Somalia Mourns Abwaan Adan Tarabi Jama, a Voice of the Waaberi Generation

MOGADISHU (SONNA): Somalia is mourning the national poet Abwaan Adan Tarabi Jama, may Allah have mercy on him, who passed away today in Hargeisa, in northwestern Somalia. The Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism of the Federal Republic of Somalia extended its heartfelt condolences to his family, relatives and the entire Somali nation on his passing.

The condolences were conveyed by the Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism, Hon. Abdulfatah Kasim Mohamud, together with the Deputy Minister, Abdirahman Yusuf Omar (Al-Adaala), the Director General, Abdullahi Hayir Ducale, the Manager of the National Council for Wisdom and Public Awareness, and the Ministry's directors and entire staff. The Ministry described the late artist as a national poet of renown and wisdom whose creativity greatly enriched the Somali language, culture and literature.

Abwaan Adan Tarabi belonged, in his heyday, to the national Waaberi troupe of poets and performers, the ensemble that stands at the centre of modern Somali cultural memory. Waaberi gathered the country's finest poets, singers, playwrights and musicians into a single national company, and through its songs and stage works gave voice to the aspirations of a young nation. Its artists carried the Somali language to its greatest heights of public expression, and the works of that generation remain the shared inheritance of Somalis everywhere, sung, quoted and passed on wherever the language is spoken.

To be called Abwaan is itself a form of national honour. In Somali tradition, the title belongs to those whose command of the language, whose wisdom and whose gift for verse place them among the custodians of the culture. In a society where poetry has long been the highest form of public speech, the abwaan is historian, teacher and conscience at once, and the loss of one diminishes a living library. The Ministry's description of Adan Tarabi as a national poet, an Abwaan Qaran, places him in that company.

That he passed away in Hargeisa, a city with its own deep place in the story of Somali arts, is a reminder that the Waaberi generation and its heirs belong to the whole Somali nation, across every region where the language and its poetry live. The grief at his passing, like the songs of his era, travels the entire Somali map.

The Minister prayed that Allah have mercy on the departed, and the Ministry extended its condolences to his family, relatives, friends and the whole Somali nation. May Allah grant him Jannah, and grant those he leaves behind patience and faith.