The Dervish movement, 1899–1920

In short

The Dervishes (Daraawiish, from the Arabic for Sufi disciples) were the followers of Sayid Maxamed Cabdulle Xasan. For over twenty years they held off three empires: Britain, Italy and Ethiopia. The British War Office wrote a two-volume history of its campaigns against them, and the Somali scholar Jaamac Cumar Ciise collected their history and poems in Somali (War Office 1907; Jaamac Cumar Ciise, Diiwaanka Gabayadii Sayid Maxamed Cabdulle Xasan, Akademiyaha Dhaqanka, Muqdisho, 1974). This page draws on both.

How did the movement begin?

The Sayid came home from Mecca through Berbera in 1895 and began teaching. Jaamac Cumar Ciise records that he set up the first Dervish centre at the well of Qoryaweyn, about 60 miles from Burao (Jaamac Cumar Ciise 1974, p. vii).

The first Dervishes came from several communities at once, in the Nugaal, the Haud and the Ogaden. The British War Office says the Sayid made a special point of breaking down clan loyalties, putting his own authority above that of the clan headmen (War Office 1907, p. 49).

In August 1899 his force entered Burao. The British estimated it at 5,000 men, with 1,500 horsemen and 200 rifles (War Office 1907, p. 49).

On 1 September 1899 he sent the British a letter in Arabic. The British official Douglas Jardine printed it in translation (Jardine, The Mad Mullah of Somaliland, 1923, p. 43):

"You have oppressed our ancient religion without cause… If you want war, we accept it; but if you want peace, pay the fine."

The British Consul-General then proclaimed him a rebel. The British government held back from an expedition because of the war in South Africa (Jardine 1923, p. 43).

41 battles

Jaamac Cumar Ciise counts 41 recorded battles between the Dervishes and the British. He lists the largest, with the dates as he gives them (Jaamac Cumar Ciise 1974, p. ix):

• Afbakayle, 3 May 1901
• Fardhiddin, 16 July 1901
• Beerdhiga, 10 August 1902
• Cagaarweyne, 17 April 1903
• Daratoole, 18 April 1903
• Jidbaale, 10 January 1904
• Ruuga (Dul Madoba), 1913
• The air war, January 1919

The scan of his book prints the Cagaarweyne and Daratoole dates as 1905. The British record and the order of his own list place them in April 1903, when the British column was lost at Gumburu. He also writes that the Somalis "split in two": some joined the colonial side and some joined the Dervishes.

The four British campaigns, 1901–1904

Britain sent four expeditions against the Dervishes. The War Office wrote its own two-volume history of them, which survives in full (War Office 1907; volume 2). The British Parliament also published the consul's telegrams as a blue book (Correspondence respecting the Rising of the Mullah, Africa No. 3, 1902).

• 1901. Colonel Eric Swayne led a force of Somali levies. Fighting at Samala and Ferdiddin ended with the force returning to Burao (War Office 1907).
• 6 October 1902, Erigo. The second expedition met the Dervishes in thick bush near Mudug. The fighting was severe and the force fell back to Bohotle (War Office 1907).
• 17 April 1903, Gumburu. A British column under Colonel Plunkett was destroyed. The War Office records that "the whole of the officers were killed" and that Dervish dead "lay in heaps before the square" (War Office 1907).
• 10 January 1904, Jidbaali. The fourth expedition under General Egerton met 6,000 to 8,000 Dervishes. The British counted 668 bodies near the position two days later (War Office 1907).
• 21 April 1904, Illig. British and Indian forces landed from the sea and took the Dervish coastal base at Illig (Jardine 1923, ch. V).

"I wish to rule my own country"

In 1903, during the third campaign, the Sayid wrote to "the English people". Jardine printed the letter in translation (Jardine 1923, p. 122):

"We have fought for a year. I wish to rule my own country and protect my own religion… I have moved my camp, but I have not run away."

Jardine himself, writing as a British official, admitted that the Sayid would "live for ever as a national hero" in the hearts of his countrymen (Jardine 1923, p. 308).

The Illig treaty of 1905: a state that signed treaties

On 5 March 1905 the Sayid signed a written agreement with Italy's envoy, Giulio Pestalozza, at Illig. Jardine printed the full text, translated from the Arabic (Jardine 1923, pp. 156–159). Its main terms were:

• Peace between the Sayid's Dervishes and Italy, Britain and Ethiopia, with Italy acting as guarantor.
• A home for the Dervishes on the coast between Ras Garad and Ras Gabbe, under the Italian flag.
• The Sayid to govern the communities with him in the interior "with justice and equity", and keep the roads safe.
• A ban on importing firearms and on the slave trade.
• Grazing rights for Dervish herds in the Nugaal, within named wells.

The treaty is the clearest record that foreign powers dealt with the Dervish movement as a government. The signed text is dated 5 March, while its closing line gives 8 March 1905, the equivalent of 28 Dhu al-Hijja 1322 (Jardine 1923, p. 158).

Taleh: a capital built in stone

In January 1913 the Sayid moved his headquarters to Taleh, in today's Sool region. Masons from Yemen built a walled enclosure with thirteen forts and three tall covering forts (Jardine 1923, pp. 212–213).

Jardine records walls 12 to 14 feet thick at the base and covering forts 50 to 60 feet high. Inside were wells and stone granaries, filled with millet from the Dervish gardens at Gaolo, ten miles away. Jardine called the fortress "a striking proof of the Mullah's military genius".

Britain had already pulled its forces back to the coast in 1910 (Jardine 1923, ch. VI, "The withdrawal from the interior").

Dul Madoba, 9 August 1913

A British-led Somali Camel Constabulary of 109 men rode out from Burao under Richard Corfield. At Dul Madoba it met about 2,000 Dervish riflemen (Jardine 1923, ch. VII, pp. 220–226).

Corfield was killed about 7.15 in the morning. Thirty-five of the constabulary were killed and seventeen badly wounded. Jardine records 395 Dervish dead counted on the field. The battle shows how much both sides lost: Somalis died on both sides.

The end, 1920

In January 1920 Britain sent a flight of DH.9 aircraft, "Z" Unit of the Royal Air Force. Eight aircraft reached the front on 19 January, and six flew the first attack on 21 January 1920 (Jardine 1923, pp. 262–266). The Camel Corps and a Somali levy of 1,500 men followed on the ground.

On 9 February 1920 the Sayid rode out of Taleh's northern gate with seventy to eighty horsemen. The levy took the fortress that evening (Jardine 1923, pp. 274–275).

The Sayid crossed into Ethiopian-ruled land with three or four hundred followers. They built thirteen forts at Guano Imi, near the head of the Shabelle River, in October 1920 (Jardine 1923, p. 307). Illness, "probably influenza", and hunger struck the camp, and he died after six days of illness.

Sources differ

• The date of his death. Jardine, the British official, gives 23 November 1920 (Jardine 1923, p. 307). Jaamac Cumar Ciise gives 1921, at Imey on the upper Shabelle (Jaamac Cumar Ciise 1974, p. xii), as does the Library of Congress (Library of Congress).
• The name. British writers called him "the Mad Mullah". Somalis call him Sayid Maxamed, or simply "the Sayid". Calankii uses his own name and title.
• The air war. Jaamac Cumar Ciise dates the first air attacks to January 1919; Jardine, who was in the colonial government at the time, dates them to January 1920 (Jaamac Cumar Ciise 1974, p. x; Jardine 1923, p. 266). Jardine was Secretary to the Somaliland administration from 1916 to 1921.
• Who backed him. The British records show that many Somalis fought against the Dervishes, in levies and the constabulary (War Office 1907). The historian Robert Hess records that many Somalis opposed him on religious grounds while still sympathising with resistance (Hess, Journal of African History, 1964).

How historians read the movement

Most of what we know comes from his opponents. Jardine, a British official, called him a "consummate scoundrel" in the same chapter where he named him a national hero (Jardine 1923, p. 308). Calankii reads these records for their facts and dates, not their judgements.

The Somali historian Said S. Samatar studied the Sayid through his poems. Samatar showed how the Sayid used spoken verse to build and hold a movement in a society that did not yet write its language (Samatar, Oral Poetry and Somali Nationalism, Cambridge University Press, 1982). Hess called him "a forerunner of modern Somali nationalism" (Hess 1964).

What the movement moved forward

The Sayid led the first movement that set Somalis from many lineages against foreign rule under one command. It held off three empires for over twenty years. Its poems are still recited across the Somali lands, and the stone forts of Taleh still stand.

Read the primary sources yourself

• War Office, Official History of the Operations in Somaliland, 1901–04, 1907: volume 1, volume 2.
• Correspondence respecting the Rising of the Mullah Muhammed Abdullah in Somaliland, Africa No. 3, 1902: full text.
• Douglas Jardine, The Mad Mullah of Somaliland, 1923, with the Sayid's letters and the Illig treaty: full text.
• Jaamac Cumar Ciise, Diiwaanka Gabayadii Sayid Maxamed Cabdulle Xasan, Muqdisho, 1974, in Somali, with the Dervish history and 120 poems: full text.