Abdulkhadir Sheikh Sakhawudeen (, ) was a Somali political figure and activist.
Biography Abdulkhadir was born to a Tunni family.I. M. Lewis, A pastoral democracy: a study of pastoralism and politics among the Northern Somali of the Horn of Africa, (LIT Verlag Münster: 1999), p.304.
He was the first President of the Somali Youth League (SYL), Somalia's first political party. Having also been instrumental as the founder of the organization following a meeting of 13 men he organised with Haji Mohamed Hussein and Yasin Osman at one of their houses to address the colonial discrimination he had personally witnessed and wished to absolve. He believed in a free state led by thinkers and revolutionaries like the Young Turks and the Young Arabs movements in the colonial countries. Abdulkhadir and other early SYL nationalists were strongly influenced by the religious rebellion at the turn of the century of various religious figures such as Uways al-Barawi, his direct grandfather.
The SYL was established in 1943.
Personal life Sources disagree on his religious affiliation with some sources describing Sakhawudeen as an ardent Islamist who sought to lessen the secular aspects of the SYL organization,https://www.hiiraan.com/op4/2018/May/158090/75th_anniversary_of_syl_15_may_1943.aspx whilst one Italian-derived source suggests he converted to Christianity in later life.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351330143_The_Greatest_Missionaries_to_the_Somalis_The_Heroes_of_1881-1981#:~:text=27.%20The%20thirteen%20SYL%20leaders%20are%3A%20Abdulkhadir,Abdullahi%20Salah%2C%20and%20Mohamed%20Osman%20Barbe%20Bardhere.
Abdulkhadir died in June 1951.
See also Somali Youth League
References