The idea to establish an educational institution started in June 1997, after which time it took five years to develop and open the university. It opened in September 1997 as a non-governmental, non-profit institution for higher learning, governed by a Board of Trustees and a University Council.
Mogadishu University (MU) was established in 1997 with just six professors and 200 hundred students, in a privately owned house in the Southern part of Mogadishu. However, the flares of the civil war had reached the university site and after a week of its opening, the warring militias looted all its properties including furniture, books, vehicles, and documents resulting in a temporary suspension of all university activities. It was then relocated to the renowned abandoned school building of Mohamud Ahmed Ali. However, another local militia took over the building and looted everything. Subsequently, MU has built a new campus in Yaqshid in assistance with donors and managed to move its new campus in the academic year of 2005/2006.
The initial vision of the heroic decision to work towards establishing a first non-state and non-profit university in Somalia was unbelievable in the mindset of a war-torn community and the divided city of Mogadishu at the time, but the founding members insisted on the establishment of higher education institution.
The university was born from a vision to restore hopes and socially change the community by providing a high-quality education and new ideas to flourish in a mid of civil war ruins that devastated everything in the country.
MU has been growing and gaining a reputation to become one of the largest universities in Somalia and East Africa. It has become a beacon of hope to the thousands of young Somalis and continues to advancing its strategic goal to become a leader of social and economic change in collaboration with government, academic institutions, civil society groups, business and international organizations.