Rashid Abdillahi (, ; 1926 – 1969) was the sixth Grand

Sultan Sultan (; ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be use ...

of the

Isaaq Sultanate The Isaaq Sultanate (, Wadaad's writing, Wadaad: , ) was a Muslims, Muslim sultanate that ruled parts of the Horn of Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries. The kingdom spanned the territories of the Isaaq clan in modern-day Somaliland and Ethiopi ...

and reigned from 1967 to 1969, when he was succeeded by his brother Abdiqadir Abdillahi.

Biography

Rashid was born in 1926 in

Hargeisa Hargeisa ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Somaliland, a ''List of states with limited recognition, de facto'' sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, still considered internationally to be part of Somalia. It is also th ...

and was the eldest son of Sultan

Abdillahi Deria Abdillahi Deria (, ; died January 1967) was the fifth Grand Sultan of the Isaaq Sultanate and a notable Somali anti-colonial figure. Biography Abdillahi was the son of Sultan Deria Hassan whom he succeeded in 1943 after his death. Abdillahi was ...

. He was fluent in Somali, Arabic and English. Rashid was active in independence and post-independence politics and accompanied his father Sultan

. He was a founding member of the NUF political party in the

British Somaliland British Somaliland, officially the Somaliland Protectorate (), was a protectorate of the United Kingdom in modern Somaliland. It was bordered by Italian Somalia, French Somali Coast and Ethiopian Empire, Abyssinia (Italian Ethiopia from 1936 ...

protectorate. He served as an elected member of the Legislative Assembly for Hargeisa in 1959, where he helped run the Ministries of Local Government, Social Services, Communications, and Works and National Resources along with three other elected members including

Michael Mariano Michael Mariano () (1914-1987) was a Somali politician and businessman best remembered for leading a delegation to UN Headquarters in New York City and advocating for the return of the Somali inhabited Haud reserved area to Somali administration ...

to allow said ministries to gain experience. After unification he served as the counselor for the Somali Embassy in Saudi Arabia from 1960 to 1964. In 1964 he was elected to the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

of Somalia representing Hargeisa, and was later elected as the Vice President of the National Assembly on 9 March 1966. That same year he would lead a delegation of the Somali National Assembly to

Teheran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District. With a population of around 9.8 million in the city as of 2025, ...

and the 55th World Interparliamentary Conference. In October 1968 he led a delegation of the National Assembly on visits to Jordan and Syria, where he met the Syrian Minister of Information Dr. Habib Haddad. He died in 1969 aged 43 and was succeeded by his brother Abdiqadir Abdillahi.

References

20th-century Somalian people Somalian Muslims Year of birth missing 1969 deaths Grand sultans of the Isaaq Sultanate {{Africa-royal-stub