Dabahuwan: a quest for meaning in a wounded land

On 18 August 2025, we mark three years since the passing of Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame, “Hadraawi,” the poet whose voice became inseparable from the modern Somali experience. Hadraawi was not just a poet but a living archive of Somali thought, stitching together memory, exile, and resistance in lines that outlived the occasions that first gave rise to them.

To grasp the weight of Hadraawi’s legacy, one must turn to his poems. Among them, Dabahuwan (“Cloaked End”) stands out for its disarming simplicity and sharpness. Borrowing from a children’s singsong game in which two girls exchange verses—one voicing a wish, the other replying with an obstacle, and both sealing each line with the refrain Dabahuwan—Hadraawi transforms play into metaphor.

What begins as innocent call-and-response becomes the language of life’s contradictions: yearning always met with denial, every path shadowed by resistance, every search for an answer echoed back by the same unyielding refrain.

The poem is more than a child of its time and place; it is a timeless Somali reflection on the struggles, identity, and spiritual crises of our people. Written in the 1990s, during the poet’s exile in London, it traces the roots of social collapse, describes the deep wounds left by colonisation, and offers thoughts on healing. It is best understood as a spiritual journey that begins in confusion and moves gradually towards clarity and divine guidance.

Hadraawi begins by portraying a restless person, endlessly searching for advice or answers but only ending up weary and lost.

Markay dani meeday tidhi, Maxaan talo meel ka deyey 

Markay dani maaha tidhi, Weydiiyey qof meel ka deyey 

Markay dani maaha tidhi, Ku laabtay halkaan ka deyey 

Markay dani maaha tidhi, Ka sii deyey meel la deyey 

When need cried out, “Where is the way?” I searched on every side.

When need cried out again, “It is not there,” I asked those who sought it before me.

When need insisted, “It is not here” I circled back to where I’d searched before.

When need still denied, I doubled the search on where others sought before.

These lines show how people seek solutions within the very Western and colonial systems that weakened them. Hadraawi critiques the destruction of indigenous knowledge and its replacement with superficial, imported forms of learning: 

Cilmigan dib u heego dhaca, Cilmigan dul ka xaadiska ah 

Cilmigan samo dawdarka ah, Caqligu ka daboolan yahay 

This learning is a heap of mirages, this knowledge is but surface scratching,

this science only misguides, the mind is veiled from truth by it.

Real liberation, Hadraawi suggests, begins only when this false knowledge is challenged and cast aside, even though the process is painful and exhausting: 

Maxaan dhilay doog lingaxan, Hal daahan maxaan furfuray 

Inaan dib u sii xidhxidho, Garaadku ku daalay yidhi 

What meshes have I torn up, tangled thick, what hidden knots have I unpicked?

To bind them back again, my reason is weary with struggle.

Next, Hadraawi describes how this false knowledge has damaged Somali society. He recalls a time when people possessed connection, dignity, faith, and cultural strength: 

Dal iyo magac bay lahayd, Dad iyo mudan bay lahayd 

Diin iyo dhaqan bay lahayd, Duunyo iyo mahad bay lahayd 

It once was a land with name, it carried people of worth

It held its own faith and culture, it had its wealth and its own praise.

But urban life, reshaped under Western influence, became the centre and driver of decline. Instead of creators, people became passive consumers: 

Daaruhu tayo waa ka gaal, Dulmay taran leeyihiin 

Dubbaha fakhrigay tumaan, Waxay derbi jiifiyeen, Barbaarkiyo doobka nool 

Buildings without quality rise, breeding nothing but injustice,

drums of poverty they beat, laying the young against the wall, wasted in idleness

Shops, in particular, became symbols of economic control and consumerism, urging people to desire things they did not need or could not afford:

Dukaamadu waa nuxuus, Sun iyo dacar bay hayaan 

Waxa lagu doonayaa, Wax aanan u daafad hayn 

The shops are ill-omened, holding venom and bitterness.

It sells us desires, for things unattainable.

At the heart of the poem is Hadraawi’s insight into the colonised mind, describing its sense of alienation, emptiness, and constant anxiety:

Aniyo debad baanu nahay, Cidlaan dildillaamayaa 

Daleel madhan baan tubnahay, Dareen dhidar baan gashaday 

It is me and the else-where, I roam alone,

wrapped with the snake of anxiety, in an arid wasteland I stand by my own

The “snake of anxiety” is one of the poem’s most powerful images. It shows how colonisation planted constant worry and tension within people, leading generations to dislike their own identity and the features of their culture and to imitate the coloniser:

Daktoor cadoway sideen, Digrii nacabey sideen 

The Doctor/Doctorate of an enemy, and a degree of hatred they carried.

The deepest wound, Hadraawi says, is that colonialism destroyed people’s collective hopes and replaced them with selfish desires:

Naf daahira bay legdeen, Docdeeda xun dhiiriyeen 

Waxay dacwadheen hankii, Naftay damac raaciyaan 

They took down the pure soul, inspired its darker side to life.

They stripped away the shared ambition, and sent off the self away with greed.

Hadraawi’s political critique is sharp. He argues that postcolonial governments are merely a continuation of colonial rule under a new flag. The office becomes a place of humiliation, where leaders serve foreign interests:

Xafiisyadu waa dullayn, Dulmay ka horseed yihiin 

Dikteetarraday dhalaan, Dardaaran shishay qabeen 

The offices are houses of humiliation, seeds of oppression sprouting within.

Our dictators are their offspring, nursed on the orders of foreigners.

He points to a harmful triangle: the school (which shapes the mind), the office (which holds power), and the shop (which controls the economy). Together, they trap society in a cycle of dependency and reproduce oppression within a postcolonial order.

Finally, after outlining these problems, Hadraawi turns towards healing. For him, all political, social, and personal crises stem from a single deep root — people have turned away from God:

Ilaah ka durkaynu nahay, Islaam dilan baynu nahay 

Dugaag u dhacaynu nahay, Ka daatay muskaynu nahay

Turning away from God, our Islam is a wounded one,

Fallen are our pens to beasts, and we fled out and ran

Without spiritual grounding, people become slaves to their baser desires. The solution is to reconnect both the world and the soul to their divine purpose. Hadraawi reminds us that the world is full of signs and meaning:

Cadceedu dorraad ma dhalan, Kulkeeda dawaa ku shuban 

Dayuxu marin buu hayaa, Xil loo diray buu hayaa 

The sun was not invented yesterday; its warmth is a medicine poured for us.

The moon keeps faithfully its path, it carries a duty it was given.

The poem closes with a long prayer. This is not an act of giving up, but the final act of liberation — an acknowledgment that human power is limited and that true healing comes from God.

Intii dabin ii xidhxidhan, Intii belo ii dahsoon 

Rabbow debecaaga saar, Rabbow danbbe noo ogow, Wixii tegey duudsi yeel 

All the snares that bind me still, and all the calamities hidden from me

Lord, cast them into your mercy. 

Lord, keep our yet-to-come in your divine providence and our bygones pardoned.