Dervish movement (Somali)

Dervish Movement
Dhaqdhaqaaqa Daraawiish
1899–1920
Flag of Dervish
Flag of the Dervish Movement[1][2][3]
CapitalIlig (1905–1909)
Taleh (1913–1920)
Common languagesSomali
Demonym(s)Somali
Sayyid 
• 1899–1920
Mohammed Abdullah Hassan
History 
• Established
1899
1900
• Signing of Ilig Treaty, Nugaal Valley is ceded to the Dervish
1905
1913
• First World War (Support from the Ottoman Empire)
1914-1918
• Decline of State
1919
• Disestablished
9 February 1920
 Succeeded by
Italian Somaliland
British Somaliland
Today part ofSomalia
Ethiopia

The Dervish Movement (Somali: Dhaqdhaqaaqa Daraawiish) was an armed resistance movement between 1899 and 1920,[4][5][6] which was led by the Salihiyya Sufi Muslim poet and militant leader Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, also known as Sayyid Mohamed, who called for independence from the British and Italian colonisers and for the defeat of Ethiopian forces.[6][7][8] The Dervish movement aimed to remove the British and Italian influence from the region and restore an "Islamic system of governance with a Sufi doctrine as its foundation", according to Mohamed-Rahis Hasan and Salada Robleh.[9]

Hassan established a ruling council called the Khususi consisting of Sufi tribal elders and spokesmen, added an adviser from the Ottoman Empire named Muhammad Ali, and thus created a multi-clan Islamic movement in what led to the eventual creation of the state of Somalia.[8][7][10]

The Dervish movement attracted between 25,000 and 26,000 youth from different clans over 1899 and 1905, acquired firearms and then attacked the Ethiopian garrison at Jigjiga. The Dervishes were able to take the cattle seized from the local Somalis, giving them their first military victory.[11][note 1] The Dervish movement then declared the colonial administration in British Somaliland as their enemy. To end the movement, the British sought out the competing Somali clans as coalition partners against the Dervish movement. The British provided these clans with firearms and supplies to fight against the Dervishes. Punitive attacks were launched against Dervish strongholds in 1904.[7][8] The Dervish movement suffered losses in the field, regrouped into smaller units and resorted to guerrilla warfare. Hasan and his loyalist Dervishes moved into the Italian-controlled Somaliland in 1905 after Hasan signed the Illig treaty, under which the Dervishes were ceded the Nugaal Valley,[13][14] which strengthened his movement,[7] and Hasan subsequently received an Italian subsidy and autonomous protected status.[15] In 1908, the Dervishes again entered British Somaliland and began inflicting major losses to the British in the interior regions of the Horn of Africa. The British retreated to the coastal regions, leaving the chaotic interior regions in the hands of the Dervishes. During 1905-1910, the Dervishes lost much of their support due to their indiscriminate raids against allies and enemies alike, with several followers subsequently leaving the Dervishes after Hasan was supposedly excommunicated by the head of the Salihiyyah tariqa in Mecca in a famous letter.[16]

The First World War shifted the attention of the British elsewhere, although upon its conclusion, in 1920, the British launched a massive combined arms offensive on the Taleh forts, strongholds of the Dervish movement.[8][11] The offensive caused significant casualties among the Dervishes, although the Dervish leader Mohammed Abdullah Hassan managed to escape. His death in 1921 due to either malaria or influenza ended the Dervish movement.[7][8][17]

The Dervish movement temporarily created a mobile Somali "proto-state" in early 20th-century with fluid boundaries and fluctuating population.[18] It was one of the bloodiest and longest militant movements in sub-Saharan Africa during the colonial era, one that overlapped with World War I. The battles between various sides over two decades killed nearly a third of Somaliland's population and ravaged the local economy.[17][19][20] Scholars variously interpret the emergence and demise of the militant Dervish movement in Somalia. Some consider the "Sufi Islamic" ideology as the driver, others consider economic crisis to the nomadic lifestyle triggered by the occupation and "colonial predation" ideology as the trigger for the Dervish movement, while post-modernists state that both religion and nationalism created the Dervish movement.[8]

  1. ^ zgido_syldg (7 September 2023). "The source of the alleged flag of the Dervishes of Somalia, the 25 December 1910 issue of the Italian magazine 'La Tribuna Illustrata'". r/vexillology.
  2. ^ Messenger, Charles (13 September 1993). For Love of Regiment: A History of British Infantry, Volume One, 1660-1914. Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-0-85052-371-3.
  3. ^ McAteer, William (2008). The History of the Seychelles: To be a nation : 1920-1976. Pristine Books. ISBN 978-99931-809-2-0.
  4. ^ Mengisteab, Kidane; Bereketeab, Redie (2012). Regional Integration, Identity & Citizenship in the Greater Horn of Africa. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. p. 147. ISBN 978-1-84701-058-2.
  5. ^ Hoehne, Markus V. (2016), "Dervish State (Somali)", in John M. Mackenzie (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Empire, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, pp. 1–2, doi:10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe069, ISBN 978-1-118-45507-4, retrieved 22 February 2022
  6. ^ a b Meehan, Erin Elizabeth (2021). Dervish Oral Poetry in Somalia: A Study in Semiotic Chora. Salve Regina University. p. 2.
  7. ^ a b c d e Emmanuel Kwaku Akyeampong; Steven J. Niven (2012). Dictionary of African Biography. Oxford University Press. pp. 35–37. ISBN 978-0-19-538207-5.
  8. ^ a b c d e f Abdullah A. Mohamoud (2006). State Collapse and Post-conflict Development in Africa: The Case of Somalia (1960-2001). Purdue University Press. pp. 60–61, 70–72 with footnotes. ISBN 978-1-55753-413-2.
  9. ^ Hasan, Mohamed-Rashid S., and Salada M. Robleh (2004), "Islamic revival and education in Somalia", Educational Strategies Among Muslims in the Context of Globalization: Some National Case Studies, Volume 3, BRILL Academic, page 147.
  10. ^ Mukhtar, Mohamed Haji (2003). Historical Dictionary of Somalia. Scarecrow Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-8108-6604-1. OCLC 268778107.
  11. ^ a b Abdi Ismail Samatar (1989). The State and Rural Transformation in Northern Somalia, 1884-1986. University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 38–39. ISBN 978-0-299-11994-2.
  12. ^ Mohamoud (2006), p. 71 with footnote 81.
  13. ^ Smtar, Ahmed (1988). Socialist Somalia: Rhetoric and Reality. Zed Books. p. 32. the allocation of part of the Nugaal valley - in between the British and Italian Somalilands – to Dervish rule
  14. ^ Njoku, Raphael Chijioke (2013). The History of Somalia. ABC-Clio. p. 78. ISBN 9780313378577.
  15. ^ Nelson, Harold (1982). Somalia, a Country Study. Library of Congress. p. 18. but in 1905 the British accepted Italian mediation in arranging a truce that conferred on the imam an Italian subsidy and autonomous protected status in the Nugaal (Nogal) Valley. Mohamed Abdullah did not gain extensive support in Italian Somaliland, although some clans there declared themselves dervishes and robbed cattle from the herds of other Somalis who were deemed to accommodating to the Italians
  16. ^ Mukhtar (2003), p. 197.
  17. ^ a b Richard H. Shultz; Andrea J. Dew (2009). Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat. Columbia University Press. pp. 67–68. ISBN 978-0-231-12983-1.
  18. ^ Hoehne (2016), p. ?.
  19. ^ Michel Ben Arrous; Lazare Ki-Zerbo (2009). African Studies in Geography from Below. African Books. p. 166. ISBN 978-2-86978-231-0.
  20. ^ Hess, Robert L. (1 January 1964). "The 'Mad Mullah' and Northern Somalia". The Journal of African History. 5 (3). Cambridge University Press: 415–433. doi:10.1017/S0021853700005107. JSTOR 179976. S2CID 162991126. Retrieved 9 February 2024.


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