However at the same time as the Somali clerics were preparing for Islamic rule in Mogadishu they were also reaching out to western leaders.
Fears are running high of fresh bouts of the bloody fighting that has engulfed Mogadishu over the past four months, killing hundreds.
Warlords boosted defences at their last stronghold north of the city, vowing a fight to death to defend it, while those left in the capital said they would resist Islamic control despite attempts to secure a formal truce.
Mogadishu's most senior imam, Sheikh Nur Barud, in a radio address called on Somalis to crush secular resistance to Sharia law and reject the efforts of the warlords to win support by appealing to clan loyalty.
"All Somalis must defend the Islamic courts because this is not inter-clan fighting, but war with the infidels," he said. "This fighting is between those who support Islam, and godless invaders and those who support them."
Terror links denied
Sheikh Barud referred to the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) and the United States, which has given cash and intelligence support to the alliance as part of its global "war on terrorism".
Yet in an open letter to diplomats the chairman of Mogadishu's 11 Islamic courts denied any links to terrorism or radical anti-western Islam
Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed said the movement was not political but interested only in peace.
"We share no objectives, goals or methods with groups that sponsor or support terrorism," Sheikh Ahmed said in the letter.
A day earlier, Islamist militia claimed victory in the battle for Mogadishu over the ARPCT, which accuses the courts of harbouring terrorists, including Al-Qaeda members. This view is shared by US intelligence officials.
The letter rejects those accusations and seeks to allay US fears that Somalia may become a new Afghanistan under an African version of the Taliban milita.
"We wanted to inform the United States that our only agenda is to ensure peace and order in Mogadishu," an official said. "If we achieve that, it would be easy to spread it across Somalia."
Washington has reacted cautiously to Sheikh Ahmed's letter, with the
State Department saying there appeared to be splits in the Islamist ranks.
"There are a number of different voices in the group," said US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. But he said that the US was "not going to pass judgment at this point about the precise nature of this group."