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The Bando
The Dervish state (Somali: Dawlada Daraawiish, Arabic: دولة الدراويش Dawlāt ad-Darāwīsh) was an early 20th-century Somali Sunni Kingdom that was established by Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, a religious leader who gathered Somali soldiers from across the Horn of Africa and united them into a loyal army known as the Dervishes. This Dervish army enabled Hassan to carve out a powerful state through conquest of lands claimed by the Somali Sultans, the Ethiopians and the European powers. The Dervish State acquired renown in the Islamic and Western worlds due to its resistance against the European empires of Britain and Italy. The Dervish forces successfully repulsed the British Empire in four military expeditions, and forced it to retreat to the coastal region. As a result of its fame in the Middle East and Europe, the Dervish State was recognized as an ally by the Ottoman Empire and the German Empire. It also succeeded at outliving the Scramble for Africa, and remained throughout World War I the only independent Muslim power on the continent. After a quarter of a century of holding the British at bay, the Dervishes were finally defeated in 1920.
At the end of the 19th century, the Berlin conference gathered together Europe's most powerful countries during the Scramble for Africa. The British, Italians and Ethiopians partitioned Greater Somalia into spheres of influence, cutting into the previous nomadic grazing system and Somali civilizational network that connected port cities with those of the interior. The Ethiopian Emperor Menelik's Somali expedition, consisting of an army of 11,000 men, made a deep push into the vicinity of Luuq in Somalia. However, his troops were soundly defeated by the Gobroon army, with only 200 soldiers returning alive. The Ethiopians subsequently refrained from further expeditions into the interior of Somalia, but continued to oppress the people in the Ogaden by plundering the nomads of their livestock numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The British blockade in firearms to the Somalis rendered the nomads in the Ogaden helpless against the armies of Menelik. With the establishment of important Muslim orders headed by Somali scholars such as Shaykh Abd Al-Rahman bin Ahmad al-Zayla'i and Uways al-Barawi, a rebirth of Islam in East Africa was soon afoot. The resistance against the colonization of Muslim lands in Africa and Asia by the Afghans and Mahdists would inspire a large resistance movement in Somalia. Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, a former nomad boy that had travelled to many Muslim centers in the Islamic world, returned to Somalia as a grown man and began promoting the Salihiyah order in the urban cities and the interior where he found major success.
In 1897, Hassan left Berbera. On this journey, at a place called Daymoole, he met some Somali children who were being looked after by a Catholic Mission. When he asked them about their clan and parents, the Somali orphans replied that they belonged to the "clan of the (Catholic) Fathers." This reply shook his conscience, for he felt that the "Christian overlordship in his country was tantamount to the destruction of his people's faith." In 1899, some soldiers of the British armed forces met Hassan and sold him an official gun. When questioned about the loss of the gun, they told their superiors that Hassan had stolen the gun from them. On 29 March 1899, the British Vice Consul wrote a very stern and insulting letter to him asking him to return the gun immediately, which someone in Hassan's camp had reported stolen. This enraged Hassan and he sent a very brief and curt reply refuting the allegation. While Hassan had really been against the Ethiopian invaders of Somalia, this small incident caused a clash with the British.
The regular army (Maara-weyn) of the Dervish state was organised into seven regiments: Shiikh-yaale, Gola-weyne, Taar-gooye, Indha-badan, Miinanle, Dharbash and Rag-xun. Each regiment had its commander (muqaddim), and varied in size from between 1,000 and 4,000 men. A large para-military force was also drawn from the nomad population. The cavalry, for its part, numbered between 5,000 and 10,000 mounted horsemen, and the standing army was supplied with modern weapons such as rifles and maxim guns. Dervish soldiers used the dhaanto traditional dance-song to raise their esprit de corps and often sang it on horseback.
In August 1898, the Dervish army occupied Burao, an important centre of British Somaliland, giving Muhammad Abdullah Hassan control over the city's watering places. Hassan also succeeded in making peace between the local clans and initiated a large assembly, where the population was urged to join the war against the British.
The historic Daarta Sayyidka Dervish fort in Eyl.
In 1900, an Ethiopian expedition which had been sent to arrest or kill Hassan looted a large number of camels. Hassan in return attacked the Ethiopian garrison at Jijiga on 4 March of that year and successfully recovered all the looted animals. He gained great prestige in recovering the looted stock from the Ethiopians and he used it along with his charisma and powers of oratory to improve his undisputed authority on the Ogaden. To harness Ogaden enthusiasm into final commitment, Hassan married the daughter of a prominent leader and in return gave his own sister, Toohyar Sheikh Adbile, to Abdi Mohammed Waale, a notable elder.
Towards the end of 1900, the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II proposed a joint action with the British against the Dervish. Accordingly, British Lt. Col. E.J. 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).
In the 1920 campaign by the British, 12 aircraft were used to support the local British forces. Within a month, the British had occupied the capital of the Dervish State and Hassan had retreated to the west.
Somali Dervish soldiers engage their British counterparts at sea.
At the end of the 19th century, the Berlin conference gathered together Europe's most powerful countries during the Scramble for Africa. The British, Italians and Ethiopians partitioned Greater Somalia into spheres of influence, cutting into the previous nomadic grazing system and Somali civilizational network that connected port cities with those of the interior. The Ethiopian Emperor Menelik's Somali expedition, consisting of an army of 11,000 men, made a deep push into the vicinity of Luuq in Somalia. However, his troops were soundly defeated by the Gobroon army, with only 200 soldiers returning alive. The Ethiopians subsequently refrained from further expeditions into the interior of Somalia, but continued to oppress the people in the Ogaden by plundering the nomads of their livestock numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The British blockade in firearms to the Somalis rendered the nomads in the Ogaden helpless against the armies of Menelik. With the establishment of important Muslim orders headed by Somali scholars such as Shaykh Abd Al-Rahman bin Ahmad al-Zayla'i and Uways al-Barawi, a rebirth of Islam in East Africa was soon afoot. The resistance against the colonization of Muslim lands in Africa and Asia by the Afghans and Mahdists would inspire a large resistance movement in Somalia. Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, a former nomad boy that had travelled to many Muslim centers in the Islamic world, returned to Somalia as a grown man and began promoting the Salihiyah order in the urban cities and the interior where he found major success.
In 1897, Hassan left Berbera. On this journey, at a place called Daymoole, he met some Somali children who were being looked after by a Catholic Mission. When he asked them about their clan and parents, the Somali orphans replied that they belonged to the "clan of the (Catholic) Fathers." This reply shook his conscience, for he felt that the "Christian overlordship in his country was tantamount to the destruction of his people's faith." In 1899, some soldiers of the British armed forces met Hassan and sold him an official gun. When questioned about the loss of the gun, they told their superiors that Hassan had stolen the gun from them. On 29 March 1899, the British Vice Consul wrote a very stern and insulting letter to him asking him to return the gun immediately, which someone in Hassan's camp had reported stolen. This enraged Hassan and he sent a very brief and curt reply refuting the allegation. While Hassan had really been against the Ethiopian invaders of Somalia, this small incident caused a clash with the British.
The regular army (Maara-weyn) of the Dervish state was organised into seven regiments: Shiikh-yaale, Gola-weyne, Taar-gooye, Indha-badan, Miinanle, Dharbash and Rag-xun. Each regiment had its commander (muqaddim), and varied in size from between 1,000 and 4,000 men. A large para-military force was also drawn from the nomad population. The cavalry, for its part, numbered between 5,000 and 10,000 mounted horsemen, and the standing army was supplied with modern weapons such as rifles and maxim guns. Dervish soldiers used the dhaanto traditional dance-song to raise their esprit de corps and often sang it on horseback.
In August 1898, the Dervish army occupied Burao, an important centre of British Somaliland, giving Muhammad Abdullah Hassan control over the city's watering places. Hassan also succeeded in making peace between the local clans and initiated a large assembly, where the population was urged to join the war against the British.
The historic Daarta Sayyidka Dervish fort in Eyl.
In 1900, an Ethiopian expedition which had been sent to arrest or kill Hassan looted a large number of camels. Hassan in return attacked the Ethiopian garrison at Jijiga on 4 March of that year and successfully recovered all the looted animals. He gained great prestige in recovering the looted stock from the Ethiopians and he used it along with his charisma and powers of oratory to improve his undisputed authority on the Ogaden. To harness Ogaden enthusiasm into final commitment, Hassan married the daughter of a prominent leader and in return gave his own sister, Toohyar Sheikh Adbile, to Abdi Mohammed Waale, a notable elder.
Towards the end of 1900, the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II proposed a joint action with the British against the Dervish. Accordingly, British Lt. Col. E.J. 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).
In the 1920 campaign by the British, 12 aircraft were used to support the local British forces. Within a month, the British had occupied the capital of the Dervish State and Hassan had retreated to the west.
Somali Dervish soldiers engage their British counterparts at sea.
