Founding, forming and formulating a nation: the genesis and genealogies of modern Somali nationalism, 1887-1920
Keywords: nineteenth-century and twentieth-century Africa
Somali nationalism
imperialism and colonialism in the Horn of Africa
secular and religious nationalism
Somali history

This thesis offers a new historical examination of the genesis of modern Somali nationalism. Using an interpretative historical approach, the thesis argues that Somali nationalism was an urgent and demanding process instigated by religious intellectuals in the late nineteenth-century. It was then advanced by secular intellectuals in the mid-twentieth-century. Both drew on ideological trends of the day to imagine various visions and pursue plural paths of nationalism adaptable to the context of imperialism and colonialism at the time. The thesis proposes that the ideological instrument of Somali nationalism was inherently linked with multi-faceted local, regional and global secular and religious dynamics. The adoption of a local, regional and global lens reveals a previously unknown history of Somali nationalism that casts Somali nationalism in a new light. The thesis traces the path of religious and secular individuals and institutions, as they foster a collective national consciousness. Each individual or institution (forces, movements and organisations) made a unique contribution to the rise of Somali nationalism. The thesis finds that Somali nationalism encompassed a variety of local and non-local Somali individuals and institutions that were not isolated from regional and global changes. By placing Somali nationalism within the larger framework of regional and global history, the thesis traces the effects and impacts of the various colonial/imperial state formation projects as well as the recurring intertwined issues of the emergence of nationalist movements seeking to create an environment free of imperialism and colonialism. By assessing the notion of nationalism and its contribution to theoretical and global historical scholarship, the thesis addresses key questions of the politics and power behind the trends and trajectories of nationalist forces. The thesis connects the emerging re-examination of nationalism in African and Arab studies with Somali studies by using a comparative and thematic approach. For historians mostly concerned with the roots of African and Arab nationalist movements, the history of Somali nationalism would form an integral part of growing historical re-assessments.
Framed within the broader question of who first midwifed nationalism, the thesis charts new avenues for historical investigation of the history of Somali nationalism. Based on previously unused religious and secular sources, the thesis challenges the established position that modern Somali nationalism in the Somali Peninsula arose as a result of post-World War II politics. By giving due attention to the plurality of pre-war Somali nationalism shaped by countless cooperating and competing religious and secular nationalist movements, the thesis establishes that Somali nationalism pre-dates World War II by many decades. This finding unsettles the dominant historiographic narratives of the post-war politics concerning the synchronic aspects of Somali nationalism. While there were religious and secular dimensions to the earlier nationalist discourse about the history of nationalism, the thesis finds that returning to the genesis and genealogies of Somali nationalism awakened and inspired the post-war Somali nationalists who came to contest over the politics of nationalism on the basis of secular and religious lines. By questioning the dominant forces of secular nationalism, the thesis presents a distinctive perspective of Somali nationalism radically at odds with the singular nationalistic narrative of a hegemonic, overarching post-colonial power. However, the thesis does not intend to displace previous works on Somali nationalism, but rather complements them by broadening the scope of the historical exploration. Rather than depict Somali nationalism as one singular politic (as was the case in previous scholarship), the thesis argues for a pluralistic politic of Somali nationalism whose players consisted of diverse groups, both religious and secular in orientation. By giving due attention to the plurality of Somali nationalism, the thesis provides an important contribution to the scant scholarship on Somali nationalism. It also contributes to pluralising the history of nationalisms in general, concluding that the enduring legacies derived from Somali nationalist debates and discourses cannot be understood without deeper and dual historical analysis. The thesis determines that, even though Somali nationalism began as a reaction to imperialism/colonialism, Somali nationalists were mostly realistic (and at times unrealistic) in their approach to the imperial and colonial questions. In examining Somali nationalism through cultural, diplomatic, military/warfare, social and political history, the thesis explores how Somali nationalists engaged with imperialism and colonialism and how this engagement shaped their intellectual ideas and activities. To distinguish the different types of Somali nationalism, while underscoring the connections and disconnections between various forms of nationalisms, the thesis incorporates the Islamic religion and the Somali clan system into the political entity of nationalism among Somali society. The thesis concludes that the intersection between nationalism and clannism was not as strict as previously depicted, insofar as they forcefully clashed and competed but also calmly co-existed and cooperated.