SAYID MAX'ED CABDULLE XASAN: Was he a Mujahid Shahiid??

[ElPunto]

I think the larger issue is missing here with the point by point comparisons to entities of the present day. There is no need to mythologize MCH - he made a lot of mistakes and antagonized many of his former allies which led to his eventual defeat. But what he did do was to be the first Somali to articulate a vision of pan-Somalism, warn against the evils of encroaching colonialism and rally a broad base of Somalis to fight against it and successfully so at the beginning despite the superior forces arrayed against him. And to top it off he made a defining contribution to Somali nationhood through the only intellectual medium shared by all Somalis - poetry.

 

Caydiid, Shabaab and the rest are not worthy of being mentioned in the same context.

[Chimera]

Ayoub brother, i’m well aware of Sayyid’s connections with the Salahiyya movement, I however fail to see how this discredits his Pan-Somali vision or his rich legacy on multiple levels. The rulers of Ethiopia had connections with the Coptic Church of Egypt, before Henry the VIII the Kings of England had connections with the Church of Rome, nevertheless their domestic and foreign policies was to advance the interests of Ethiopia or England, similarly Sayyid did not take orders from the Salahiyya movement or their leader. He made relations with the Ottoman Empire, the German Empire, the Sultan of Yemen, the young muslim King of Ethiopia etc and in the process was advancing Somali interests.

 

Interests, that were repeatedly trampled upon by the so-called “protector” powers who spat on the promises they made with Somali elders by sidelining them in secret agreements between Britain, Ethiopia and Italy! Before the Dervish none of the encroaching powers respected Somali claims, they were considered a sea of muslims that needed to be tamed. Sayyid Abdullah Hassan gave us a voice, he gave us respect both in Africa and around the world. He turned what was considered a “no man’s land” into the “land of Somalis”, and from then on all powers knew there would be repercussions to the mistreatment and general theft of Somali traditional lands.

 

They achieved recognition of a Somali State by foreign powers, a significant feat considering at the time 99% of Africa was under foreign rule. It’s irrelevant that the Sultan of Yemen, Germany or the Ottoman Empire had their own agendas, their interests did not clash with Somali interests. They provided us with arms, with political support and masons to built massive Fortresses (from Yemen btw not Germany). That the Dervishes were Somali nationalists is not even a subject of debate, this is an agreed upon fact amongst the doyens of Somali Studies, so there is no need for me to defend this.

 

If to the participants of this topic, clan transcends nationhood that’s okay, but it won’t alter the Dervish Dream, if your view of nationhood is not one of a Greater Somali State but limited to a specific region, that’s okay too, but again it won’t change the Dervish Dream, if you sympathize with Al-Shabab’s “Chile to Somalia” imperial plan, good for you but the Dervish Dream is still the same.

 

The silly comparisons to the Warlords and modern militants are a non-sequitur. In Dervish times, there was no Somalia recognised internationally through which they could enter into a power sharing agreement. Al-Shabab today if it wanted could enter into negotiations with other Somalis and establish a strong Somali State. In Dervish times foreign powers were literally trying to own our lands, this is not happening today, despite the intense foreign meddling, which could be purged out if Al-Shabab were to sit down with the other side, and make the foreign presence unnecessary and obsolete. The Sayyid’s relation with an Ethiopian monarch being similar to the one of a Warlord with a Ethiopian PM is illogical. Firstly this monarch had turned into a muslim, and aligned himself with the Dervishes, against powers such as Britain and Italy, therefore understandably he became an important ally, one who could be convinced in relinquishing claims on Somali lands. None of the modern lackeys have shown this type of statesmanship, nor do they pursue the interests of the wider Somali world.

 

The looting of Camels was mentioned earlier, on the part of the Dervishes, yet the well known historic fact of how these same entities that were looted were doing the exact same thing to other clans was conveniently omitted, from Winston Churchill’s own words;

 

Replying to his critics on 19 January 1908, shortly after his return from Africa, Churchill challenged them to refute his facts. They could not deny that friendly tribes, armed by the British, did indeed raid their neighbours with these weapons. - The Warrior Mullah pg 75

 

The situation therefore was far more fluid, than one of Dervish aggressors and their victims, these so-called victims were themselves aggressors who killed plenty of people in their raids. No power however has ever looted and stolen the wealth of Somali herders as Menelik’s massive armies had inflicted upon them before they were neutralised by the Dervishes:

 

Gradually, enclosed within Ethiopia as a result of the colonial "shareout" of the 1890s, the O-gaden was encroached upon by armed Ethiopian soldiers before the turn of the century. In 1892, the British Consul for the Somali Coast Protectorate reported that:

a large Abyssinian expedition has returned from the O-gaden bringing with them as booty thousands of camels and cattle and property of all descriptions. I hear from other sources that they have devastated the people .... Many people are dying of starvation and an epidemic said to be cholera, but which may be "starvation fever" has broken out, and carried off numerous victims daily.... This state of affairs is attributed entirely to the conduct of the Abyssinian soldiery who eat up everything.

In 1901, Captain R.B. Cobbold accompanied an Abyssinian expeditionary force across the O-gaden. The following selections from Cobbold's diary suggest what he witnessed throughout his three month sojourn:

All this cruel and barbarous treatment which the Somalis undergo at the hands of the Abyssinians and which, being unarmed (thanks to the British Government) they have to endure without a murmur, will some day react on the heads of the Abyssinians. Some day a reckoning up will come, and with the Somalis armed the possibility of the downfall of Abyssinia would be within the range of practical politics. For the Moslems who would rush eagerly to arms to exterminate their hated enemies would run into huge figures. And if ever a war was popular, this one would be so; I think even women and children would, if permitted, gladly risk their lives in so righteous a struggle. -

www.oocities.com/halgame_2000/history9.html

Notice the helplessness of the Somali civilians, there was no one willing to intervene on their behalf, not the British, not the Italians, nobody! Enter the Dervish and see how Somali dignity was suddenly restored:

 

In 1900, an Ethiopian expedition which had been sent to arrest or kill Sayyid Mohammed, looted a large number of camels of the Mohammed Subeer tribe of O-gaden. In answer to his appeal, Sayyid Mohammed attacked the Ethiopian garrison at Jijiga 4 March of that year, and successfully recovered all the looted animals. This success emboldened Sayyid Mohammed and also enhanced his reputation

 

The Dervishes destroyed the blockade of firearms that the British had imposed on Somali herdsmen that wanted to defend themselves from the barbaric Ethiopian raids. After their victory over the Italians the Ethiopians acquired a dangerous view of themselves as being “invincible”, and with nobody to squash that view, they began their expansion into traditional Somali lands, but again it is the rise of the Dervish that restored the ancient fear the Ethiopians have had of their Somali neighbours since the time of Ahmed Guray, despite their boasting of imagined victories:

 

" 'The Abyssinians, it seems, fear the Somalis very much. I have never seen men so afraid as they are now; they have given rifles to the children to show they have troops here" - The British Vice-Consul at Harar

 

The insinuation that the Dervish were solely responsible for the death of Somalis in the early 20th century is just a Victor’s version of history. They never inflicted as much damage on Somali herdsmen as the Ethiopian armies had done, they never inflicted as much economic damage on Somalis as the artificial borders that cut apart our centuries old Civilizational Matrix by multiple foreign powers had done, nor did they tax Somalis at the ports they controlled, the way the British did. They never initiated a policy of arming several clans and allowing them to murder and raid other towns the way the British and Italians had done. Indeed the Dervish crimes pale in comparison, yet the revisionistic pen of history wants to convince us that they were the ultimate bad thing that happened to Somalis?

 

What exactly happened after the collapse of the Dervish State? Traditional Somali lands were ceded to countries that never in their history controlled those areas. Traditional leaders were banished to exotic islands. Somalis were conscripted in wars they had nothing to do with. At independence Somalia was forced into multiple wars, that eventually led to today’s situation.

 

<O:p</O:p

[Chimera]

Continuing;

 

Had Somalis not allowed themselves to be fooled by foreign powers and instead as one unified block had supported a local Somali power like the Dervish, the O-gaden and its important haud region would be part and parcel of the Somali Realm, same with the NFD and Djibouti, the British according to Winston Churchill were ready to leave, the Italians had an immense fear of the Sayyid and believed he would invade the Italian coast with fifteen thousand men, the Ethiopians refrained from going further than Jigjigga, indeed Somalis had lost a prime chance to exert their sovereignty over their ancient lands through the Sayyid. Had the Turks been as stubborn as Somalis, and not followed Kemal Ataturk, they would have been swallowed up by the Greeks, the Bulgarians and the Armenians who were supported by the British and French. Instead they all put their weight behind a local Turkish power and eventually achieved a strong Turkish State.

 

In any case, the Dervish have given the generations that came after them a strong legacy to be proud off. How shameful it would have been, if they had never risen to such international stature and prestige. Imagine having to read your own country was conquered with little resistance, that would have been such a disappointment, but instead the Dervish unleashed the longest colonial resistance war in African History, an African power that survived the scramble for Africa and outlived WW I, only to be defeated by a new form of technology; aeroplanes. Any self-respecting Somali not shackled by the system of clan would feel a warm feeling inside them everytime the Dervish defiance is mentioned. I certainly don’t care if they punished individuals from my so-called “clan”, heck the Sayyid punished more of his own clan than he did any other. He showcased a form of self-respect and defiance that one can’t observe today in any of the leaders in the Somali peninsula, who suffer from a severe case of myopia and lack the vision the Sayyid had for the Somali Realm.

.

[Hales]

The insinuation that the Dervish were solely responsible for the death of Somalis in the early 20th century is just a Victor’s version of history. They never inflicted as much damage on Somali herdsmen as the Ethiopian armies had done, they never inflicted as much economic damage on Somalis as the artificial borders that cut apart our centuries old Civilizational Matrix by multiple foreign powers had done, nor did they tax Somalis at the ports they controlled, the way the British did. They never initiated a policy of arming several clans and allowing them to murder and raid other towns the way the British and Italians had done. Indeed the Dervish crimes pale in comparison, yet the revisionistic pen of history wants to convince us that they were the ultimate bad thing that happened to Somalis?

 

I agree with most of your points that he was a Somali nationalist hero, on the downside his jihad did cause more suffering for Somalis than it did foreigners atleast in proper 'Somalia territories'.

I read past British reports of the civil war in the North actually caused the death of approximately of 1/3 of the Male population. Secondly i dont believe Somalis were at the gulf of colonization there are examples of ressistance to colonialism. For example the main 'clan' in Sool (today ssc) did not come under British rule whatsoever, similarly the long existing Maakhir Sultanate although had a treaty but it also exercised complete sovereignty over their land, The North eastern sultanates also only had a treaty with the Italians and their lands were free of foreign control.

However im sure his standing legacy of being a freedom fighter overshadows those actions, well put!

[Chimera]

It's BS, for the British to be able to report that 1/3 of the male population perished, they would have to know how big the male population was for starters, which they didn't, since they never conducted a census, because 1) they did not control the interior until the 1920s, and 2) the population wasn't static but moved around in the Somali Realm. This, together with the camel-raiding nonsense etc, is just another form of discrediting the valiant Dervish period who btw had no problems allying with the Somali groups you mentioned.

[Mad_Mullah]

Just ignore Marfashlanders, ofcourse he wasn't a Mujahid or Shahid, he didn't belong to their tribe and he didn't get money from Dahabshiil.

 

I can guarantee you that if he was from their tribe that they'd be worshipping him day in and day out. The Mad Mullah ( called Mad because he fought like a crazy man, no fear etc.) is known by all, the British, Habesha etc. Whats the SNM? a British boy band? Or something sexual?

 

He did kill SOmalis, traitors just like Marfashlanders today who sell their own people to Ethiopia. And about Shabaab, funny coming from you seeing that you people call the leader Amiir and respect/finance them.

[AYOUB]

Chimera

Lots of words while saying nothing significant up there. I never said "Dervish were solely responsible for the death of Somalis", did I? You also failed to put things in chronological order because looting from Somalis was one of the first actions carried out by the Mullah, even before the battles with the British forces.

 

They achieved recognition of a Somali State by foreign powers, a significant feat considering at the time 99% of Africa was under foreign rule.

The Mullah's recognised State territory was Kenadiid old Sultanate. In other words, he signed a treaty which not only meant the dethroning of the Sultan by him, but also respecting the British colonial border. It depends how you look at the glass.

 

The 77/78 0gaden war - however heroic it was - is generally viewed by most as mistake. It's time for you to look at the big picture when it comes to Dervishes struggle. The reasons for its failure are comparable to the failure of the military regime and the current events. If we do compare the two (failed) States, very similar questions arise. Was the Mullah justified assassinating Garaad Ali? What about the murders of likes of Sh. Aweys and rival sub-clan peace envoys? Was it worth the intra-clan in-fight and subsequent starvation?

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

The 77/78 0gaden war - however heroic it was - is generally viewed by most as mistake.

Who are the 'most'? You and your fellow cohorts?