page_title: Mohammed Abdullah Hassan
section_title: Origins of armed struggle
hierarchical_section_title: Mohammed Abdullah Hassan / Origins of armed struggle
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan of the Dervish State.
context_page_description: Sayid Mohamed Abdullah Hassan was a Somali religious and patriotic leader. He established the Dervish movement in Somalia that fought a 20-year war against the British, Italian, and Ethiopian empires.
context_section_description: The news of the incident that sparked the Dervish rebellion and the 21 years disturbance according to the consul-general James Hayes Sadler was either spread or as he alleged was 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, 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 Dervish soon emerged as an opposition of the Christian activities, defending their version of Islam against the Christian mission. The Dervish considered all non-dervish Somalis as non-Muslims (gaalo).
caption: Illustration of Mohamed Abdullah Hassan by da Rondini, from cover of Il Mullah del paese dei somali by Douglas Jardine[12]
exif: {}