The Mahdi Times May 2014 Issue | Page 83

Boko Haramis! Who Are They? By Aslam Abdullah Boko Haramis! Who are they? Boko Haram has created a human disaster by abducting over 200 girls with the intention to sell them as slaves. It is a group that claims to be Islamic, yet in the eyes of most Muslims it has nothing to do with Islam. It claims to be a saved sect blessed by God and it believes in the supremacy of the Sharia under the domination of men only authority. Who are Boko Haramis? What are their ideas? Have a look at the article. In the Northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, one year after the September 2001 al-Qaeda attack in the US, Mohammad Yusuf, who was part of a group known as Shabaab since 1995 with Mallam Lawal as its leader formed what in local Hausa language now is known Boko Haram, the Congregation of the People of Tradition for Proselytism and Jihad or Jamāʻat Ahl as-Sunnah liddaʻwa wal-Jihād. Yusuf was later killed in a fight with the Nigerian army. Baku supporters accuse that he was captured alive but tortured to death by the soldiers. Since its establishment, the group has claimed responsibility of killing over 10,000 people, Muslims and non-Muslims alike. It now has three splinter groups that are active in Borno, Adamawa, Kaduna, Bauchi, Yobe, and Kano. The ideas of the leadership are influenced by a deceased Nigerian preacher Mohammed Marwa