Tribute to Professor Mohamud Turyare

By Abukar Sanei^[1]

July 21, 2023

On Friday, July 14, 2023, Somali people lost one of its giants when it comes to academia and legal knowledge. This giant that we lost is Professor Mohamud Moallim Ali Turyare, a jurist and scholar. Professor Turyare was born in the town of Ceel Baraf in the Middle Shabelle region in 1929. He started his early Islamic education in that town as he eventually moved to Mogadishu in the late 1940s. In the mid-1950s, which falls during the Trusteeship of the Italians in the southern Somalia, Professor Turyare went to Yemen to continue his formal education, and then around the early or the mid-1960, he went to the Soviet Union to continue his academic journey. As the struggle for African independence was at its peak in the 1950s, there was a higher degree of connection between the former Soviet Union and the African nations that were vying for their liberation and independence from the western colonialists. Due to this condition, the Soviet Union was very attractive to the African students and elites who were eager to study in the Soviet Union so that they can come back and contribute to the political, social and economic development processes of their respective countries. 

Providing opportunities in higher education to African students in the early 1960s was one of the strategies that the former Soviet Union was using to install its relations with the newly independent African states. Similarly, the United States was also welcoming and attracting African students and elites in its universities in the early 1960s as early African immigrants to the United States were those who came to study in the United States. However, Professor Turyare became among the first African students who received their diplomas from the Patrice Lumumba University of People’s Friendship in 1965. It is very important to note that Professor Turyare was among 650 African students who started their first academic year in the fall of 1960. 

In his article in Soviet Education Journal, P. D. Erzin, who was the Vice Chancellor of the University at that time mentioned Professor Turyare by name as one of the African students who successfully defended their graduation projects.^[2] I am not sure if Professor Turyare was the only Somali student in the class of 1965, but he was the only Somali that the Vice-Chancellor included his name in the article. However, among other African students that Chancellor Erzin mentioned in the article include philologist Shegun Olumuiva Odunuga from Nigeria, chemist James Ernest Provensal from Ghana, economist Maftakha Karenga from Tanzania and engineering agronomist Sumar Lassana from Mali. In his diploma, Professor Turyare’s specialization was international law. After the completion of his law degree, Professor Turyare came back to Somalia. In 1967-68, he ran his campaign for the Somali Parliament as former President Ali Mahdi Mohamed was his rival for the seat in the Parliament. However, former President Ali Mahdi Mohamed won the seat in the Parliament in 1968. 

Professor Turyare’s Literature 

There are eight books that Professor Turyare solely published, and two books that he was a co-author. Two of the eight books that Professor Turyare published are textbooks that he has exclusively written for students at the Somali National University’s College of Law. One of these two books serves as an introductory textbook of the international law. In 1970, his book entitled, The Positive Non-alliance and Somalia’s Foreign Policy was published in Arabic language. As the timing of the publication of this book was in the midst of the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union, the non-alliance movement was an agenda that many developing countries including Somalia had embraced. In this book, Professor Turyare was reflecting on how it is important for Somalia’s socialist government that came to power in 1969 through a coup d’état led by Major General Mohamed Siad Barre to maintain its “neutral place” between the opposing blocks of NATO and Warsaw. 

The other notable books that Professor Turyare authored include, Western Somali and Self-Determination, and The Conflict of the Horn of Africa in the Light of the International Law. These two books were published in 1978 and 1979 respectively. The context of these two books is very clear as Somalia waged a war against Ethiopia in 1977 in order “to take back the Ogaden region” – a region exclusively inhabited by ethnic Somalis in eastern Ethiopia but was handed to Ethiopian control by the British colonial government in 1948 and 1954.^[3] The struggle in the Horn of Africa was mainly about territorial issues – between Kenya and Somalia or between Ethiopia and Somalia, and the rejection of the artificial boundaries demarcated by the British colonial power. As a result, the concept of “greater Somalia” has always been a dream for the Somali people, and Professor Turyare was reflecting on this sentiment in his book about the western Somali or the “Ogaden region.” Moreover, Ali Sheikh Yusuf Adam (Cali Somali), a member of the judiciary system of Banaadir region and Abdulkadir Shaylilah recently noted in their presentation about Professor Turyare that in The Conflict of the Horn of Africa was also critical to Mohamed Siad Barre and Mengistu Haile Mariam on their conflict-oriented approach toward boundary issues.^[4]

The Service Contributions of Professor Turyare

There are service components that always come along with scholarship, and Professor Turyare contributed his energy and time to service in different capacities nationally, regionally and internationally during his lifetime. Nationally, according to Avv. Cali Somali and Shaylilah, Professor Turyare served as the Deputy Attorney General of Somalia from 1975 to 1983. Also, from 1980 to 1991, he was a legal advisor to Somalia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as he played a key role in his expertise in foreign relations within the perspective of the international law. In the judiciary services, in 1989, he was selected as a member of the High Commission of the Judiciary. However, one can assume that the role that he played in the judiciary commission was very limited as the country was “under one man’s rule.” As a legal scholar, Professor Turyare served as a Professor of law and the Dean of the College of Law at the Somali National University from 1985 to 1991. Other contributions of Professor Turyare include the writing of the Somali Constitution in 1979 and 1990 as well the editor of Law and Economics magazine from 1987 to 1991. At the regional level, Professor Turyare played a critical role both at African Union and the Arab League. From 1983 to 1984, he served as a member of the Organization of African Union’s (OAU) Commission for rectifying the OAU Charter. Also, at the Arab League, he served as a member of the Commission of the International Customary Law. Internationally, from 1985 to 1986, Professor Turyare served as a member of the sub-committee of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva. 

Conclusion

The Somali people lost a great scholar who was very honest in his scholarship as he contributed to the legal system of the country academically as well as through services. The scholarly contributions of Professor Turyare continued after the collapse of the state in 1991. Some of his works that came out after 1991 include Human Rights and Traditional Laws in Somalia (2001) and Somalia’s War and Peace Process (2004). One fact that I should note here is that Professor Turyare was not happy about the process and the attempts of the reconstruction of the Somali state after 1991. In a recent circulated video clip of an address that he was giving in the early 1990s, he warned against any unilateral decision that one faction makes regarding the state-building process. By referring to the norms of the international law, he stated that as long as all political factions or those who fought against the military government are not sitting in the table, no one will recognize any system of governance that is unilaterally announced. In this light, he was directly talking to his own causin former President Ali Mahdi Mohamed and his United Somali Congress (USC) allies who announced the transitional government with the absence of major political factions.

The legacy and the work that Professor Turyare left behind are treasure for the Somalia people. We lost Professor Turyare, but his contributions will be alive. May he Rest In Peace.

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^[1] Abukar Sanei is a Ph.D. Candidate in Mass Communication at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. Mr. Sanei’s research focus is on media studies with a special interest in media and migration. He is also the Director and co-host of Governance and Development Forum (GDF). 

^[2] P. D. Erzin. (1966). The Soviet International Institution of Higher Education presents its first diplomas, Soviet Education, 8 (4), 52-56. 

^[3] Human Rights Watch (2008). Collective punishment: War crimes and crimes against humanity in the Ogaden area of Ethiopia’s Somali regional state. 

^[4] Avv. Ali Sheikh Adam Yusuf and Abdulkadir Shaylilah (2023). Sooyaalka Waxsoosaarka Qaanuuneed ee Professor Turyare.