Abshir Bacadle (Abshir Nuur Faarax)

Who was he?

Abshir Nuur Faarax, known as Abshir Bacadle, was a Somali poet (Somali Wikipedia, Abshir Bacadle). Somali Wikipedia says he is known in every area where Somalis live (same source). A draft English Wikipedia article calls him one of the most prolific Somali poets of the late 20th century (Wikipedia, Draft:Abshir Bacadle). This page records events without taking sides.

Birth

The sources differ. Somali Wikipedia says he was born in Galkacyo, in the Mudug region, in 1946 (Somali Wikipedia). The English draft says he was born in Mustahil, in the Somali Region of Ethiopia (Wikipedia, Draft).

His poems

The English draft says his poems were mostly about religion, war, reconciliation, natural disasters and the poor and needy (Wikipedia, Draft). Somali Wikipedia names some of them: Tawxiid, a poem on reconciliation (dib-u-heshiisiin), Ceeryaamo, and a poem praising women who wear the hijab (Somali Wikipedia). It says many of his poems were on Islam and on conflict with Ethiopia (same source).

A collection of his poems, Diiwaanka Gabayada Abshir Bacadle, edited by Mohamed Hussein Moalim, appeared in 2015, according to the English draft (Wikipedia, Draft). See Somali poetry.

The 1970s and exile

Somali Wikipedia gives this account. In the 1970s the government detained young women who wore the hijab, in a step led by the minister for religious affairs (Somali Wikipedia). Abshir answered with a poem against the minister, whom he named "Guuleed Fansalakh" (same source). The government then sought to arrest him, and he left for Saudi Arabia (same source). Saudi Arabia later sent him back to Somalia, and he wrote another poem about that (same source). See the Siad Barre era, 1969 to 1991.

The 1990s and 2000s

Somali Wikipedia places him in the same clan family as Mohamed Farrah Aidid (Somali Wikipedia). It says that in 1993 he composed poems almost daily in support of Aidid's fighters against the UN operation in Somalia (same source). After an attack on a meeting of Aidid's leaders in Mogadishu in 1993, he composed a poem with the line "Gun iyo gaalaba waa farxeen, gobi se geeri waa taqaan" (same source). In English, as a working translation: "The low-born and the foreigners rejoiced, but the noble know death." Somali Wikipedia says more than 69 people died in that attack (same source).

The English draft says he lived through the battle of Mogadishu in 1993 and the Ethiopian-led war in Somalia from 2006 to 2009 (Wikipedia, Draft). Somali Wikipedia says he composed poems in support of the Islamic Courts Union (Somali Wikipedia). See the Islamic Courts Union, 2006.

Somali Wikipedia also records a poem he composed about Somaliland after an incident involving the singer Zamzam Ahmed Duale (same source). Somaliland declared independence in 1991; Israel recognised it on 26 December 2025, and most states and the African Union regard it as part of Somalia.

Death

Somali Wikipedia gives his death as 10 October 2010 (Somali Wikipedia).

In short

A Somali poet of religion, war and reconciliation, active from the 1970s until his death, reported as 2010.