Abdurahman Baadiyow (Cabdiraxmaan Baadiyow)

Who is he?

Abdurahman Mohamed Abdullahi, known as Baadiyow, was born in 1954 in the district of Elder (Wikipedia, Abdurahman Abdullahi Baadiyow). He was an army officer from 1971 to 1986, and is an electronic engineer, Islamic scholar and civil society activist (same source). He holds an engineering degree from the Somali National University and a PhD in Islamic history from McGill University in Canada (same source).

Scholarship and university

His PhD thesis traced the Islamic movement in Somalia, with a case study of the Islah movement from 1950 to 2000 (same source). He is one of the founders of Mogadishu University, set up in 1997, and chairs its board of trustees (same source). See Ali Sheikh Ahmed, its first president.

Public life

He has sat on the Islah movement's Shura Council since 1995 and was its vice-chair from 1999 to 2008 (Wikipedia). He chaired the National Unity Party from 2014, was a candidate in the 2012 presidential race, and later became deputy chairman of the National Forum Party (same source). He has served as a senior adviser on peace and reconciliation to the prime minister (2018), on the dialogue committee with Somaliland (2019), and as senior constitutional adviser to the president (2022) (same source).

In short

A historian of Somali Islam who co-founded Mogadishu University and has worked on reconciliation for decades.