page_title: Haji Sudi
section_title: Joining the Tariqa of Kob Fardod (1897-1898)
hierarchical_section_title: Haji Sudi / Joining the Tariqa of Kob Fardod (1897-1898)
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Scheual Abdi, Dichter aus Ogaden
context_page_description: Ahmed Warsama "Haji Sudi" / Xaaji Suudi Shabeel was one of the leaders behind the Somali Dervish movement. He was also the movement's right-hand man and chief lieutenant till its demise in 1920. Hastings Ismay then an intelligence officer In Somaliland in 1918 described Haji Sudi as “ the Mullah’s right hand in the earlier days of his rise and is still a great power in the land “. He hailed from the Habr Toljalaa a sub clan of the Isaaq.
context_section_description: Haji Sudi retired to the interior of Somaliland in the summer of 1897, after his headman career was abruptly ended after the Somali Coast administration imprisoned him on the recommendations of one Bertram Robert Mitford Glossop a big game hunter. He retired to the interior to his hamlet among his brothers Baashe and Qeybdiid. Sometime between 1897 and 1898 Baashe his brother was killed in a tribal war with the neighboring Dolbahanta clan. Upon capturing Durraan one of the accused Qaybdid (Gaibdeed killed in Ferdiddin battle along with his two sons) chose to release him and instead pursue traditional clan settlement.
  Some British colonial record claim that the tariqa of Mohammed Abdullah Hassan interfered and meditated between the two clans thus introducing Sudi to the mullahs community at Kob Fardod, but most likely in late 19 century Somaliland due to the small populations and the nomadic nature of the tribes most notable Somalis knew one another personally. Prior to the period Qaybdid the brother of Sudi married Hassan's paternal aunt, a more likely scenario of Sudi been introduced to the Tariqa at Kob Fardod. Captain McNeill in his book " in pursuit of the Mad Mullah" having faced Haji Sudi, the Mulah and Sultan Nur in the first expeditions narrated this version of Sudi's brother murder and Sudi's joining the Tariqa or Zawiya (institution) at Kob Fardod:
  "The way in which he came to be an adherent of Mahomed Abdullah is worthy of mention, as throwing some light on the latter's character, and showing how well he could adopt a conciliatory policy towards those whom he wished to gain over to his side. Ahamed Warsama belonged to the Adan Madoba tribe, and one day, just when the Mullah was beginning to make his power felt, Mullah turned to the latter (Ali Gheri) and threatened to use all his influence, religious and temporal, against them, and to bring down on them all the other tribes who were under his influence unless they obeyed. As the Ali Gheri have very large herds both of sheep and camels, this would have been a grand chance for the neighboring tribes, of which they would not have hesitated to avail themselves. The result of this threat was that the Ali Gheri agreed not only to restore the looted camels, but to pay another hundred as blood -money for the death of Haji Sudi's brother. Thus the latter gained a hundred camels, and the Mullah got as an adherent a man whose experience of the world, and of the British Sahib and his ways, was of the greatest use to him, Haji Sudi having been headman to various expeditions, and having also spent some time as interpreter on an English man-of-war. In addition to Somali he could speak English, Hindustani, Arabic, and Swahili, so he was not a man whose services could be lightly dispensed with. It has often made me think with regret of the many times I could have blown this rascal's head off in 1895 if I had only known! At the same time he might have done the same to me, if he had only known what the future was to be." 
  “In 1895 after which he returned to his tariga, Kob Fardod, in the Dolbahanta. Here he gradually acquired influence by stopping inter-tribal warfare, and eventually started a religious movement in which the Rer Ibrahim (Mukabil Ogaden) Ba Hawadle (Miyirwalal Ogaden) and the Ali Gheri(Dolbahanta) were the first to join. His emissaries also soon succeeded in winning over the Aden Madoba, notable amongst whom was Haji Sudi, his trusted lieutenant, and Ahmed Farih and reer Yuusuf, all Habr Toljaala, and the Musa Ismail of the Eastern Habr Yunis, with Sultan Nur.”
  When did exactly Haji Sudi joined the tariqa at Kob Fardod is not known but its generally between 1896 and 1897 when the mullah Mohammed Abdullah Hassan himself joined the Kob Fardod tariqa. The Kob Fardod mullah settlement had long been there before the dervish rebellion.
  By the outbreak of the dervish rebellion in August 1899 Sudi was among the top five (Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, Haji Sudi, Deria Arrale, Deria Gure and Nur Ahmed Aman) wanted leaders of the movement. In his orders to the heads of the mili
caption: Sheywal Abdi, Habr Awal tribe, a poet and a dervish commander who defected to the English side after a fallout with Sultan Nur, 1905. The dervish murdered his two wives and six children and in retaliation he killed 23 dervishes for revenge[34]
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