Abdirashid Ali Shermarke

Shermarke was born in 1919 at Harardhere in the Mudug region — the English article gives 8 June, the Arabic article 16 October, and Wikidata carries both — to a father of the Osman Mahmoud Majeerteen and a mother of the Habar Gidir clan.{cite:source/wikipedia-abdirashid-ali-shermarke-en}{cite:source/wikipedia-abdirashid-ali-shermarke-ar} Raised in Mogadishu by his mother, he attended Qur'anic schools, completed elementary education in 1936, worked as a trader and then as a civil servant in the colonial administrations, joined the Somali Youth League in 1943, finished secondary school in 1953, and took a degree in political science at the Sapienza University of Rome.{cite:source/wikipedia-abdirashid-ali-shermarke-en}

Elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1959, Shermarke was appointed prime minister on 1 July 1960, the day of independence, and served until June 1964, travelling widely in pursuit of a non-aligned foreign policy.{cite:source/wikipedia-abdirashid-ali-shermarke-en} In the 1967 presidential election he defeated the incumbent, Aden Abdulle Osman Daar, succeeding him on 6 July 1967.{cite:source/wikipedia-abdirashid-ali-shermarke-en} He survived a grenade attack in 1968.{cite:source/wikipedia-abdirashid-ali-shermarke-en}

On 15 October 1969, while visiting drought-stricken areas around Las Anod, Shermarke was shot dead at close range by one of his own bodyguards, reportedly over personal rather than political motives.{cite:source/wikipedia-abdirashid-ali-shermarke-en} His funeral was held the next day, and on 21 October the army under Siad Barre seized power in a bloodless coup.{cite:source/wikipedia-abdirashid-ali-shermarke-en}

The articles disagree on his birth date (8 June against 16 October 1919) and, in the Arabic article, on his presidency's start (10 June against 6 July 1967); the record follows the English article and keeps the variants in its notes.{cite:source/wikipedia-abdirashid-ali-shermarke-en}{cite:source/wikipedia-abdirashid-ali-shermarke-ar}

On faith, no text names a school for him: the French infobox gives his religion as Islam, and Wikidata carries Islam and Sunni Islam on the single item.{cite:source/wikipedia-abdirashid-ali-shermarke-fr}{cite:source/wikidata-abdirashid-ali-shermarke} The English text's one religious detail — his attendance at Qur'anic schools as a boy — is childhood formation, not an attestation.{cite:source/wikipedia-abdirashid-ali-shermarke-en} One structured family only, so his faith is entered as unknown, with the Sunni reading preserved in the record.

No Urdu Wikipedia article on Shermarke exists; this record's Urdu text is written from the English, Arabic and French articles.

• {cite:source/wikipedia-abdirashid-ali-shermarke-en}
• {cite:source/wikipedia-abdirashid-ali-shermarke-ar}
• {cite:source/wikipedia-abdirashid-ali-shermarke-fr}
• {cite:source/wikidata-abdirashid-ali-shermarke}