopian military and Ogadeeni separatist movements,...

Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys (b. 1935) is a former army colonel and current Somali religious leader affiliated with militant Islamist groups such as al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, and Hizb al-Islam, which merged with al-Shabaab in 2010, and formerly a leading and more radical figure within the Islamic Courts Union. Wanted by the...

Somalis form the largest ethnic group in Somalia and constitute large minorities in neighboring countries. The Somali language was made the official state language upon independence in 1960. Somalis are predominantly pastoral nomads who organize themselves into lineage-based clan and subclan groups; the largest include the nomadic Darod, Isaq, Hawiye, and Dir, and the agriculturalist Rahanwayn and Digil.