Mohamed Haji Mukhtar


Mohamed Haji Mukhtar is a Somali scholar and writer currently in the United States.

Biography

Mukhtar was born in the town of Koorkoor in the Bakool region of southern Somalia. He is the son of Malak Mukhtar Malak Hassan, a highly respected chief of chiefs of the Digil and Mirifle Somali clans.
He is known as an advocate of the use of Maay-Somali language, and all other Somali languages that exist in Somalia.

Education

Dr. Mukhtar holds a Ph.D. from Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt.
From 1975-1983, he was a professor of History at the Somali National University in Mogadishu. From 1986-1990, he taught at the National University of Malaysia in Malaysia.
Dr. Mukhtar is a two-time Fulbright-Hays Scholar, first in 1983-1984 at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and then between 1984-1985 at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina. He also held fellowships from the Istituto Italiano per l'Africa and the Arab League's Education, Culture and Science Organization, in 1980 and 1981–1982, respectively, as well as from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2002.

Career

Dr. Mukhtar has long been a producer and correspondent of the BBC African Service, and is presently the Chairperson of the Somalia Committee for Peace and Reconciliation as well as the Inter-Riverine Studies Association.
He is currently a professor of African & Middle Eastern history at Savannah State University in Savannah, Georgia.