The Culture of Accommodating Diversity Embedded in the Sufi Saint Cult of Bale, Ethiopia: A Historical Overview

Abstract

This article examines the tradition of tolerance to diversity embedded in the Sufi Islam of Bale based on a historical study of observation of muudaa festivals, archival, oral and literary sources. It is aimed at suggesting some cultural values on tolerance to diversity for administrators and policymakers to consider and to scholars to augment it. Findings of primary and secondary data analysis show that the early Islamic practices, which eventually led to the emergence of the Sufi Saint Cult, incorporated elements of traditional religious practices of societies of the Bale region. The muudaa practice for instance was an Oromo religious practice of pilgrimage to the Abbaa Muudaa, the spiritual father of the Oromo, which later changed to its destination to shrines of Islamic Sheiks. Similarly, some practices of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity are also blended with Sufi Saint Cult practices. Consequently, followers of indigenous religions, Islam and Christianity of any linguistic, ethnic, geographical, and economic background participated in the Sufi Saint Cult. This led to the development of a typical culture that accommodated diversity. Such cultural values embedded in Sufi practices of Islam; therefore, have immense potential for tourism and to solve problems on divisive activities propagated by radical groups. Though some aspects of tolerance to diversity continued to prevail to the present, however, there are emerging threats against it.