# Aw Jama Omar Issa (Aw Jaamac Cumar Ciise)

> Aw Jama Omar Issa (c.1922-2014): historian who collected the Sayid's poems and wrote the first Dervish history.

Source page: https://calankii.com/en/people/jama-omar-issa/
Last checked: 2026-11-12
Publisher: Calankii (https://calankii.com)

## Who was he?

Aw Jama Omar Issa, known as Aw Jaamac, was a Somali scholar, historian and collector of oral literature ([Wikipedia, Jama Omar Issa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jama_Omar_Issa)). He came from [Buuhoodle](/en/regions/togdheer/), had an Arabic and Islamic education, and qualified as a teacher in Hargeisa in 1957 (same source). In the early 1960s he moved to Mogadishu to teach (same source).

## The Sayid's poetry and the Dervishes

He spent about twenty years collecting and writing down the orally transmitted poems of [Sayid Mohamed Abdullah Hassan](/en/people/sayid-maxamed-cabdulle-xasan/), published as *Diiwaanka Sayid Maxamed* in 1974 ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jama_Omar_Issa)). He used them for *Taariikhdii Daraawiishta iyo Sayid Maxamed Cabdulle Xasan, 1895-1921*, published by the Somali Academy of Culture in 1976 and described by Wikipedia as the first authoritative study of the Dervishes (same source). See [The Dervish movement](/en/history/dervish-movement-1899-1920/).

## Other books

Before Somali had an official script, he wrote in Arabic, including a history of Somalia and a book on Somali political leaders, both in 1965 ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jama_Omar_Issa)). In 1966 he wrote a biography of [General Daud](/en/people/daud-abdulle-hirsi/) Abdulle Hirsi, first commander of the Somali army, and in 1979 a history of Mogadishu (same source). With Mohamed Haji Omar and Ahmed Jimale he wrote *Speared from the Spear: Traditional Somali Behaviour in Warfare*, published by the Red Cross in 1997 (same source).

## Later life

From 1991 he lived in Djibouti, where he died on 6 January 2014 aged 91 (same source).

## In short

A historian from Buuhoodle who preserved the Sayid's poetry and wrote the first full history of the Dervishes.

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