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Abdisalam M. Issa-SalweThames Valley University, London
 
The Darwish Resistance:
The Clash Between Somali Clanship and State System
 
Paper Presented at the 5th International Congress of Somali Studies December 1993
 
 
2
1 INTRODUCTION
 
Sayid Maxamed was the Somali nationalist hero and father of modern Somali nationalism as he theman who is attributed who inspired at the end of the nineteenth century realised, partly, the creation of theSomali state half a century later. He envisaged the Somali state as being a unified political unit andnurturing a political ideology surmounting clanism. Both attributes were part of the modern Somalinationalism when it reawakened in early 1940s.The Darwish structure can be considered a state as the three salient features of state are defined asterritory, population living in that defined territory and a government who is sovereign to rule the countryand the people. Though fluid, all these characteristics can be found in the Darwish. This became clear whenItaly and Britain, signed a treaty (the Ilig Treaty) with the Darwish on 5
th
March 1895
[1]
The treatystipulated that the Mullah should rule the territory between the Majeerteen Sultanate in the north and theSultanate of Hobyo (Obbia) in northeastern Somaliland. The agreement also granted the Darwish wateringand grazing rights for their livestock within British Somaliland.
[2]
 Darwish nationalism endured in a period when Somali society was widely dispersed and lacked thenecessary organisations to form a single political unit, and at a time when colonial powers such as Britain,Italy, and France were expanding their hegemony over the country. As the clan was and still is the mostimportant political unit in the traditional system, Somalis rejected the replacement of their traditionalsystem with that of a state system as offered to them by Sayid Maxamed. Somalis preferred to live inclanism rather than a system that they did not know. I will discuss in this paper the conflict of the Darwishstate and Somali clans.
2 THE INCEPTION OF DARWISH MOVEMENT
[3]
 
At the end of the nineteenth century, Islam reawakened in Eastern Africa, which was as result of therevival of Islam in the Muslim world. This tendency might have been triggered by the outcome of the effectof the Euro-Christian rule and colonization of the Muslim lands in Africa and Asia which consequentlyseems to have created a widespread reaction and the resurgence of a revivalist movement against the Euro-Christian hegemony, such as the Mahdist revolt in Sudan in 1880s and that of the Darwish movement ledby Sayid Maxamed, in Somalia, during the same period.The resistance led by Sayid Maxamed Cabdulle was motivated by religious principles, as well ascultural. Islam served as the ideology of the Darwish movement. A darwiish is a Muslim believer whotakes vows of poverty and a life of austerity in the service of Allah and his community.
2.1 A Brief Background to Sayid Maxamed
 Sayid Maxamed was born in the Sac-ma-deeqa valley, a small watering place between Wud-Wud andBuuhoodle, in the south of British Somaliland in 1856,
[4]
during a spring season well known asGobaysane.
[5]
 He was the eldest son of Sheekh Cabdulle and Timiro Seed
[6]
.His grandfather, Sheekh XasanNuur, of the Ogaadeen clan, had settled and married among the Dhulbahante in 1826.Two influences left an impression on the life of Sayid: The first influence was Islamic study, the otherthe might of pastoralism. At the age of seven he attended the Quran school. At eleven he learned the 114suras' of the Quran by heart. Afterwards he became a teacher. After two years of teaching the Quran, hesuddenly changed his mind, a change that took him to search for more religious learning for ten years. Hetravelled to many Islamic seats; he went to Mogadishu, Nairobi, Harar and Sudan. He went and learnedfrom sheikhs who had Islamic knowledge. In his early thirties, he embarked towards Mecca, to charge hishaj obligations.
[7]
While in Mecca, he met Sheikh Mohammed Salah (1853-1917), who changed the youngMaxamed Cabdulle Xasan completely. The mystic Sheikh Mohammed Salah of Sudan was the founder of the Salahiya order,
[8]
which was spreading in the Arabian peninsula and across the Red Sea into East Africa.Two years later, in 1895, Sayid Maxamed returned to Somaliland with a mandate to be the Salahiyarepresentative
[9]
. Islam has been associated with Muslim brotherhood (dariqa literally means "way") which expresses amystical view of the Muslim faith. In the nineteenth century various religious organizations developed inSomalia to the extent that the "Somali profession of the Islamic faith was synonymous with membership of a sufi brotherhood."
[10]
 The Sufi order grew from the main order Qadiriya founded by Sheikh Abdul-Qadir Jilani in thetwelfth century. However a few centuries later a "neo-sufism" movement was founded which could becategorized into three groups of Muslim fellowship: the resisters who believed in struggle, the moderateswho usually went about their pedagogical teaching but occasionally created rebellion and lastly, the
 
3
conservatives who practised their mystic meditation without feeling their social environment andsometimes collaborating with the rulers of the country.
[11]
 On his arrival in the port Berbera, Sayid Maxamed Cabdulle Xasan refused to pay the tax to thecustoms. The customs duties stunned the Sayid since he was entering his home land. The custom officerdecided to arrest him but an interpreter explained the reason for the sheikh's refusal as insanity by saying"Sir, he mad mullah,"
[12]
a name that the colonialists labelled Sayid Maxamed in the later years. The arrivalof the Sayid in the British Somaliland coincided with a new tax system introduced by the British Consul-General in the British Somaliland, Colonel J. Haya Sadler.
[13]
 
Before the arrival of Sayid Maxamed in British Somaliland and the other parts of Somali inhabitedterritory the influence of Andarawiya, which like the Salihiya, is an offshoot of Ahmadiya,
[14]
was limited.Sayid Maxamed established a base from which he campaigned and spread the Salahiya order bycondemnation of the Qadiriya's moral laxity
[15]
in adapting to colonialism. In the view of many scholars, theQadiriya leaders and settlement, which was well established along the Benaadir coast, became, tolerant tothe colonial regime.
[16]
He condemned the use of alcohol and khat (or Catha edulis tender leaves of a mildnarcotic tree grown in the East Africa and in Yemen).Sayid Maxamed's attempt to proselytise and convert urban Somali to the Salahiya order met with stiff resistance from the Berbera community. This caused a firm opposition from the Qadiriya who hadestablished roots in the area. Therefore, the Qadiriya ulumos (sheikhs) were outraged by Sayid Maxamed'scampaign, among them his former teacher, Sheikh Cabdullaahi Caruusi, Aw-Gaas Axmed, SheikhIbraahim Xirsi Guuled, Sheikh Kabiir Aw-Cumar
[17]
and Sheikh Madar.
[18]
His conflict with the knownreligious men caused him to lose the sympathy of Berbera people.
[19]
In turn the Berbera ulumos foughtback to discredit Sayid Maxamed and his new order. To finish him, they informed the administration abouthis intentions.
[20]
The rift between the two orders lasted until the British administration sided with Qadiriyaand closed down the Salahiya mosque at the end of 1897. This infuriated Sayid Maxamed who later movedwith his small group of followers to his maternal home, among the Dhulbahante, in the south of BritishSomaliland.On his way to his maternal home, he passed near Daymoole, a few kilometres from Berbera, wherethere was a French catholic mission established in 1891. The mission, with two fathers, one brother and 69boys in an orphanage looked after destitute children. He asked a little boy, "What is your name?". The boyreplied, "John Cabdullaahi." Then the Sayid asked, "What clan you are?". The boy answered to SayidMaxamed, "I belong to the clan of the father." This convinced Sayid Maxamed that the colonialists werechristianising their children. That event remained in the memory of the young Maxamed Cabdulle Xasanand led him to focus his campaign against the idea of Christian colonization and against the Qadiriya'sineptitude and their tolerance of the colonial rulers.
 
Sayid Maxamed made his first base in Qorya-weyn, a small watering place 29 miles west of Aynaboin British Somaliland. In Qorya-weyn he began campaigning for the Salahiya order, against the infidels andalso against the Qadiriya order.
3 THE BEGINNING OF THE DARWISH STRUGGLE
In Qorya-weyn, he started preaching Islam under the Salahiya banner. In spite of failing to convincethe urbanized Berbera residents, he found fertile land in the pastoral society that was not influenced byurban life style. His appeal attracted the pastoral society of the area and the people responded positively tohim. By settling clan feuds, the pastoralist saw him as an awliya (saint) who had been sent among them, hegained himself the reputation of a peacemaker. In the first period the British administration welcomed himto exercise authority and saw him on the side of the law as he prevented clan raids. But his aims to mediateand unify clans were to gain their support in the fight against the infidels. His aspirations soon turned tooppose the colonial interests. In fact, an incident that happened around this time, in 1899, was a turningpoint in the relations between the Sayid and the British authority. A British administrative constable Ilaalo,went to the Darwish settlement and sold his gun to the Sayid. On his return to Berbera, the constablereported to the authorities that his gun had been stolen by the Sayid. The case prompted the British Counselto send a letter to Sayid Maxamed ordering to surrender the stolen gun immediately but instead on 1thSeptember 1899 Sayid Maxamed replied in a letter challenging British rule in the country. The defiancebrought the Sheikh to the attention of the British authorities. That episode was to change British attitudetowards the Sayid and his movement. The era of conflict between the Darwish movement and the colonialpowers which was to blast two decades had begun.
 
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