Hirsi Magan

Hirsi Magan Isse (Xirsi Magan Ciise, حرسي مجن عيسى; 1935 — 2008), commonly known as Hirsi Magan, was a scholar and a leading figure of the Somali revolution. Part of Somalia's political elite, he was a leader in the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), one of the earliest and most influential factions in the Somali Civil War that broke out in 1991. Magan Isse was a comrade-in-arms of erstwhile President of Somalia, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, and the father of the former Dutch MP and critic of Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali Magan Isse was born in Somalia in 1935 as one of the nine children of Magan Isse Guleid (1845–1945). He was a devout Muslim and student of Somali culture. Magan Isse married eight times and had nineteen daughters and thirteen sons. He had two daughters with his first wife. His second marriage produced son Mahad, daughter Ayaan, and daughter Haweya. Haweya died in 1998. He also had a daughter in his third marriage. He later remarried his first wife, who he had divorced shortly after he married his second wife. Magan Isse studied in Italy and in the United States at Columbia University, New York, where he obtained a degree in anthropology. As a trained linguist and anthropologist, he is known as a champion of Osmanya, the Somali writing script invented by Osman Yusuf Kenadid, unlike the former head of state, Siad Barre, who made Shire Jama Ahmed's modified Latin script the national standard in Somalia in 1973 After the assassination of president Abdirashid Ali Shermarke and Siad Barre coming to power in October, 1969, Magan Isse was considered dangerous to the new leadership and was imprisoned from 1972 to October 1975. In 1976, Magan Isse escaped from prison and fled from Somalia to Saudi Arabia. Barre banned all political parties with the exception of the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party (SRSF) the same year and the SODAF (a forerunner of the SSDF) was founded in exile in Rome. The following year, Magan Isse moved to Ethiopia, where he witnessed the year-long Ogaden War.