Hassan Sheikh Muumin

[SayidSomal]

Do you know who he was ?(AUN)

[Blessed]

What do you want to know?

[SayidSomal]

Everything - mainly his work and where i can find them

[SayidSomal]

Hassan Sheikh Muumin is one of Somalia’s greatest modern songwriters

and playwrights. He was born in 1930, in the northwest of what

was then British Somaliland. Because his father was a great sheikh

(man of religion), he received a classical Quranic and Arabic education.

He also attended a government elementary school. He became a

well-known collector and reciter of traditional oral literature, and composed

his own texts, of which his plays are among the most famous.

 

After Somalia achieved political independence in 1960, he worked for

Radio Mogadishu and, after 1968, for the Ministry of Education, where

he, among many other things, trained youth for national parades and

performances. In the late 1960s and 1970s, Hassan Sheikh Muumin

authored a number of plays, all, as is typical of Somali drama, including

poetry, the most prestigious literary genre. These poems were set

to music and came to feature the best known and liked Somali songs of

the period.

 

It was especially through his plays that Hassan established his fine

reputation as social commentator and critic. Deeply versed in tradi-

tional culture, and often turning to it for guidance and inspiration,

Hassan nevertheless sharply criticized what he considered social ills,

traditional or modern. He expressed the Cabralian4 concept of “winnowing”

traditional cultural values and practices in the opening of his

first popular play. The song was memorized by many Somalis and

became the standard opening of many dramatic performances in

Mogadishu’s National Theater:

 

"Night and day we fashion our words. We work behind the scenes to help

our mother tongue advance. We help it develop, guide it, correct it. We

don’t hold back, we work hard for it, we kindle the traditional wisdom.

We winnow [the good from the bad], we provide for what it needs,5 and

we give it all we have. We guide the public, entertain it, and make it

understand its general interests"

 

Hassan’s sociopolitical commentary in this period was almost

visionary, and few verbal performance artists had their finger on the

pulse of Somali society like he did. Two song lines that gained almost

proverbial fame are the following: “Dhagax iyo dab laiskuma dhuftee, kala

dhawraay, Waxa ka dhigan gobanimada qabiil dhexgalee, kala dhawraay”

(Beware of throwing a stone into the fire! And beware of bringing clannism

into the [workings of] the independent [state]!). Throwing a stone

into a fire would scatter the sparks and allow the fire to get out of control.

In the same way, allowing clannist practices into the operations of

the independent state would make it disintegrate. And this is, of

course, what occurred in the Somali civil war. Equally important was

his analysis of what was happening to the Somali family and family

values.

 

 

Like most other Somali artists, Hassan was a man of the people. My

own memories of him go back to when I was four years old and,

together with his young son, participated in a play he was putting on,

titled The Garden of Freedom (Beerta Xurriyadda). This was in the very

early 1960s, just after independence. I still remember the song I sang

on that occasion: “Cammuuddu qaali weeyoo, ciyaar ma geydee. Cadowga

aan ka dafaacnee, caruurta wax bara!” (The soil is of great value, not to be

played with. We want to defend it against the enemy, so we must teach

the children [how valuable it is]). I also remember how Hassan would

take me by the hand, small as I was, and bring me to the theater with

him. He encouraged me to author plays and to love songs. He taught

me the dances of the old city of Zeila, the seylici. When I was older, I

indeed wrote a play, Wadhaf iyo Shimbir War iskuma Hayaan (The Sling

and the Bird are Not Aware of Each Other), which was produced in 1978

by Osman Aadan Askari, with Hasan Aadan Samatar and Zahra

Ahmed as key singers and actors. My love for Somali songs, which has

inspired me to collect and transcribe thousands of them, owes much to

Hassan’s enthusiasm and initial encouragement. When I was working

in Djibouti, much later, he would stop by my house with sheaves of

paper, all covered with notes readable only to him, as, for his own purposes,

he wrote Somali in Arabic script. His love of the Somali language

in all its facets and expressions was contagious.

 

 

It was for his plays that Hassan Sheikh Muumin gained most popularity.

After a short radio-play with the title of Failing to Make Sure will

Cost You Dearly,7 he authored and produced, in 1968, what is probably

his most famous play, Leopard Among the Women (Shabeelnaagood). This

play represents (and also satirizes) family and other social relations,

especially the deceit of men and the gullibility of girls in matters of sex

and marriage. His humorous and realistic representation of family life

and gender relations allowed all Somalis to recognize themselves in

his characters and their dialogues. While deeply grounded in Somali

culture, however, Hassan nevertheless asked his audience to critically

reflect on those Somali values and practices that were backward,

superstitious, and inegalitarian. He also ridiculed those Somalis who,

even with only a smattering of foreign education, gave themselves

enormous airs and saw themselves as highly elevated above the culture

of ordinary Somalis.

 

In 1969, Hassan authored and produced the play called Glow Worm

(Gaaraabildhaan), which dealt with the theme of ambitious young men

marrying “modern” Western women and despising and underestimating

the Somali “homegirls.” This was followed, in 1971, by a critique of

the rich plantation owners in the interriverine area of the south, who,

following in the footsteps of the Italian colonizers before them,

exploited and oppressed the men, women, and children who labored

on their plantations. Hassan called it The Hell-Bound of this World

(Ehelunaar Adduunka). In 1973, he produced a play with the title, The

World Depends for its Protection on the Human Mind (Dunidu Maskaxday

Magan U Tahay). This play, too, criticized the abuse of marriage and

championed the cause of women.

 

Not all of Hassan’s plays have been preserved. It is therefore imperative

that we collect and preserve the audiotapes that may still circulate

in Somalia and throughout the diaspora.

[mahadcaday]

He was a family friend. Good man aun

[Abtigiis]

In few years time when the hair receeds enough, I walk around and claim I am Hassan Sheikh Mumin and only those who know he is dead will say you are not him! My children saw a picture of him and still say aabo it is you!

[wyre]

When I saw the name, Before I oppened the thread I was Like, wadaad ka hadli doona fidmada