Moosa Ali

Moosa Ali died on 7 November 2026 while receiving treatment at Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) in Male, after what Edition.mv described as a long period of illness. No further medical details have been made public.

The death was first reported the same day by Edition.mv correspondent Shazma Thaufeeq, who set out the arc of his nearly fifty year career and the national awards he received in 1996 and 2023. As of the time of writing, funeral arrangements and any official government statement of condolence had not been confirmed in available reporting.

Public reporting has not published Moosa Ali's exact birth date or family background. Edition.mv records that he entered Maldivian state service on 17 June 1958 at the age of sixteen, which places his birth around 1941 or 1942.

His first post was as a teacher at Hameedhiyya School, where he served for fourteen months. He later filled various government posts and lived in Sri Lanka for eight years to teach Maldivian children residing in that country. Those early years set the pattern of a career divided between classroom teaching, government service and work with the Maldivian diaspora.

On 7 November 1967 Moosa Ali was appointed a teacher at Aminiya School in Male. After roughly four and a half years he moved for seven years and three months to work as a wireless operator at the then Airport Office and Telecommunications Department, then returned to Aminiya.

His long second spell at Aminiya lasted more than twenty eight years and nine months. He served as teacher, Dhivehi teacher and supervisor. For twenty four years and three months he helped with cultural activities at the school, and for twenty years he was Head of the Dhivehi Department. He was a member of the Department of Public Examinations examination committee for fifteen years and ten months.

He founded Aminiya's Dhivehi literary association Ekuverikamuge Chainu and managed it for twenty five years. He taught in classes under the Basic Education Project launched in 1980. Outside his government post he taught Dhivehi and Islam for more than twenty five years at EPSS, a prominent private school in Male. He was also known as an author of books.

His service was recognised at national level. On 25 November 1996 President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom presented him with the National Award of Encouragement in the field of service to the Dhivehi language. He also received the Independence 25 Award. In 2023 President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih presented him with the National Award for Public Service. He retired on 1 May 2008 after a legal amendment that year, having completed 49 years, 10 months and 14 days of continuous state service.

Details of Moosa Ali's private life, including marriage and children, have not been confirmed in the public reporting available at the time of writing. His public reputation rested on his classroom work, his long leadership of Dhivehi teaching at Aminiya, and the literary association he founded and ran for a quarter of a century.

Moosa Ali is remembered as one of the Maldives' longest serving teachers and as a guardian of Dhivehi language education at Aminiya School. Generations of students passed through his Dhivehi and Islam classes at Aminiya and at EPSS. The literary association he founded, Ekuverikamuge Chainu, and his twenty years as Dhivehi Head of Department left a mark on how the language was taught in Male.

His three national honours, culminating in the National Award for Public Service in 2023, placed an official stamp on a career that began when he was sixteen and ended only with a change in retirement law nearly five decades later.