Sayid Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan (; Arabic: سيد محمد عبدالله حسن؛7 April 1856 – 21 December 1920) was a Somali religious, military and political leader. He headed the Somali Dervish movement whom led a two-decade long struggle against British, Italian, and Ethiopian influence in the region. Sayyid Mohamed Abdulle Hassan is considered the father of the Somali people and the figure of Somali nationalism.
Background
Due to his successful completion of the hajj to Mecca, his complete memorization of the Quran and his purported descent from the Islamic prophet Muhammad, his name is sometimes preluded with honorifics such as Hajji, Hafiz or Sayyid.
Muhammad `Abd Allāh al-Hasan (, ); Sayyid Muḥammad ibn 'Abdallāh was born to a Bah Cali Gheri mother and Ogaden father. Due to his influence in the participation of Somali nationalism, the Central Powers, contemporary fanciers sometimes refer to him as the Father of Somali nationalism. In 1917, the Ottoman Empire referred to Hassan as the "Emir of the Somali".
According to Douglas Jardine, the name 'Mad Mullah' did not originate with the British or the Italians as is often thought, but is a translation of the Somali expression wadaad waal (the Mullah that is a lunatic) used by Somalis in Berbera. One Somali poet at the time, Ali Jama Habil composed a poem titled 'Maxamed Waal''' (Mohamed the Lunatic). According to apologist Said Sheikh Samatar the Somali word waalan covers a spectrum that ranges from sheer lunacy through 'lunatic' valour to an other worldly inner serenity.
In Berbera the established Qadiriyya tariqa would soon be challenged by a new tariqa. The most prominent Sheikh of the Salihiyya order were Isma'il ibn Ishaq al-Urwayni and the Dervish emir Hassan (called Mullah by British) who arrived in Berbera in 1895 and constructed his own mosque and began propagating. He was strongly against khat and chewing tobacco, both of which the Qadiriyya had permitted. Amongst other disputes, he would come to debate the leading Qadiriyya sheikhs of Berbera including Aw Gaas and Xaaji Ibrahim Xirsi. Sheikh Madar, the leader of Somali Qadiriyya was invited to participate in 1897 and after rigorous discussion, the Qadiriyya tariqa had proved victorious and Mohamed Abdullah Hassan had been refuted. British authorities took note of the disturbance and turmoil and he was thus expelled from the city. The divisions were deep and both sides had accused the other of heresy, Hassan would go on to form the Dervish movement based on Salihiyya just two years after the debates partly in rebuke of the Qadiriyya status quo.
In March 1899, one Duwaleh Hirsi a former member of the Somali Aden police then Mr Percy Cox's (former counsel-resident of Zeila and Berbera, 1893–1895) expedition guide in Somaliland allegedly stole a rifle and sold it to the tariqa at Kob Fardod. The vice-counsel at the coast, Harry Edward Spiller Cordeaux, sent a letter to the mullahs at Kob Fardod demanding the return of the rifle. The letter was carried by a Somali mounted policeman named Ahmed Adan. Upon his return after the delivery of the letter, Cordeaux interviewed Adan, who provided the following information:
I knew many of the people there—some of them were relations of mine. My brother-in-law, Dualeh Aoreb, was there. I asked them if they had any rifles, they said they at first had only six, but had just received fifty-five from Hafoon. I saw two or three of the new lot, they are Martins(new). They told me they had one or two "14-shot rifles." I saw some Mullahs walking about with Sniders. The Sheikh himself and some of his Mullahs used to practice daily shooting at a target; they put up a shield against a tree. I used to talk with people every day. We talked about many things, some of the words they said were good and others were bad. They called me a Kafir, and laughed at my uniform, saying that I smelt, and asking me why I wore the Sircars clothes. There were hundreds of people there, some from every tribe, Dolbahanta, Habr Toljaala, and Habr Yunis.
What is particularly revealing about Ahmed Adan's interview is the confusion that was caused by another letter carried by a Somali, supposedly also from the British administration at the coast. This second letter angered the mullahs at the Tariqa;