Abdi Qays (Somali: Cabdi Aadan Xaad Cabdi Qays, Abdi Aadan Haad Abdi Qays, Arabic: عبدي آدن حاد‎‎) born in Hargeisa in the year 1940 under the British Somaliland protectorate was the only poet in Somali language to be Singer/Songwriter/Musician, Poet and Playwright and is a living Somali legend, considered by most has one of the greatest Somali poets in modern history. Abdi Qays was called by his nickname after playing the part of Qays Ibn al-Mulawwah in the Arabic famous play Layla and Majnun in Djibouti in the early 1960s and from those days the name stuck with him.