By Dr. Abdulkadir Osman Farah
A note on the book “Dare to Write” The Art of Academic Writing by Dr Ibrahim Farah, Looh Press.
Regarding tracing human genealogy, Dr. Abdimajid (2024), working with scientists at a Swedish university, concluded that people currently inhabiting the Somali Peninsula are direct descendants of those who populated the peninsula approximately 25,000 years ago. These ancient inhabitants share genetic markers identical to those found in contemporary Somalis. Archaeological discoveries in Somalia (Mire, 2020) and Egypt (Hussein, 2015) likewise document that around 9,000 years ago Somalis built complex civilizations with hierarchical institutions and produced written artworks and paintings.
Long before the rise of social media and the current instantaneous visual communication, Somalis placed great emphasis on literary and written forms of expression. In a well-known Somali song, a man suffering from deep love addresses his beloved:
“Imisaa adoo kale arji iila timidoo, oofin maayo aan iri aawadaa u joojee” (How many like you wrote arji to me, which I rejected — because of you).
In his Somali Dictionary (2004), the late Professor of Linguistics Saalax Xaashi Carab defines “arji” as “codsi”, literally “request,” specifically a written request. In another popular song, a woman, consumed by passionate longing, speculates:
“Haddii aan waraaqaha ugu dhiibo wariyaha, kuna qoro wargeysyada warka/degdeg mayga gaarsiin” (If I handover love‑letters to the broadcaster, or publish them in newspapers, will news of my condition reach him quickly enough?).
Among Somalis, love is viewed not only as central to interpersonal and societal relations but as foundational to existence itself:
“Haddii aan jaceyl jirin adduunyadu ma joogteen” (If there were no love, the world would not exist).
In a more public and explicit way, the transnationally recognized Somali author Nuruddin Farah has repeatedly asserted that his writing does more than preserve the memory or love of his homeland: it is an effort to “keep Somalia alive.” He argues that writing sustains the dignity and identity of a country and its people, even amid serious social, political, and economic challenges. Moreover, in discussing another classic Somali love story — one that involves the capabilities/incapabilities of writing and reading — Professor Ali Jimale Ahmed (2014) observes:
“Faarax M J Cawl published his novel “Aqoondarro waa u Nacab Jaceyl, 1972 (Ignorance Is the Enemy of Love, 1982)…a historical novel, a story of true love recounted in fictionalized form, with a clear objective to exhort people to learn the new Somali alphabet…. Calimaax (Ali the seafarer), the protagonist [a dervish dispatched by the Sayyid who resisted colonialism for 21 years in around 1900], is returning from a spy mission he has successfully carried out against the British in Aden, Yemen. Among the travelers on his return trip to Somalia is Cawrala, a young women returning from a visit to a relative in Aden, where she had the opportunity to become literate in Arabic. They fall in love and agree to marry one day… Cawrala is already betrothed— as reward for his work he [Calimaax] was given a girl in marriage [by the Sayyid]. Soon after Calimaax receives a letter from Cawrala, reminding him his promise to marry her…. An illiterate, Calimaax asks his new father in-law to read the letter for him. After reading the letter to himself, the old man refuses to read it for him. Assuming that his father in-law’s reluctance results from diminishing eyesight, he passes the letter to his brother in-law, who is very much offended. Eventually the brother in-law reads the letter for him, but admonishes him for his audacious ignorance”
Also concentrating on the complex dialectics and concerns of love in relation to the pursuit of a professional academic career, in his latest book “Dare to Write”: The Art of Academic Writing, Dr. Ibrahim Farah emphasizes the importance of writing — especially academic writing. This illuminating work draws on the author’s years of teaching university courses and running seminars on writing. It is an indispensable guide, particularly for those seeking a professional path in an increasingly complex and uncertain world, where higher‑order writing skills continue to be essential for professional success.
Dr. Farah highlights not only the significance of academic writing, but also its methodology. He draws on a broad and diverse scholarship, encompassing Islamic, Western, and African writing traditions, treated both professionally and systematically. This confirms an earlier argument made by the late African thinker and social scientist, Professor Ali A. Mazrui (1986), who theorized the idea of a “triple heritage” acquired by African peoples over centuries. According to Mazrui, Africans (including Somalis) have inherited three overlapping influences: the Islamic faith, Western modes of thought and living (through colonialism), and their indigenous cultural heritage. These complex, interwoven legacies provide Africans with a multiplicity of cultural intelligences, enabling both integration and competition in many global contexts.
Though not claiming the role of a savior of his people, Dr. Farah analyzes the dynamic link between two interrelated concepts: the concept of academic work and the concept of writing. Which comes first? Do they emerge together? Certainly, not every written work counts as academic, nor is every academic’s work published. Some academics serve through teaching, supervision, debate, and attentive listening rather than through publication. But can a modern academic function without producing written work, particularly under administrative regimes that demand scheduled, measurable output of writing? These imposed requirements can stress and alienate many scholars.
Writing remains crucial in almost every form of communication today. On social media, rumors and conspiracies spread rapidly; at academia’s highest echelons, knowledge is generated, verified, and disseminated through rigorous written work. Yet academic work and academic writing are often inaccessible to most people. They tend to be the province of the privileged, formally educated few who can understand and follow academic discourse. Academic writing remains far from mainstream because it requires professionalism, credentials, and career building.
As Dr. Farah notes, however, an “engaged scholar” or “public scholar” may bridge this gap between academia and wider society, using alternative tools to supplement the traditional, formal prose. These could include images, photographs, and film—formats more widely relatable to non‑specialist audiences.
The book surveys different forms of academic writing. One part of academic enterprise is the so‑called “hard sciences,” including the natural sciences; the other is the “soft sciences,” social sciences, and the humanities. A scholar once distinguished between two main human cultures: “scientific culture” and “humanistic culture.” In a world that tends to celebrate the triumph of scientism—continuous industrial production, quantitative metrics—advocates of “objective sciences” sometimes dismiss research in social sciences and humanities as peripheral. But social sciences and the humanities remain vital to human existence, cooperation, and prosperity.
In ancient societies such disciplinary distinctions did not exist. As societies modernized, specialization, division, and rivalry grew between quantitative, numeric analysis and writing, and qualitative, human‑centred orientations focused on interpretative meaning formation and action. Scholars in the natural sciences often write less, focusing more on data collection, observation, experimentation, and presentation through scientific laboratory fixed apparatus. By contrast, scholars in the social sciences and humanities produce more comprehensive, multidimensional written analyses, often engaging directly with public issues. Thus, students in these fields must often produce numerous rigorous reports and analyses if they are to overcome professional and institutional obstacles.
Academic work and writing thus embody asymmetric relations of power and hierarchy. Often those in senior institutional positions — sometimes changing arbitrarily — decide which writings qualify as academic and acceptable, and which do not. Over the years this has led to the proliferation of sub‑disciplines, associations, and journals, partly in resistance to narrow definitions and dominant institutions. More recently, some conventional academic forces have mobilized to limit or exclude more open‑ended scholarships, producing branches of academic writing that enforce restrictive ideological conformity. Academic work, especially academic writing, has become as contested as other social and political struggles in society.
Consequently, nothing in the bestselling world of books necessarily reflects rigorous academic standards. The world’s most popular books are often novels or creative storytelling that vividly portray human existence and its struggles, usually using accessible and emotionally resonant language. These reach many more people than academic monographs or journal articles.
“Dare to Write” will certainly help higher education students in Somalia and beyond to navigate the hierarchies and embedded requirements of academic professionalism. Yet students should also recognize that formal academic writing represents only a partial, selective attempt at finding solutions to public and private troubles in an increasingly fragmented and uncertain world. Applicable and concrete academic work, whether written or not, often calls for a diversity of engagement with academic and non‑academic, formal and informal, practical and theoretical experiences.
In the end, the two main cultural poles of knowledge production—the natural sciences-oriented culture vs. the humanistic culture—might find each other and eventually reconcile. Not only to empower aspiring students and scholars professionally, but to commit more deeply and hopefully beneficial interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary dialogue “wadahadal”. As the Somali adage puts it, “Aan wada hadalno waa aan isfahamno” (Let us converse in order that we understand).
Dr. Abdulkadir Osman Farah
Email: osmanfaraha@gmail.com
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Dr. Abdulkadir Osman Farah is a Visiting Research Professor at Somali National University and associate of Urban Sanctuary, Migrant Solidarity and Hospitality in Global Perspective with Aalborg and Ryerson Universities. Dr. Farah is also currently associate researcher of Tswane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa