Said Sheikh Samatar

Said Sheikh Samatar is Professor of African History at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. He is the author of numerous publications on Somalia and East Africa and commented on these issues in variously known media.

Said Samatar was born as a child of Somali nomads probably in the Ogaden. In 1958 he moved with about 16 years in the city Kalafo, where he began his education at his father's request. This included the study of the Koran and Islamic philosophy and jurisprudence. Then Said Samatar continued his education at a Christian missionary school and at a Bible Academy in Nazret. In 1970 he began to work in Somalia at the National Teaching College, where he came into contact with American colleagues. This suggested that he go to study in the United States.

In 1971, Said Samatar enter the country with his wife and completed until 1973, the Goshen College in Indiana. He then went to Northwestern University. For his dissertation, he returned 1977/78 on field research to Somalia, where he had almost been arrested several times, as he faced the dictatorship of Siad Barre's critical. In 1979 he was at Northwestern University Doctor of African history.

From 1979 to 1981 Said Samatar taught at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Virginia, since at Rutgers University. Since 1987 he has been editor of the Horn of Africa Journal.

Works

• Oral Poetry and Somali Nationalism: The Case of Sayyid Mahammad Abdille Hasan, Cambridge University Press 1982, ISBN 0521238331
• Somalia: Nation in Search of a State ( m. David Laitin ), Westview Press 1987, ISBN 0865315558
• Somalia: A Nation in Turmoil, Minority Rights Group, 1991, ISBN 0946690804
• In the Shadow of Conquest: Islam in Colonial Northeast Africa. Red Sea Press 1992, ISBN 0932415709