Haji Ali Majeerteen

Haji Ali Abdirahman (Somali: Xaaji Cali Cabdiraxmaan), popularly known as al-Majeerteen, was a Somali Sheikh and poet.

Biography

Abdirahman later in his lifetime to be known as Ali Majeerteen, was born in the Nugaal valley to a Majeerteen father and an Ajuuraan mother in the early 1800s. He would later become one of the foremost Islamic proselytizers in Somalia.

He embarked on the obligatory Hajj trip to Mecca, passing through Yemen and overcoming the harsh journey through the Arabian deserts to the holy city of Mecca. When he arrived, as was usually the case, the Arab guards discriminated against him out of racism and refused to let him enter.

Haji Ali immediately sent a letter to the leader of the second Saudi state at the time, Emir Faisal ibn Turki, the grandfather of the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, King Abdul Aziz ibn Abdulrahman ibn Faisal. The letter was written in Arabic in its most purest dialect as a poem.

Upon reading the letter, the Emir became furious about the situation this fellow brother all the way from Somalia was in and angrily ordered the guards of the Haramka mosque to let the Somali brother enter at once and do his deeds to Allah. When Haji Ali completed his Hajj, the Emir requested to meet the young man from Somalia who write him so eloquently.

When the Emir and the young Haji met each other, as is the custom to both Arabs and Somalis, the Emir enquired him about his lineage. Haji Ali responded with a beautiful Arabic poem, showcasing the present Arabs at the venue of the nobility of his heritage. He later translated the poem into Somali.

The Emir, impressed as he was with this black man's grasp of the Arabic language and poetry without ever having set foot in the Arabian peninsula before, prompted him to allocate Haji Ali with a large plot of land. This would mark the beginning of the Sheikh's journey to the rest of the Arabian peninsula and more importantly the rest of Somali lands, especially the south where he had educated many about the Islamic religion.