The Mullah: The Bravest of the Brave

[SOO MAAL]

The Mullah: The Bravest of the Brave - July 19, 2006 - 12:01

 

 

 

Awdalnews Network has the pleasure to bring to its readers an exclusive weekly column by John Drysdale* who has honoured us by agreeing to write his column from his base in Somaliland. The column will be Drysdale's reflections on his more than 60 years encounter with Somali history, culture and daily life.

 

 

The Mullah: The Bravest of the Brave

 

By John Drysdale

 

THE FIGURE OF SHEIKH MOHAMED ABDALLA HASSAN looms large in the history of Somalis, especially during the early days of European colonialism. Any study of him should not fail to ignore his historical significance as the first Somali leader to have acquired firearms in bulk and to have exercised political armed power in an attempt to unite Somalis in a Holy War against infidels.

 

The Sheikh’s partial success in uniting Somalis under his political banner had more to do with Somali tradition than to the Sheikh’s undoubted defence and prowess of his precepts of Islam. He was baulked by the tradition that no clan should have dominion over another; nor political power be vested in one man.

 

Sheikh Mohamed was seen by the British authorities as an enemy at the turn of the century. He had circumvented the arms embargo that had been imposed by the European powers on Somalis but not on King Menelik.

 

The Sheikh was dubbed by the British the misnomer Ú©Mad Mullahâ€. He was not in the least bit mad. His followers, equipped with spears, were fierce in hand to hand fighting. Supported by rifles and a cause to be won they were a formidable enemy, as the British were to learn. From 1900 until 1920 the Sheikh held at bay mainly British but also intermittently Italian and Ethiopian troops. He imported firearms from Ethiopia through his brother, Khalif, in the Oga den. As early as 1902, the Sheikh’s forces had swollen to some 12,000, of whom 10,000 were said to be mounted and not less than 1,000 carried rifles. They were provisioned by plundered livestock.

 

The Sheikh’s ire was first aroused in 1895 against a Catholic mission in Berbera for homeless Somali children whom the mission attempted to convert to Christianity. Frustrated by his failure to persuade the British administration in Berbera to expel the mission, the Sheikh sent a letter to an Isaa q clan known as the Eidagalla in July 1899. Do you not see, he wrote, that the infidels have destroyed our religion and made our children their children?

 

This was a turning point in the Sheikh’s attitude to the British occupation of Berbera which was gradually advancing into the hinterland. The Sheikh was declared a rebel. The struggle between the two belligerents began.

 

As well as being a religious leader and a poet of renown, the Sheikh was a man of action, riding to the saddle with gusto and charisma on a Somali polo pony of uncommon stamina until the Sheikh grew out of the saddle with a weight problem.

 

But he also sought political power in central Somaliland. This did not come easily to him because his father was from the Oga den clan across the southern border in Ethiopian Somali inhabited territory, and his mother was a member of the Dolbahanta clan in the southeast of Somaliland. Both clans were grouped under the banner of the D rod patriarch.

 

The Sheikh was many years ahead of his time if he really had pan-Somali political ambitions, as he claimed. To have been successful as a pan-Somali leader, he would also have needed the political support of the group of clans descended from the Isaa q patriach. They occupied central Somaliland. But they were weaned away from any allegiance, on which the Sheikh may have set his sights, by British blandishments: British protection of Isaa q trade through the port of Berbera; and the hiring of Isaa q warriors and their pack-animals and horses for military expeditions against the Sheikh’s کdervish†infantry and cavalrymen.

 

Whilst this ruse worked to the advantage of the British land forces, especially against the Sheikh’s formidable stone fortresses, the eventual coup de grace was of a different kind; it came hurtling down from the skies in the shape and size of twenty pound bombs. The first killed the Sheikh’s uncle standing beside him to greet these new and exciting messengers from Allah. The next singed the Sheikh’s robe. He made a dash for ravines below his fortress and escaped to the Oga den where he died from natural causes ten months later.

 

Douglas Jardine noted in his remarkably objective biography of the Ú©Mad Mullahâ€, that fear and awe, and not respect and affection, were the emotions he had to arouse in the hearts of his followers. But whatever views may be taken of the Mullah’s motives and methods, there can be no question of the greatness of his personal achievements: even when his fortunes were at their lowest ebb, he remained an object of veneration to his followers who invoked his name not only in the heat of battle, but also at the cold hour of execution. One must confess there is much to be said for the man who does not know when he is beaten.

 

The British General, Lord Hastings Ismay, who was then, in 1914, a Captain in the Camel Corps, wrote in his memoirs of some of these events on his retirement from the army. Among the Sheikh’s forts that the Camel Corps captured after stiff fighting was at Shimber Beris. The fort was blown up with some of the dervishes inside. Ismay wrote, “All our efforts to dig out the defenders were in vain. I was sorry they had fought well.â€

 

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*John Drysdale, a former advisor to three Somali Prime Ministers in post independence Somalia and to three successive UN special envoys to Somalia during the 1992-1993, is an authority on Somali history and culture. Three of his books about Somalia and Whatever Happened to Somalia, written during or about major landmarks in the nation's history, have become standard reference works. Drysdale was a regular British army officer serving with Somali soldiers in Burma during World War II. Later he was in the British Colonial Service and the Foreign Service, with assignments in Ghana (then the Gold Coast) and in Mogadishu. He is an accomplished speaker of Somali. During his long career as diplomat, businessman, and publisher, Drysdale has been a prolific writer and analyst of political events in Africa and Southeast Asia.

 

As a publisher Drysdale founded and edited the Africa Research Bulletin in Britain and the Asia Research Bulletin in Singapore in collaboration with the Straits Times Group. He was also founder of the Asean Economic Quarterly in Singpore. His book Singapore: Struggle for Success is a recommended reading for all young Singaporeans. Returning to Somaliland in mid 1990s, Drysdlae worked as an advisor to the Somaliland government under the later President Mohammed Ibrahim Egal for sometime before pioneering the very important project of Surveying and Mapping for Rural and Urban Cadastre in Somaliland. His NGO has been surveying and mapping hitherto non-existent farm boundaries in the Gabiley and Dilla Districts of South West Somaliland over the last four years.

 

 

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