page_title: Nur Ahmed Aman
section_title: Pestalozza Agreement 1904–1905
hierarchical_section_title: Nur Ahmed Aman / Pestalozza Agreement 1904–1905
caption_attribution_description: English: The Italian diplomat who brokered the Dervish Illig Treaty 1904-1905.
context_page_description: Sultan Nur Ahmed Aman, was the tribal chief sultan of the Habar Yoonis clan from 1880–1899 and later one of the leaders behind the Somali Dervish movement and revolt. He was the principal agitator rallying the followers of the Kob Fardod Tariqa behind his anti-French Roman Catholic Mission campaign that would become the cause of the Dervish uprising. He assisted in assembling men and arms and hosted the revolting tribesmen in his quarter at Burao in August 1899, declaring the Dervish rebellion. He fought and led the war throughout the years 1899–1904. He and his brother Geleh Ahmed were the main signatories of the Dervish peace treaty with the British, Ethiopians and Italian colonial powers on March 5, 1905 known as the Ilig Treaty or the Pestalozza agreement. Sultan Nur is entombed in a white-domed shrine in Taleh, the location of the largest Dervish forts and the capital of the Dervish from 1912-1920, a testimony to his contribution in creating the movement. He died around 1907.
context_section_description: As the Mahdi of Khartoum and his lieutenant Osman Digna, H'àdjdj Mohammed ben Abdallah and his lieutenant H'àdjdj Soudi frequently write to the head of the British Protectorate and the commander of the expeditionary corps. They once offered peace on payment of compensation by Britain and the assignment of a port. 
  At least as far back as in 1903 as Ferrand Gebriel noted the dervish offered terms for peace to the British.Pressured by the English and the Mijertein Somalis whom in their territory the dervish carved out a settlement, after consulting with his dervish and religious rebels, at last the dervish were desperate for peace and willing to negotiate. In 1904 the Mullah wrote to the Italians through Abdilahi Shahri a trusted dervish and his boyhood friend.
   These initiative for these negotiations, started by the Mullah himself who wrote three letters in March 1904 to Lt. Vessel Spagna, commander of the Italian squad in Bender-Cassin.  In August 1904; and from Aden, embarking on the royal ship Volturno, Pestalozza went to Bender Cassem, on the northern Somali coast, to feel the ground, and to send a courier to Mullah, who was in Upper Nogal, benefiting from these practices, as an intermediary, certainly Abdallah Sceri, a trusted man of Mullah himself, who had employed him in various missions. During the war, the British had captured him as a suspect, and then had to hand him over to the Italian consular authority, having claimed in his capacity as an Italian protégé. Councilor Abdallah Sheri was kept on board the Volturno, in a state of arrest, not allowed by the British Authorities to have relations with the natives in Aden and on the coast. He was the chief auxiliary of Pestalozza to the success of his mission. 
  Giulio Pestalozza in his second meeting with the dervish October 17, 1904  was accompanied by Sylos and Paladini, two fellow Italians. After the second meeting the Mullah declared to Sheri and Pestalozza the following:
  Now, O Pestalozza, you and Abdallah Sheri, are delegated by me and to you I bestow the power for our cause. If you ask me pacification, I accept the peace and mutual trust – and I promise to stop the discord and the war in the interior. I, the Derwishes and all my people will molest no one, neither Mijerteyns, nor the people of Yusuf Ali, neither the English nor their dependents. I and my people are the people and dependents of the Government of Italy if it favours us and cools our heart (the text says our stomach or our desire); we will be under its flag. We only request that the Government of Italy allow(s) us to build a country at a point which it will consider suitable, from Gabbee to Garad.
  — Declaration by the Mullah to Pestalozza, Ilig, I7 October 1904.
  After a long, three-way negotiation between the powers of Britain, Italy, Ethiopia and the Dervish, the British received a dervish delegation for a peace agreement:
  1. Abdallah Shihiri, Habr Toljaala, Adan Madhoba;
  2. Diria Arraleh, Habr Toljaala, Adan Madhoba;
  3. Adem Egal, Mejertein, Rer Egaleh;
  4. Moallem Mohamed Nur, Dolbahante Kayet.
  On March 5, 1905, the treaty of Ilig or the Pestalozza agreement was signed between the dervish and the powers, the dervish represented by Sultan Nur and other dignitaries, who signed the final agreements. In the original Arabic, the following signatures appear - Sultan Nur Ahmed (the chief dervish sultan) and his brother Geele Ahmed (Kila Ahmed), Ugas Diria Arabe and Ugas Issa Farek.
  The Dervish were now technically an Italian protected religious community, they had their own semi-autonomous enclave, the dervish agreed to live peacefully with their Miijerteyn neighbours, the Ethiopians and the British. The Italians granted a fixed sea access for the Dervish between Ras Garad and Ras Gabbe with an Italian representative as a governor with soldiers and custom house, till such representative arrive the Mullah himself shall act as an Italian agent. The Italians assigned the Nogal and Hawd in the Italian sphere of influence as a territory accessible to the dervish, in the English sphere the dervish were only
caption: Giluio Pestalozza.
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