Muḥammad ibn 'Abdallāh Hassan

Muḥammad Ibn Abdallāh Ibn Hassan (Arabic: محمد بن عبدالله حسن: Somali: Maxamed Cabdulle Xasan; Osmanya: 𐒉𐒖𐒕𐒕𐒘𐒆 𐒑𐒙𐒔𐒖𐒑𐒑𐒗𐒆 𐒛𐒁𐒆𐒚𐒐𐒐𐒖𐒔 H𐒖𐒈𐒈𐒖𐒒: 7 April 1856 – 21 December 1920) was a Somali, scholar, poet, religious, political, and military leader who founded and headed the Dervish movement, which led a holy war against British, Italian and Ethiopian colonial intrusions in the Somali Peninsula. He was famously known by the British Empire as the "Mad Mullah". In 1917, the Ottoman Empire referred him as the "Emir of the Somali People". Due to his successful completion of the Hajj to Mecca, his complete memorization of the Quran and, his name is sometimes preluded with honorifics such as Hajji, Hafiz, Emir, Sheikh, Mullah or Sayyid. His influence led him to being regarded the "Father of the Somali People".
In Berbera, the established Qadiriyya tariqa would soon be challenged by a new tariqa. The most prominent Sheikhs of the Salihiyya order were Isma'il ibn Ishaq al-Urwayni, and the Dervish emir Hassan (called 'Mad Mullah' by the British) who arrived in Berbera in 1895 and constructed his own mosque and began propagating. He was strongly against khat and chewing tobacco, both of which the Qadiriyya had permitted. Amongst other disputes, he would come to debate the leading Qadiriyya sheikhs of Berbera including Aw Gaas and Xaaji Ibrahim Xirsi. Sheikh Madar, the leader of Somali Qadiriyya was invited to participate in 1897 and after rigorous discussion, the Qadiriyya tariqa had proved victorious and Mohamed Abdullah Hassan had been refuted. British authorities took note of the disturbance and turmoil and he was thus expelled from the city. The divisions were deep and both sides had accused the other of heresy, Hassan would go on to form the Dervish movement based on Salihiyya just two years after the debates partly in rebuke of the Qadiriyya status quo.
In March 1899, one Duwaleh Hirsi, a former member of the Somali Aden police then Mr Percy Cox's (former counsel-resident of Zeila and Berbera, 1893–1895) expedition guide in Somaliland, allegedly stole a rifle and sold it to the tariqa at Kob Fardod. The vice-counsel at the coast, Harry Edward Spiller Cordeaux, sent a letter to the mullahs at Kob Fardod demanding the return of the rifle. The letter was carried by a Somali mounted policeman named Ahmed Adan. Upon his return after the delivery of the letter, Cordeaux interviewed Adan, who provided the following information:
What is particularly revealing about Ahmed Adan's interview is the confusion that was caused by another letter carried by a Somali, supposedly also from the British administration at the coast. This second letter angered the mullahs at the Tariqa;
"On the third day the Mullah sent for me. I had seen him before; he often used to come into the house. I went to him, and he said he would give me his reply to the letter I had brought; that he had just received another letter which had been brought by a Somali. He asked me about it, but I told him I knew nothing about it, and asked him who had brought it. He said, “A Somali.” A man named Salan had come in that day. I thought that he must have brought the letter. He then gave me a letter. It was written on the back of the letter I had brought him. I saw the Government stamp on it. He (the Sheikh) said, “This is the reply to your letter. I will give you the answer to the other letter to-morrow.” He said that the second letter contained “bad words.” Next morning he gave me two letters, and I then went away, and got into Berbera on Saturday night.”
The second letter provoked the mullahs, the hostile tone in the reply is due to the offensive second letter carried by Salaan the Somali. Both replies; one regarding the rifle curt but relatively inoffensive and a second addressing the confusing insolent second letter are in the British record.
The news that sparked the Dervish rebellion and the 21-year disturbance according to the consul-general James Hayes Sadler was either spread or concocted by Sultan Nur of the Habr Yunis. The incident in question was that of a group of Somali children that were converted to Christianity and adopted by the French Catholic Mission at Berbera in 1899. Whether Sultan Nur experienced the incident first hand or whether he was told of it is not clear but what is known is that he propagated the incident in the Tariqa at Kob Fardod in June 1899. In one of his letters to Sultan Deria in 1899, Sayyid Hassan said that the British "have destroyed our religion and made our children their children", alluding to Sultan Nur's incident with the Roman French Mission at Berbera. The Dervishes soon emerged as an opposition of the Christian activities, defending their version of Islam against the Christian mission.
There are only one people during the Dervish struggle the Sayyid extensively asked in a letter to join his struggle. Those were the Bimal clan. His letter to the Bimal was documented as the most extended exposition of his mind as a Muslim thinker and religious figure. The letter is until this day still preserved. It is said that the Bimal thanks to their size being numerically powerful, traditionally and religiously devoted fierce warriors and having possession of much resources have intrigued Mahamed Abdulle Hassan. But not only that the Bimal themselves mounted an extensive and major resistance against the Italians, especially in the first decade of the 19th century. The Italians carried many expeditions against the powerful Bimal to try and pacify them. Because of this the Bimal had all the reason to join the Dervish struggle and by doing so to win their support over. the Sayyid wrote a detailed theological statement to put forward to the Bimal tribe who dominated the strategic Banaadir port of Merca and its surroundings.
One of the Italian's greatest fears was the spread of "Dervishism" (which had come to mean "revolt") in the south and the strong Bimaal tribe of Benadir whom already were at war with the Italians, while not following the religious message or adhering to the views of Muhammad Abdullah Hassan, understood greatly his goal and political tactics. The dervishes in this case were engaged in supplying arms to the Bimaal. The Italians wanted to bring in an end to the Bimaal revolt and at all cost prevent a Bimal-Dervish alliance, which lead them to use the forces of Obbia and the Majerteen as prevention.
However, soon angered by his autocratic rule, Hussen Hirsi Dala Iljech' – a Mohammed Subeer chieftain – plotted to kill him. The news of the plot leaked to Hassan. He escaped, but his maternal uncle, Aw 'Abbas, was killed. Some weeks later, Mohammed Subeer sent a peace delegation of 32 men to Hassan, but Hassan had all the members of the delegation arrested and killed. Shocked by the actions of Hassan, Mohammed Subeer sought the help of the Ethiopians and the Dervish withdrew to Nugaal.
Towards the end of 1900, Ethiopian Emperor Menelik proposed a joint action with the British against the Dervish. Accordingly, British Lt. Col. Eric John Eagles 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 intent on crushing the 20,000 Dervish fighters (of whom 40 percent were cavalry).
On 9 January 1904, at the Jidaale (Jidballi) plain, the British commander, General Charles Egerton, killed 1,000 Dervish. This defeat forced Sayyid and his remaining men to flee to Majeerteen country.
Around 1909, in a secret meeting under a big tree later nicknamed "Anjeel tale waa" ("The Tree of Bad Counsel"), about 400 Dervish followers decided to stop following the mullah upon receiving the expulsion letter from the head of the Tariqa, Sheikh Salah, excommunicating the mullah. Their departure weakened, demoralized and angered Sayyid, and it was at this juncture that he composed his poem entitled "The Tree of Bad Counsel".
Despite leaving Berbera after being rebuked by the leading Sheikhs of the rival Qadiriyya school the enmity did not end. Heated poems would be exchanged between the Sayyid and prominent Sheikh Uways al-Barawi from Barawa, the leader of the 1908 Benadir revolt.
Uways recited this qasida criticizing the Sayyid:
With a long response the Sayyid ended with these sharp words:
This exchange would lead to takfir or accusations of apostasy from both men and the murder of Uways by the Dervish in 1909. This ironically proved Sheikh Uways' accusation that the Sayyid deemed it lawful to spill the blood of the learned. The Sayyid would mock Sheikh Uways death with a final poem Behold, at last, when we slew the old wizard, the rains began to come!".
During 1909-1910, the dervish capital moved from Illig to Taleh in the heart of Nugal where the dervish built three garrison forts of massive stone work and a number of houses. He built a luxurious palace for himself and kept new guards drawn from outcast clans. By 1913, the dervish dominated the entire hinterland of the Somali peninsula building forts at Jildali and Mirashi, and at Werder in the Ogaden and Beledweyne in southern Somalia. On 9 August 1913, at the Battle of Dul Madoba, a Dervish force raided the Dolbahanta clan and killed or wounded 57 members of the 110-man Somaliland Camel Constabulary. The dead included the British officer who commanded the constabulary, Colonel Richard Corfield. Hassan memorialized this action in his poem simply entitled "The Death of Richard Corfield". In the same year, fourteen Dervishes infiltrated Berbera and fired few shots on its citizens fleeing, nonetheless causing panic. In 1914, the Somaliland Camel Corps was founded as an expanded and improved version of the constabulary.
A British force was gathering against the Dervishes when they were interrupted by the outbreak of World War I. Among the British officers deployed was Adrian Carton de Wiart (later Lieutenant General), who lost an eye during the campaign, and Hastings Ismay, a staff officer who was later Winston Churchill's chief military adviser.
In the beginning of 1920, the British struck the Dervish settlements with a well-coordinated air and land attack and inflicted a stunning defeat. The forts of the dervishes were damaged and the army suffered great losses. The Dervish retreated in to the Ogaden territory in Abyssinia and raided the Ogaden Bah Hawadle clan who were under Habr Yunis protection, reacting to this incident, Haji Warabe of the Reer Caynaashe assembled an army composed of 3,000 warriors. The army set out from Togdheer, on the dawn of July 20, 1920, his army reached Shineleh where the Dervish were camped and proceeded to attack them. The Dervish numbering about 800 were quickly defeated, 700 being killed in the battle, the few remaining survivors fled south. Haji and his army captured 60,000 camels and 700 rifles from the defeated Dervish. But During the midst of the battle Haji Warabe entered Hassan's tent but found the tent empty with Hassan's tea still hot. The Mullah, now a fugitive, continued to flee westwards into the thirsty wastelands of the Ogaden.
In October 1920, he eventually settled down at Guano Imi, at the head waters of the Shebelle River in the Arsi country, with a party of some four hundred followers. When Fitawrari Seyoum, commanding the nearest Abyssinian garrison at Ginir, heard of his arrival, he sent one of his officers, Garazmatch Ayale, to learn why he had entered Abyssinian territory. The Mullah received the officer well, and said that he had been beaten in battle by the British and had come to Abyssinia for protection. He then sent the Fitawrari four rifles and a revolver as presents and asked for some provisions in exchange. Fitawrari Seyoum reported the matter to Ras Tafari, who ordered him to not attack the Mullah but keep him under his watch. However, provisions were not provided and famine fell on the Mullah's camp, with most of his remaining followers dying of sickness and hunger; the few that survived were said to have dispersed shortly after.
On 21 December 1920, Hassan died of influenza at the age of 64, his grave is believed to be somewhere close to Imi town of the Somali Region of Ethiopia; however, the exact spot of the Sayid's grave is unknown. In mid 2009, the Somali Regional State administration announced that they would exhume his remains and rebury them in his old castle at Imi. Most of the people who knew the exact location of Hassan's tomb were long dead, but the Regional Information Minister Guled Casowe told VOA Somali Section that a few, very old individuals might be left who would be able to reveal the details of Hassan's grave. Remains were found in a graveyard at Ginir and the Somali Region of Ethiopia, then tried to test the DNA to determine whether they could be those of Sayid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan.
Hassan has been seen by some as an icon of Pan-Somalism, and has been considered one of the great revolutionaries of the turn of the 20th century by members of the Pan-Africanist movement.
A Socialist realist statue of Hassan riding his horse Hiin-Faniin (sometimes called Sayidka or Siyadka) was built in central Mogadishu near the Mogadishu Central Mosque in the 1970s or 1980s, but the statue was torn down between 1991 and 1993 and sold as scrap metal. The damaged foundation of the monument was left standing.
On 18 October 2019, the monument was restored and unveiled by Somali president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, along with other restored monuments. A similar statue was built in the Ethiopian city of Jigjiga in 2013.
In the Haud region, there is a monument marking Hassan's birthplace, called Sacmadeeqa.
Some poems by the Sayid include: