the area and bring them to be put on trial. His success in bringing order to his neighborhood in Mogadishu became well known through out the city and led to the establishment of another copycat Shar'ia court. The court did not shy away from strict punishments and even carried out executions. Soon word began rapidly spreading that law and order was being established in Dheeres sector of the city and the crime rate in the area subsequently dropped dramatically. Rise of the Mogadishu Islamic Courts In 1993 or 1994, other Shari'a courthouses began opening up in Northern Mogadishu, operating independently in their own self contained jurisdictions in the city. The first Sharia court did not start in southern Mogadishu until 1998, as the de facto ruler of the territory, General Mohammed Farah Aidid opposed the Islamic courts, and no progress occurred until after his death. Ali Mahdi, Aidids prime rival controlling the northern part of the city, would issue a decree to dismantle Ali Dheeres Court after perceiving the Sheikhs rising popularity as a threat to his own authority. As the years passed, with nothing but warlords offering to replace its authority, the rule of the sharia courts began to cement. By 1999 the multiple Islamic courts had jurisdiction over much of the south of the city as well and five active Shari'a courts were operating in the region. While the courts were not an organized movement or a government, they represented the closest thing Somalia had to either of those things. The Islamic Courts Union's influence was enhanced by financial donors abroad who sought to bring any semblance of stability to the country. In April 1999 the Shari'a courts came together for the first time and jointly seized control of Mogadishu's Bakara Market from the warlords and later that year made a successful united effort to push the warlords to the outskirts of Mogadishu, though they did not control the entire city. Consolidation and formation of the Islamic Courts Union In 2000, after clearing much of Mogadishu from control of the warlords, eleven separate Shari'a courts in the city would finally merge to form the Islamic Courts Union. Mark Fathi Massoud, a professor of politics at UC Santa Cruz, notes that the turn that Somalis made in the late '90s and early 2000s towards establishing local religious courts for self-governance and then linking them into a system mirrored the