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I find the old somali society being better than our confused current one!

In the old times, these titles were very limited to some people, very respected and a few would carry them.

Today ever body is shaykh!.

But this is how it was in the old times

Sheikh: a man with a fiqhi knowledge and with followers(xer) people seek him from all the corners to inherit his knowledge of deen this was more common in galbeed, barawe, mogadishu.

Mucallim: a teacher of quran without being shykh or having knowledge and xer, may knows axkaam al deen and the first books but not the fiqh, the language(sarf and nahw) only the tafsiir; this was more common in the southwest(D&M)

Haji/xaji: a man who comes back from the haj he is respected for seen the qabr al nabi, , no knowledge, carries tusbax, he's a rajol saleh that's it.

In the past centures, it was hard to go to arabia, you need to go by ship, you may start walking from yemen if its not landing at jida, there were no economical interests in arabia, only for the sake of god, infact, people were nomads and was hard for them to go away from their livestock!

My subclan is full of these men in reer haji hebel including mine

Khalif or AW in galbeed: a man who's codkar, hadal yaqaan(elequent) wise, and for that becomes responsible for the people not based on a religous knowledge just codkarnimo and being wise

Khalif/khalifada is derived from the arabic word khalifa/caliph a successor but in the somali way its abit different he has clan followers kinda of todays ugaas or garaad and iman though the clans he use to lead them have become religous or sorting out the issues between the people so was not a typical ugaas also the women had their own khaliifad so it wasn't based on gender.

this kind of title is not existing any more.

awdal has aw has well

remember harar in galbeed and zaylac in awdal were twin cities of the empire and forefront of islamic knowledge in the horn

its the same old really for both those towns theres a bit more but ill have to ask my mom on the titles

Where I'm from pious men are mostly called aw/sheikh hebel, xaajigu waa ninkii soo xajiyey kaliya

Xaaji still exists and only used for people who have done the Xaj. Macalin and Sheikh are no different now days. I know dozens of all relatives who are called Aw aadan or Aw yuusuf.

Waxaad ka tagtay,

Fiqi/faqi = the term 'sheikh' was not common prior to the last 100 years, the term fiqi was used i.e. fiqi cumar (shiiqaal), fiqi maxamuud (dir), fiqi cali (leelkase) etc.

Sayid = Sufi term used in the dariqa movement. Sayd Rafaaci, Sayd ina cabdille, Sayid khaliifa etc

Marques wrote:Waxaad ka tagtay,

Fiqi/faqi = the term 'sheikh' was not common prior to the last 100 years, the term fiqi was used i.e. fiqi cumar (shiiqaal), fiqi maxamuud (dir), fiqi cali (leelkase) etc.

Sayid = Sufi term used in the dariqa movement. Sayd Rafaaci, Sayd ina cabdille, Sayid khaliifa etc

I only forgot the sayid. I didn't mention the faqi intentionally its the same as AW/khalif or between haji and AW not shaykh at all!

Faqi, like AW/khalif is an aftahan person preacher. He has a jamaca/xer too

Sayid is not sheikh too, he's religious/sufi/shia leader like al sayid al sadiq al sadiq al hadi al mahdi, al sayid al sadr who fought againist saddam, very dangerous men who enjoy a powerful religious status and their role is not to rule just for liberation as mahdi al montazar

Sayid mohamed fits this group of men, he was known as mahdi of nugal.

The clans you mentioned are called ex AW clans, they use to exisit in the ancient system. they are more brothers in deen than in blood.