jama Omar issa

Aw Jama Omar Issa (, ) (c.1922 – 6 January 2014) commonly known as Aw Jaamac, was a Somali scholar, historian and collector of oral literature of Somalia. He wrote the first authoritative study of Dervishes, the polity of monarch Diiriye Guure.

Biography

A recorder and collector of oral history and poetry. The title aw or sheikh generally indicates a man of religion; Aw Jama is therefore called Sheikh Jama as well. Jamaac is from Buuhoodle, Somalia. His formal education was Arabic and Islamic and he became a certified teacher in Hargeisa in Somalia in 1957. In the early 1960s, Aw Jama moved to Mogadishu to teach and continue to collect the poems of Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, known in the West as the "Mad Mullah".

Death Aw Jama standing beside Nur Hedik (white shirt) who is wearing the emblematic Kuuk Darawiish prayer bead on his left wrist and the emblematic Darawiish duubcad turban on his head.

On 6 January 2014, Jama Omar Isse died in the neighboring country of Djibouti at the age of 91. He had been living in Djibouti since the collapse of Somalia's central government in 1991 after which the Djibouti government hosted him following widespread of insecurity in Somalia.