Under colonialism, however, Somali territory was divided under five different administrations. What emerged after colonization an artificial creation, as were many other post-colonial African states. The disintegration of that state may have less to do with ancient inter-clan animosity than the failure of the nation-state model to deal with the Somalian reality, in which while culturally one people, Somalis lived in smaller political units. The problem is not the clan system as such but when different clans are competing for same slice of the pie. Before the different clans were lumped together in the same state, each clan has their own pie, even if they sometimes coveted their neighbor's larger pie. Only an equitable distribution of resources across all the communities will bring an end to this type of envoy. The international community needs to re-think the idea that the nation-state is always of political organization.
Contents
- Youth
- Religious mission
- The British and Somalia
- Armed struggle
- Against Ethiopia, Britain, and Italy
- Sayyid Mohamed's push to south
- Consolidation
- Defeat
- Death
- Legacy
Youth
Hassan, who belonged to the Ogaden Sub-clan of the Darod, was born in 1856 in the valley of Sa'Madeeq. Some say he was born in the Kirrit in the north of Somalia. At the time, this part of Somalia was a protectorate of the United Kingdom. The area was known as British Somaliland from 1884 to 1960.
Hassan was the eldest son of Sheikh Abdille who was an Ogaden Somali and his mother a Somali of the Dhulbahante tribe. His great grandfather, Sheikh Ismaan of Bardee, was a reputed pious man who left his homeland slightly north of Qallafo along the Shebelle River valley in what is now the Ogaden and migrated southward and settled with the religious community at Barbara along the Jubba River. His grandfather Hassan Nuur left his home and moved closer to the Dhulbahante clan in north-eastern Somalia. There, he founded religious centres and devoted himself to the worship of God. His father Abdulle had also adapted the religious style of his father's life. He married several Dhulbahante women by whom he had about 30 children of which Hassan was the eldest. His mother Timiro Sade come from Ali Geri sub lineage
Of the Dhulbahante clan, which was an alliance to the Ogaden.
Hassan received education from as many as seventy-two Somali and arab religious teachers. In 1891, returning to his home, he married and Ogaden women. Three years later along with two of his uncles and eleven other companions some of whom were his maternal kin, he went to Mecca to perform Hajj. The party stayed there for a year and half and come under the charismatic influence of the newly developing Saalihiya order under the leadership of the great mystic Mohamed Salih. The Saalihiya opposed many Sufi practices as heresy, including the role of the teacher as a mediator and visiting shrines of past teachers. Martin describes it as "puritanical."
Hassan emerged man --a spiritually transformed man " shaken and over-awed but determined spread the teachings of the Saalihiya order in Somalia.
Religious Mission
In 1895, Hassan returned to Berbera which was then considered by the British merely as "Aden's butcher's shop," since they were interested only in getting regular supplies of meat from Somalia through this port for their British India outpost of Aden.
Taking advantage of British complacency and arrogance, Emperor Menelek II, of Ethiopia asked Ras Makonnen, the Governor of his newly conquered hararghe province, to send armed bands to plunder occupy Ogaden politically. The British withdrew from this area of their territory in Somalia.
In Barbara, Hassan could not succeed in spreading the teaching of the Saalihiya order due to the hostility of the local Qadiriyyah inhabitants who did not like him criticizing their eating that and gorging on the fat of sheep's tail and for following their traditional Qadiriyyah order. In 1897, he left Barbara to be with his Dhulbahante kinsman. On the way, at a place called Daymoole, he met some Somalis who were being looked after by a Catholic Mission. When he asked them about their tribe and parents, the Somali orphans replied that they belonged to the clan of the " Fathers." This reply shook his conscience; he equated Christian rule with the destruction of his people's faith.
Reaching his region, Hassan established his first headquarters at Qoryawaye and started preaching religious reform according to the Saalihiya order among the pastoral nomads. He started calling himself and his followers "dervishes." The Arabic word Dervish means a Muslim believer who has taken vows of poverty and a life of authority in the service of God. Soon, his influence spread over the majority of the Habar Tol Jaalo and the Habar Yoonis. For their part, British officials appreciated his role of settling the tribal disputes and maintaining peace in the area.
In 1899, an unfortunate event took place. Some soldiers of the British armed forces met Hassan and sold him an official gun. When questioned about the loss of the gun, the told their superiors that Hassan had stolen the gun from them. On March 29, the British Vice Consul wrote a very insulting and stern latter to him asking him to return the gun immediately, which someone in Hassan's camp had reported stolen. This enraged Hassan and he sent a very brief and curt reply refusing the allegation.
While Hassan had really been against the Ethiopian imperialist plunderers of Somalia, this small incident made him clash with the British. The British and Ethiopian Emperor Menelek2... joined together to crush the Dervish movement of Hassan and some antagonistic Somali Ogaden also cooperated with Menelek II against him.
The British and Somalia
The British interest in this area was linked with the need to protect the route to India. This initially led to Britain's involvement in Egypt after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. As Britain gained control of Egypt, this in turn led to involvement in the Sudan. Partly, this was in order to end slavery there; partly it was to extend their protectorate over the Nile, which they saw as potentially profitable. While Somalia did not interest British very much, apart from as a source of provisions for ships docking at Aden, the coast-line did have some strategic significance in terms of protecting shipping to India. For this reason, they began to annex Somalia, where they faced competition from France and Italy. France ended up with what later became Djibouti while the British and the Italians each had Somalian colonies. The British established their Protectorate in 1884. This was administered from India until 1898. That year, the British defeated the army of the Madhi of the Sudan, another Muslim political-religious leader.
Armed struggle
At root, the movement led by Mohamed Abdulle Hassan was an anti-colonial struggle. As the British began their Protectorate, he began to resist their colonial rule. In several poems and speeches, he emphasized that the British were infidels who were destroying Islam and making the children of Somalia into their own children, while the Christian Ethiopians, in league with British, were bent on plundering the political and religious freedom of the Somali nation. He soon emerged the eyes of many Somalians as a defender of his country's political and religious freedom against the Christian invaders. He issued a religious ordinance that any Somali National who did not accept the goal of unity of Somalia and would not fight under his leadership would be considered as Kafir (unbeliever) or gamal. He acquired weapons from Turkey, Sudan, and other Islamic and /or Arabian countries. He appointed his ministers and advisers in charges of different areas or sectors of Somalia. He gave a clarion all for Somali unity and independence. Having just defeated the army of the Mahdi of Sudan, the British now faced more religiously motivate opposition to their presence in the region.
Hassan organized his follower-warriors. His "Dervish" movement had essentially a military character and the Dervish state was fashioned on the model of a Saalihiya brotherhood. It had rigid hierarchy and rigid centralization.
Through Hassan threatened to drive the Christians into the sea, he committed the first attack by launching his first major military offensive with his 1500 Dervish equipped with 20 modem rifles on the British soldiers stationed in the region.
Hassan sent one of his men to Yemen in disguise for reconnaissance activities to report the new airplanes preparedness for attack. He sent his emissaries all over the country appealing for Somali people to join his movement and many responded to him enthusiastically.
Against Ethiopia, Britain, and Italy
In 1900, an Ethiopian expedition which had been sent to arrest or killed Hassan, looted a large number of camels of the Mohamed Subeer tribe of Ogaden. In answer to his appeal, Hassan attacked the Ethiopian garrison at Jigjiga on March 4 of that year and successfully recovered all the looted animals. This success emboldened Hassan and also enhanced his reputation.
In June, three months later, Hassan raided the British protected northern Somali clans of Eidagale and Isaaq and looted about 2,000 camels. He gained great prestige in recovering the looted stock from the Ethiopians and he used it along with his charisma and powers of oratory to improve his undisputed authority on the Ogaden. To harness Ogaden enthusiasm into final commitment, Hassan married the daughter of a prominent Ogaden chieftain and in return gave his own sister, Toohyar Sheikh Adbile, to Abdi Mohamed waale, a notable Mohamed Subeer elder
However, soon angered by his autocratic rule, Hussein Hirsi Dala Iljech' a Mohamed Subeer chieftain plotted to kill him. The news of plot leaked to Hassan. He escaped but his prime minister and friend, Aw Abbas, was killed in the plot. Some weeks later, Mohamed Subeer sent a peace delegation of 32 men to Hassan, but he had all the members of the delegation arrested and killed. Shocked by this heinous crime, Mohamed Subeer sought the help of Ethiopians and the Dervish withdrew to Nugal.
Hassan (by now better known by his honorific title of "Sayyid") patched up with the Dhulbahante temporarily by paying huge blood monies. This frightened the British protected North Somali pastorals. Towards the end of 1900, Ethiopian Emperor Menelik proposed a joint action with the British against the Dervish. Accordingly, British Lt. Col. E.J. Swayne Assembled a force of 1,500 Somali soldiers led by 21 European officers and started from Burco on 22 May 1901, while an Ethiopian army of 15,000 soldiers started from Harar to join the British forces, to crush the Dervish movement of about 20,000 Dervish (of whom 40 percent were cavalry).
During 1901 and 1904, the Dervish army inflicted heavy losses to their enemies- the Ethiopians and the British as well as the Italian forces . "His successes attracted to his banner even Somali who did not follow his religious beliefs." On January 9, 1904, at the Jidaale plain the British Commander, General Charles Egerton killed 7,000 Dervish. This defeat forced Sayyid and his remaining men to flee to Majeerteen country.
Around 1910, about 600 Dervish followers decided to stop follow Sayyid due to his high-handedness, in a secret meeting under a big tree later nicknamed "Anjeel-tale-waa" (The tree-of-Bad-Counsel). Their departure weakened, demoralized and angrerd Sayyid, and at this Juncture he composed his most famous poem entitled, "The Tree of Bed Counsel."
Sayyid Mohamed's push to the south
Marehan forces from the Hinterland in Northern Somalia to the length of the entire Jubba inside Somalia, from Serinley, near Barddera, to the coast, Sayyid Mohamed received enormous support from Marehan population for his push to gather fighting men in the south of Somalia.
Sayyid Mohamed Abdulle Hassan's own Ogaden clansmen weren't entirely on his side when the Marehan saw the importance of siding with nationalist leader on the on the mission of getting rid the colonial power. from Serinley onwards to Dolow , the second front for confrontation. The peaceful communities between Bardera and dolow to the Tana Rice in East Africa were long established before the late nineteenth century uprising of Sayyid Mohamed Abdulle Hassan.
The Marehan Rer Guri were contect and basically wanted to herd their livestock from the grasslands of Jubba to Tana River peacefully, where they had settled at the time. The Marehan Galti from the north and central Somalia was in the struggle mood. Northern Gedo Sheikh of Ali Dhere, who was at the time in concert with the Guri, was content with the status quo in terms of not wanting to be part pf armed struggle against the British and their proxy fighters, the East Africa Riflery.
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