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Biography of Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalle Mohamed |
HIS EARLY
LIFE
Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalle Mohamed "Mah" was
born in the "Oil-Rich" but long time
war-ravaged Ogaden region, at the historic
town of Kallafo, in 1941 to a middle class
family. He memorised the Holy Kur'an by
heart at a very young age in the shanty
village of Bargun. He also studied the
rudimentary rules of the Islamic theology,
the basic principles of Islam, and the
calligraphy and graphology of the Arabic
script under the tutelage of a dugsi, a
locally administered Somali-style Islamic
propagation centre.
HIS BASIC SECULAR ACADEMIC CAREER
Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalle began his basic
education in Kallafo, whereupon, he did his
lower and upper primary schooling. After his
outsmarting completion of the primary level,
he left for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for
further studies in 1958 on foot. After
performing his pilgrimage, he started
secondary school in the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia. On successfully finishing high
school, he joined the internationally
acclaimed Imam Mohamed Bin Saud University
in the Holy City of Mecca in 1967.
Graduating from the faculty of Islamic
Sharia, he obtained his baccalaureate -
bachelor degree (BA) IN 1970. It was
reported that the deceased was a noted
bookish and an avid reader during his stay
at the university, and that is where his
studious journey of life time student of
history started.
JOB EXPERIENCE
on finishing his university studies, he came
back to his beloved homeland, Ogaden, to
shoo away the boiling nostalgia that evicted
him from the Kindom of Saudi Arabia; and he
became a teacher in the crops-rich city of
Godey early seventies. After working as a
teacher for a short period of time, he was
promoted to the posts of education inspector
and the head of the Teachers Union in Godey.
The bodily perished and the theoretically
living Somali Ogaden thinker, Mah, went to
the then independent Democratic republic of
Somalia in 1973 and on his arrival at
Mogadishu, he was taken by the ministry of
education as a secondary school teacher,
whereby he was located in Hargeisa, the
second capital city of Somalia.
HIS MIDDLE LIFE AS A FREEDOM FIGHTER
He resigned from the educational assignments
that he was holding for Somalia and joined
Western Somali Liberation Front in 1976,
activating the military and political
philosophy of the then Somali-backed
movement, WSLF, under the auspices of the
late dictator, Mohamed Siad Barre. After a
short while, the lost hero, Sheikh Ibrahim,
became an active member of WSLF central
committee through all-agreed election. He
was sent to Abu Dhabi in 1981, as a
diplomatic representative for Western Somali
Liberation Front. After the sheer military
and political abortion of WSLF as a result
of the direct military intervention of
Somali armed forces, sheikh Ibrahim
co-founded Ogaden National Liberation Front
in 1984. In 1991, he was elected the
chairman of ONLF and he had been holding
that post till 1998. February 1994, Sheikh
Ibrahim narrowly escaped from an
assassination attempt by Ethiopian battalion
based in Warder. He was defended by the
people of Warder with the help of ONLF
fighters scouting him, and, many Ethiopian
soldiers and almost 100 civilians from
Warder died because of him. It was reported
that Sheikh Ibrahim took part in some of the
deadliest armed confrontations between ONLF
battalion and Ethiopian garrison in the
war-torn Ogaden. Some tidings said that he
acted field commander in the front line to
give his soldiers moral support.
HIS MARITAL STATUS
Sheikh Ibrahim married three wives and he is
survived by four sons and four daughters
with a group of grand-children living in
Nairobi, UK and the USA.
HIS PERSONALITY
Sheikh Ibrahim was a charismatic born-leader
with adamant political objectives. He was an
outspoken Islamic scholar and a profound
patriot who believed in death for the sake
of his country and in the defense of his
Islamic belief. He was an honest and
God-fearing man. He was a great ideologue
yarning for Arab unity and Somalis nicknamed
him "The pro-Arab campaigner in the Horn of
Africa." He was a confident and firm
freedom-fighter longing for the martyrdom of
his targeted mission under any circumstance.
My first and last meeting with him in
Khartoum by the end of 2006, I put the
following question to him, "Ethiopia has got
one of the strongest armies in Africa and
your fighting with it prolonged the
suffering of the Ogaden citizens. Are you
capable of vanquishing this powerful and
regular force? If not so, why don't you
negotiate with the government, Ethiopia?"
Sheikh Ibrahim smiled and replied to me, "My
NO TO ETHIOPIAN COLONISATION is stronger
than the strong armed forces that you
mentioned. We have gallant and stronger
fighters than theirs, and, we are ready to
fight them to the end till they peacefully
withdraw from our homeland - Ogaden. Our
brave and patient people can't accept the
oligarchic colonial rule of the up-starts -
the minority Tigtay, under the despotic and
autocratic instruction of the callow
leadership of Mr Zenawi."
HIS AUTHORSHIP
He was one of the greatest historians in
Africa and the finest writers in Arabic
language. He was an astute political
scientist and a broad-minded researcher on
African and Arabian political history. He
was a hot political analyst; and an author
of heaps of articles on different Arabic
magazines and daily newspapers in the Middle
East. He wrote over five books on African
regional crises and he was now working on a
linguistical analysis book about the
lexicological interrelations between Arabic
and Somali languages. Moreover, he currently
finished a book he named "The War on Maps in
The Horn of Africa" which is waiting for
posthumous publication.
HIS LATER LIFE
Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalle was the head of "The
Horn of Africa Research and Strategic
Studies Centre" in Abu Dhabi that he founded
in 1999. He was also a member of ONLF
central committee and the spiritual leader
of the above mentioned separatist rebel
movement waging war against Ethiopia for the
complete independence of Ogaden region. He
died in Abu Dhabi on 22 June 2008. He was
buried in Abu Dhabi on 24 June 2008.
According to postmortem examination, his
death was natural.
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Compiled by Mohamed Abdikadir Daud
(Stanza) - Somali poet, political pundit,
author, song-writer and freelance
journalist.
I thank all those I have used their articles
like: WWW.OGADEN.COM, WWW.QORAHAY.COM and
the scholarly artilce of Dr. Abdirahman
Sheikh Abduallahi (Abdirahman Madani) that
was published on WWW.OGADEN.COM on
32/6/2008. I sturdily apologise for not
citing these works in the centre of my
articles for some reasons. |
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