| Intro | Somalian historian |
| Is |
Historian Educator |
| From |
Somalia Malaysia |
| Type |
Academia Social science |
| Gender | male |
| Birth |
13 June 1947, Bakool, Somalia |
| Age | 73 years |
Mohamed Haji Mukhtar (Somali: Maxamed Xaaji Mukhtaar, Arabic: محمد حاج مختار ) (born 1947) 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 the Digil and Mirifle (Rahanweyn) Somali clans, and belongs to the Leysan subdivision of the latter.
He is Known as an advocate of the use of Maay (the Somali-dialect of the Rahanweyn), and all other Somali dialects 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 (ALECSO), in 1980 and 1981–1982, respectively, as well as from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) 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 (Ergada) as well as the Inter-Riverine Studies Association (ISA).
He is currently a professor of African & Middle Eastern history at Savannah State University in Savannah, Georgia.