Ali Mahdi Muhammad

Muhammad was born at Jowhar in the Middle Shabelle region and built a career as an independent Mogadishu-based entrepreneur, first entering politics in 1968 as a parliamentary candidate.{cite:source/wikipedia-ali-mahdi-muhammad-en} He became a leading figure of the United Somali Congress, one of the armed movements that fought the Barre regime.{cite:source/wikipedia-ali-mahdi-muhammad-en}

After the coalition of armed opposition groups deposed Mohamed Siad Barre, Muhammad was proclaimed president on 26 January 1991, and a conference at Djibouti later that year confirmed him as interim president.{cite:source/wikipedia-ali-mahdi-muhammad-en}{cite:source/wikipedia-ali-mahdi-muhammad-ar} He was never able to exert authority beyond parts of the capital: General Mohamed Farrah Aidid, his primary rival, claimed the leadership as well, and the two camps' struggle defined the Somali civil war of the 1990s.{cite:source/wikipedia-ali-mahdi-muhammad-en} The Cairo Agreement of December 1997 designated him president once again, and he held the title until 2000, when the Arta conference chose Abdiqasim Salad Hassan.{cite:source/wikipedia-ali-mahdi-muhammad-en} He died in Nairobi on 10 March 2021, after contracting COVID-19.{cite:source/wikipedia-ali-mahdi-muhammad-en}

The sources disagree on his birth: the English article, citing the 1993 country study of Somalia, and Wikidata give 1939 at Jowhar, while the Arabic article gives 1938 and a village of Middle Shabelle; the record keeps the year at year precision and both readings in its notes.{cite:source/wikipedia-ali-mahdi-muhammad-en}{cite:source/wikipedia-ali-mahdi-muhammad-ar}

On faith, the Arabic article's only religious content is his family's background — a Sufi family, his father a follower of the Idrisiyya order — and Wikidata carries Islam as a single structured value naming no branch.{cite:source/wikipedia-ali-mahdi-muhammad-ar}{cite:source/wikidata-ali-mahdi-muhammad} Family background is not the man's attestation, so his faith is entered as unknown.

• {cite:source/wikipedia-ali-mahdi-muhammad-en}
• {cite:source/wikipedia-ali-mahdi-muhammad-ar}
• {cite:source/wikipedia-ali-mahdi-muhammad-so}
• {cite:source/wikidata-ali-mahdi-muhammad}