Читать книгу A Modern History of the Somali - I. M. Lewis - Страница 18

CHAPTER IV

THE DERVISH FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: 1900–20

The Growth of Muslim brotherhoods

BEFORE FOLLOWING Sayyid Muhammad ‘Abdille Hassan’s remarkable struggle to free his country from foreign domination, it is necessary to pause for a moment to review the social and religious context in which this patriotic movement arose. Islam in Somaliland has long been associated with the brotherhoods or tariqas (literally, ‘the Way’) which express the Sufi, or mystical view of the Muslim faith, a view which, since it exalts the charismatic powers of saints, is particularly well adapted to the Somali clan system in which clan ancestors readily become transposed into Muslim saints. So well developed indeed had these religious organizations become in the nineteenth century, that the Somali profession of the faith was now synonymous with membership of, or more frequently, nominal attachment to a Sufi brotherhood. The esoteric content of Sufism, however, was not strongly developed locally, although each religious Order had (and has) a distinctive liturgy for its adherents to follow in their worship of God. Despite their common aim of promoting religious as opposed to secular values, the relations between different Orders are characterized by rivalry centring on the respective religious merits and mystical powers of intercession of their founders. Generally, the Orders have a loose hierarchical organization, and many, though not all, Somali Sheikhs and men of religion occupy positions of religious authority within the Order which they follow.

More significantly, notwithstanding their own rivalries, in their membership and following the brotherhoods cut across clan and tribal loyalties, seeking to substitute the status of brother in religion for that of clansman, so that men who are divided by clan affiliation may share common adherence to the same religious Order. In this way, by their very nature, the Muslim Orders contribute to national unity through Islam and seek to overcome the sectional rivalries which separate men in their secular activities. However, given the circumstances of Somali life and society in which, lacking any large centralized political units, the only security was provided by small bands of kinsmen, the loyalties of kin and clan remained paramount. Thus the transcendental appeal to unity through Islam which the Orders preached, although it found a response in the cultural nationalism of the Somali, remained only a potential force overridden by the more restricted political realities of everyday life. Indeed it was only realized, and then only partially, in a few religious communities and teaching centres established usually in those regions where the brethren could support themselves by cultivation and cattle-rearing. Elsewhere, the Orders merely provided, as for the most part they still do today, a congregational basis for worship; and in all large settlements of population each brotherhood has usually its own mosque.

Historically, the first Order to be introduced into Somaliland was the Qadiriya, the oldest Order in Islam, founded in Baghdad where its originator Sayyid ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani died in A.D. 1166. It is not yet certain when the Qadiriya came to Somaliland, but by the nineteenth century it was strongly established and had split into two powerful local branches, one associated with the name of Sheikh ‘Abd ar-Rahman Seyla ‘i who died in the Ogaden in 1883, and the other with that of Sheikh Uways Muhammad who was assassinated in 1909. The former branch held sway in the north, in the British Protectorate and the Ogaden; while the latter was entrenched in the Benadir and south of Somalia. The other main Order of importance locally is the Ahmadiya, founded at Mecca in Arabia, by Sayyid Ahmad ibn Idris al-Fasi (1760–1837). This modern reformist movement with its sudsidiary branches had, by the end of the nineteenth century come to rival that of the longer established Qadiriya.¹

Between them, these two Orders had by 1900 a score of permanent community settlements scattered throughout Somaliland, but concentrated mainly in the fertile regions between the Juba and Shebelle rivers. At this time, one of the most important centres in the north was Sheikh Maddar’s (1825–1917) large Qadiriya settlement at Hargeisa amongst the Habar Awal clan containing representatives of most of the Isaq clans. This was a haven of peace in a turbulent area, strategically placed at the intersection of the caravan routes leading from the coast to the Ogaden.² Other Qadiriya settlements were established in the Ogaden itself, while others again lay farther south in Somalia. Ahmadiya centres were similarly widely distributed; and, outside these local settlements, almost the entire Somali population was divided in religious affiliation between the two Orders.

Competition between the two brotherhoods was considerably increased when the militant Salihiya branch of the Ahmadiya Order, founded at Mecca by Sayyid Muhammad Salih(1853–1917), was introduced into Somaliland towards the end of the nineteenth century. It was to this reformist and puritanical movement that the Somali Sheikh Muhammad ‘Abdille Hassan belonged, and under its banner he developed the campaign to free his country of ‘infidel’ dominion.

The rise of Sayyid Muhammad ‘Abdille Hassan

Muhammad ‘Abdille Hassan, according to his family’s records,³ was born on 7 April, 1864, at a small watering-place between Wudwud and Bohotle in the Dulbahante country of the eastern part of the British Somaliland Protectorate. His grandfather, Sheikh Hassan Nur, of the Ogaden clan, had left his homeland to settle amongst the Dulbahante in 1826 and had married there. At the early age of seven, Muhammad began to learn the Quran under a local teacher, and by the age of ten, when his grandfather died, could read the Quran and became his teacher’s assistant. Some five years later, having decided to dedicate his life to religion, he set up as a teacher on his own account, and by the early age of nineteen had won the title of ‘sheikh’ for his learning and piety.

About this time Sheikh Muhammad left his home to travel widely in search of learning, visiting, as was customary, such local seats of Islam as Harar, and Mogadishu – where a tree, in whose shade he is said to have prayed regularly, is remembered to this day: he also travelled as far afield as the Sudan and Nairobi. Some nine years or so passed thus, devoted to learning and teaching. About 1891 he returned to his home amongst his mother’s people, the Dulbahante, and there married a woman of his own clan, the Ogaden. Three years later, in company with thirteen other sheikhs and friends, Sheikh Muhammad set out to go on pilgrimage to Mecca and spent about a year in Arabia, visiting also – it is said – the Hejaz and Palestine. At Mecca, Sheikh Muhammad met Sayyid Muhammad Salih and fell under the spell of his teaching. Consequently having joined the Salihiya Order, the Sheikh returned to Somaliland to preach its message, and settled for a time at Berbera where he married his second wife. Here with messianic zeal he taught and preached, denouncing smoking, the chewing of the stimulant Kat plant,⁴ and generally condemning all excessive indulgence and luxury and exhorting his countrymen to return to the strict path of Muslim devotion.

Sheikh Muhammad’s activities and his enthusiasm for the new Salihiya Order attracted considerable attention in this port where the majority were staunch adherents of the older Qadiriya brotherhood. Tradition records that about 1897 a colloquy of sheikhs and religious leaders was held to discuss Sheikh Muhammad’s theological position and to examine his aims. The meeting took place in the house of one of the leading notables of Berbera. Amongst those present were Sheikh Muhammad’s former teacher, Sheikh ‘Abdille Arusi, and Sheikh Maddar, head of the Qadiriya community at Hargeisa. Sheikh Maddar, it is recorded, opened the proceedings by asking Sheikh Muhammad the name of the Order which he followed. Sheikh Muhammad replied, apparently, by remarking that it was laid down in Islam that for each generation God had provided one pre-eminent saint (the quth al-zaman), and that for his generation this was his master Sayyid Muhammad Salih whose ‘Way’ he was teaching. Sheikh Maddar agreed that it was the orthodox teaching that each generation had its great saint of Islam, but reminded Sheikh Muhammad that whoever he followed, and whatever he preached, God would judge him according to the strict ordinances of the Divine Law. This, of course, was a warning not to transgress the law of Islam, and came from one renowned for his piety and strict devotion.

Other members of the assembly then called upon Sheikh Muhammad to prove the power of his new Order with a sign, Sheikh ‘Abdille Arusi, remarking, it is said, that he marvelled at the strength of the town’s foundations which had prevented Berbera from being turned upside down. To this veiled comment on his lack of immediate success in gaining adherents, Sheikh Muhammad replied that indeed the town was blessed in possessing strong religious foundations. However, Sheikh Muhammad urged that whereas formerly he had followed Sheikh ‘Abdille Arusi, now he exhorted his teacher to follow him and share the blessings of the new Order.

Not long after this very characteristic Somali inquisition which had made clear to the leaders of the established Qadiriya the revolutionary character of Sheikh Muhammad ‘Abdille’s message, the Sheikh came into contact with the French Roman Catholic mission which had opened a station in the north of the Protectorate in 1891. This was originally at Berbera, but had now moved to Daimole, inland on the road towards Sheikh. The story goes that Sheikh Muhammad met a boy at the mission school and asked him his name. To his amazement and wrath, the boy replied ‘John ‘Abdillahi’. Another account relates that the Sheikh met a party of boys from the mission who when asked what clan they belonged to – the stock Somali inquiry to elicit someone’s identity, replied ‘the clan of the Fathers’ (in Somali, reer faddar), thus apparently denying their Somali identity (many of the boys were actually orphans).

However apocryphal these accounts may sound to modern ears, in Somali terms they are highly credible, and without doubt they commemorate encounters with the mission which served to confirm Sheikh Muhammad’s belief that Christian colonization sought to destroy the Muslim faith of his people. This fired his patriotism and he intensified his efforts to win support for the Salihiya, preaching in the mosques and streets that his country was in danger, and urging his compatriots to remove the English ‘infidels’ and their missionaries. He also inveighed against the practice of drinking alcohol which the foreigners had introduced. At first there was considerable resistance to his call, especially on the part of the Qadiriya who resented Sheikh Muhammad’s messianic claims for the Salihiya, and his implication that their Order – whose founder had died so long ago – was no longer endowed with spiritual life and vigour. At the same time, under the new and very modest British rule of the coast, commerce was flourishing (some 70,000 head of sheep were being exported annually to Aden) and many of the traders and merchants of Berbera consequently were too content with their prosperity and too intent on improving it further to listen to Sheikh Muhammad’s uncompromising message.

In these circumstances in 1898 Sheikh Muhammad ‘Abdille withdrew to his maternal home amongst the Dulbahante who, unlike the Isaq and Dir clans in the west and centre of the Protectorate, had no treaty with the British, and there built a mosque with a Salihiya teaching centre. He also travelled widely amongst the pastoralists preaching his cause and warning his countrymen that the Christian missionaries would destroy their religion. At the same time, he acquired a wide reputation as a peace-maker in inter-clan strife and his remarkable gifts as a poet began to be recognized thus further enhancing his fame. He also began to gather weapons – mainly spears and bows and arrows at this time – and collected donations of livestock and money to support his campaign.

In 1899, a small party of the Administration’s tribal constabulary – known as Illalos (from the Somali, Illaali to watch over) visited the sheikh and one of them surrendered his rifle for, it is said, four camels. On their return to Berbera, the Illalos reported, perhaps mendaciously, that Sheikh Muhammad had stolen a rifle and the Consul sent a curt letter requesting its return. Sheikh Muhammad replied equally curtly, with what amounted to a declaration of defiance. Shortly after this equivocal incident, the Sheikh held a large assembly amongst the Dulbahante calling upon men from every section of the clan to join him in his crusade against the infidels. With little vested interest in Berbera’s trade, and hardly any direct experience of the British coast administration, the Dulbahante had less qualms than the rich Isaq merchants of the coast and many flocked to join Sheikh Muhammad. These recruits to what was rapidly assuming the character of a military crusade were issued with white turbans and a Muslim rosary.

Rumours were now circulating that Sheikh Muhammad was collecting arms and men and preparing to lead an expedition into Ethiopia. A decade previously, English explorers and travellers traversing the Ogaden had noted how the increasingly far-flung and gratuitously savage raids of Ethiopian military parties from Harar were provoking strong resentment arid creating a situation in which a number of leading Somali sheikhs in the area were exhorting their congregations to mount a holy war against the encroaching ‘infidels’.⁵ That Sheikh Muhammad should now seek to marshal these currents of patriotic fervour and give this aim effective leadership seemed likely. In April 1899, he was officially reported to have at his command a force of some 3,000 men. In August, the news was that he was soliciting the Isaq Habar Tol Ja’lo and Habar Yunis clans for support. To forward this aim, Sheikh Muhammad succeeded in making peace between these two clans and his maternal kinsmen, the Dulbahante. And with this achieved, a great assembly was held at Burao amongst the Habar Yunis and Habar Tol Ja’lo. Here with a force estimated to number 5,000 at his command, Sheikh Muhammad formally declared a holy war against the Christian colonizers – particularly against the British and Ethiopians. Most of the Burao assembly supported the Sheikh’s call to arms, but the Sultan of the Habar Yunis was not enthusiastic. Sheikh Muhammad, however, such was the popular support for his movement at this time, managed to persuade the Habar Yunis to depose their clan-head appointing in his stead one more favourable to the cause. Some dramatic act was now called for and this was supplied by a raid on two religious settlements of a small branch of the Ahmadiya Order which displayed little enthusiasm for Sheikh Muhammad’s jihad. This caused some consternation, and an onslaught upon Berbera itself was reported to be imminent.

Administrative reports claimed that Sheikh Muhammad had now assumed the title of ‘Mahdi’. But although widespread public awareness of earlier events in the Sudan, and sympathy for their co-religionists there, was certainly a contributory factor in the rise of Sheikh Muhammad’s campaign, there is no independent evidence that he ever in fact claimed this title. Indeed, according to all reliable Somali sources, and the evidence of his letters and poems, he called himself ‘Sayyid’ by which title, or more simply as Ina ‘Abdille Hassan (the Somali equivalent of the Arabic ibn ‘Abdille) he is universally remembered throughout Somaliland today. His followers, in turn, soon became known everywhere in the country simply as ‘The Dervishes’, the term ‘dervish’ being applied in Somaliland generally to the adherents of the Salihiya Order.

On I September, 1899, the British Consul-General for the coast received a letter from the Sayyid accusing the British of oppressing Islam and denouncing those who obeyed or co-operated with the Administration as liars and slanderers. The letter also contained the challenge: ‘Now choose for yourselves. If you want war, we accept it; but if you want peace, pay the fine.’⁶ The Consul-General replied by proclaiming Sayyid Muhammad a rebel, and urged his government in London to prepare an expedition against the Dervishes. Thus the opening moves in the long-drawn out conflict were completed with the official denunciation as a ‘rebel’ of one who, belonging to the Ogaden clan over which Ethiopia claimed but did not exercise sovereignty, and whose maternal kinsmen (the Dulbahante) amongst whom he lived had no treaty with England, was surely most doubtfully classed as a British subject.

The Holy War: the first campaigns

The scene was now set for the twenty-years Dervish struggle against the British, Ethiopian, and Italian colonizers who had so recently established themselves in Somali territory. After the Consul-General’s proclamation, the Sayyid and his followers moved from Burao to collect – according to British reports by threats and violence – more supporters from the Habar Yunis clan. Towards the end of September, 1899, the Dervishes returned to the watering-place of Bohotle where some of the Dulbahante deserted them. About this time Garad ‘Ali Farah, hereditary leader of one of the two main sections of the Dulbahante sent a letter of loyalty to the Consul-General at Berbera asking for help against the Dervishes. A similar message was also dispatched to Boqor ‘Isman, the formidable hereditary leader of the powerful Majerteyn clan at Bender Qasim. This action, presumably, was taken in an effort by the Dulbahante leader to preserve his traditional authority. Whatever the reasons, the Sayyid’s response when the news leaked out was characteristically prompt. A party of Dervishes was dispatched to assassinate the Garad, an action which turned out to be a miscalculation for it immediately provoked a further substantial withdrawal of Dulbahante support. Indeed, the reaction was so considerable that the Sayyid prudently withdrew to his own paternal kinsmen the Ogaden, where he married a daughter of one of the most prominent elders of the clan. This device of contracting political alliances by marriages was one which he was to employ frequently in the course of his campaign.

Although he was of Ogaden descent, however, his home had not previously been amongst them, and some members of the clan decided that they wished to have nothing to do with the Sayyid and plotted to kill him. But, as in subsequent attempts on his life, the news leaked out and Sayyid Muhammad confronted the ringleaders and succeeded in rousing such public indignation against them that he was able to have them summarily executed. On this occasion these stern measures, in the current situation of Ethiopian menace, served not to alienate the Ogaden but to win him further support. Rifles and ammunition imported through the French port of Jibuti and the ports of the Majerteyn coast, were now reaching the Dervishes in quantity and this greatly increased their morale and prestige. With these resources, trading caravans traversing the Ogaden country were systematically looted by the Dervishes, and a hurriedly assembled Ethiopian expedition sent out to deal with the situation failed to locate the Dervishes and dissipated its energies in looting camels and other livestock indiscriminately. This, of course, only further inflamed Ogaden feelings against the Ethiopians, and Sayyid Muhammad found little difficulty in organizing a force some 6,000 strong which in March 1900 stormed the Ethiopian post at Jigjiga and recovered all the looted stock. This engagement the Ethiopians claimed as a victory; but in reality, although the Dervishes suffered heavy casualties and withdrew, they had achieved their object and established beyond doubt that they were a force to be reckoned with.

In contrast with the traditional position of men of religion in internal Somali affairs, Sayyid Muhammad had now become a political leader, a position which he was enabled to fulfil while still retaining his religious rôle in the circumstances of the wider conflict between Muslim Somali and Christian colonizers. He and his followers were now, moreover, in undisputed command of the Ogaden and to show their strength a force of about a thousand Dervish cavalry raided one of the Isaq clans in June carrying off 2,000 camels in loot. This daring attack, which took advantage of the long-standing conflict over grazing between the Isaq and Ogaden clans, caused consternation in the British Protectorate, and the protected clans withdrew from their summer grazing areas in and near the Ogaden to their northern winter quarters which soon became perilously overcrowded. The Protectorate authorities realized that immediate action had to be taken; for if the situation were allowed to continue, the Isaq clans concerned would be forced to choose between coming to terms with the Dervishes and starvation for their livestock and themselves.

In the circumstances, the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik proposed joint action and Lt-Colonel E. J. E. Swayne who with his brother (H. G. C. Swayne) had had considerable experience in the Protectorate was appointed to organize a British expeditionary force. The onset of the rains delayed preparations, but on 22 May, 1901, Swayne’s force consisting of a Somali levy 1,500 strong with twenty-one officers of the British and Indian armies set out from Burao which at this time was still unadministered. The operations against Sayyid Muhammad, who was soon dubbed ‘The Mad Mullah’, had begun. Their course which, until the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, kept British war correspondents busy as well as providing an exciting field for adventurous British soldiers, has been fully recorded elsewhere⁷ and need only be summarized here. Between 1900 and 1904 – with from time to time active Ethiopian support and Italian co-operation – four major expeditions were mounted. These though resisted bravely and brilliantly by the daring guerilla tactics of the Dervishes, who secured a number of notable victories (such as that at Gumburu Hill on 17 April, 1903, when 9 British officers and 189 men were killed), had by the close of 1904 so reduced the Dervish strength and morale that Sayyid Muhammad, who had evaded all attempts at capture, agreed to a peace.

He had now prudently withdrawn into the Italian Majerteyn protectorate, where there was no resident Italian administrative official, and which was controlled still from the Italian Consulate at Aden. The Sayyid stipulated four main conditions:

1 That he should have a fixed residence on Italian territory;

2 That he should govern his followers;

3 That he should enjoy religious liberty; and,

4 That he should have freedom to trade.

These conditions were accepted and a treaty was signed by the Sayyid and Cav. G. Pestalozza, the Italian Consul from Aden, at Illig on 5 March, 1905. Sayyid Muhammad had agreed to remain at peace with Italy, Britain, and Ethiopia, and to accept Italian protection – for what it was worth – being allocated a wedge of territory between the lands of the northern Majerteyn Sultanate, and the Sultanate of Obbia to the south. Although thus banished from the British Somaliland Protectorate, by agreement between the British and Italian governments, the Sayyid and his followers were granted grazing and watering rights for their livestock within the Protectorate up to the wells at Halin, Hudin, Togale, and Danod (the last of which, incidentally, lay outside British territory in the Ogaden).

This somewhat lame conclusion to the third and fourth British expeditions which together had cost some five and a half million pounds recognized that the Dervishes had not been completely eliminated, but assumed that they no longer constituted any serious threat. Or so at least it was convenient to think. And in the meantime, Sayyid Muhammad and his surviving adherents had been established as a kind of small theocratic state, sandwiched between the powerful northern Majerteyn under Boqor ‘Isman, and the southern Majerteyn and Hawiye who recognized the Sultan of Obbia, Yusuf ‘Ali Kenadid. Both these latter were under Italian protection, directed from the Italian Consulate at Aden, and subject to little direct control or interference except that provided by the periodical visits of Italian gunboats along the coast. To the west, between Sayyid Muhammad and his followers and the British ‘friendly’ clans subject to effective control from Berbera, the Dulbahante and Warsangeli provided a convenient if insecure buffer. At least the British could congratulate themselves on having transferred their stormy opponent to the custody of their allies the Italians, and both powers hastened to divest themselves of any responsibility for the Sayyid’s actions towards the Ethiopians by a supplementary Anglo-Italian agreement of 19 March, 1907.⁸

While it is not difficult to understand British satisfaction, however guarded, at the conclusion of this arrangement, the Italian readiness to assume even such limited responsibilities as they had done for the Sayyid requires some explanation. It is possible that, even at this early date, the Dervishes were regarded hopefully as a potential aid to the extension of Italian interests into the Ethiopian sphere. But, probably of more significance, is the fact that Britain had in January 1905 enabled Italy to convert her lease of the Benadir coast from the Sultan of Zanzibar into an outright purchase conferring full rights of possession. In any event, the explanation given at the time to the Italian parliament by Tommaso Tittoni, the Minister responsible, was that the Illig agreement establishing peaceful relations between Italy and Sayyid Muhammad would greatly facilitate the extension of Italian authority in the Benadir. Events were soon to show how thoroughly mistaken this appreciation of the situation was.

From Illig to Taleh and defeat

The peace lasted until 1908,⁹ Sayyid Muhammad ostensibly respecting the terms of the Illig agreement while using this period of respite to recoup his strength and influence. A widespread network of spies and agents were operating in the British Protectorate, seeking to undermine the loyalty of the clans and to attract them to the Dervish cause. At the same time, Sayyid Muhammad was pursuing a minor and rather desultory war against Yusuf ‘Ali, the Sultan of Obbia who, though changeable and equivocal in his attachments, was during this period generally hostile to the Dervishes. Not so the Warsangeli clan within the British Protectorate on the eastern coast, who, under their spirited leader Garad Mahamud ‘Ali Shirre (d. 1960), had now decided to throw in their lot with the Dervishes and in January 1908 fired on a British dhow as it was landing on their coast. This incident provoked a hostile exchange of letters with the Consul at Berbera and it was evident that the Dervishes would soon be on the march again.

Meanwhile, before the next round of battles, the British Administration was presented with a convenient opportunity of countering the formidable barrage of propaganda unleashed against it by the Sayyid, whose scathing poems, which spread like wild-fire, constituted so formidable a weapon. Haji ‘Abdallah Sheheri of the Habar Tol Ja’lo clan who had hitherto acted as the Sayyid’s agent at Aden, and had played an important part in the negotiations with the Italian Consul Pestalozza leading to the Illig treaty, had gradually come to lose faith in the Dervish mission. He was thus readily persuaded by the Italian authorities to participate in a mission to Sayyid Muhammad Salih, the founder and head of the Salihiya Order, which obtained from this religious dignitary a letter referring to Muhammad ‘Abdille Hassan’s reported violations of Islamic law and threatening to repudiate him if he did not mend his ways. The contents of this somewhat mild denunciation were widely publicized by the British and Italians and the letter itself was delivered to the Sayyid at his headquarters in March, 1909.¹⁰

It appears likely that this manœuvre was jointly engineered by the British and Italian authorities, although there is little doubt also that Haji ‘Abdallah Sheheri, like many other former adherents, now regarded the Dervishes as fanatics who paid scant attention to the ordinances of Islam or the rules of the Salihiya Order. Yet although this move undoubtedly had some effect, so great was the personal charismatic power of Sayyid Muhammad, and his reputation as a quite unique figure in Somali eyes so thoroughly established, that the damage to his position was by no means such as to seriously weaken his movement. The situation indeed called for more direct action.

But having already expended large sums of money totally out of proportion to their limited interest in the Somali coast, the British government decided that before any further military operations were undertaken a new appraisal of the whole situation was necessary. A fresh opinion, it was felt, was called for; and to supply this General Sir Reginald Wingate, Governor-General of the Sudan, was appointed to visit Somaliland to assess the situation and if possible to treat directly with Sayyid Muhammad. In this latter respect the Wingate mission was singularly unsuccessful, and having considered its report, which was never published, the British government decided to cut its losses and embark upon a new policy of coastal concentration. In 1910, accordingly, the Administration withdrew to the coast evacuating the interior – little of which was in any case under stable civil rule – and arming the Isaq clans – the ‘friendlies’ as they were called – thus leaving them to protect themselves against the Dervishes. Such misgivings as were felt by the Administration were soothed by the convenient assumption that, if left undisturbed, the situation would throw up a leader capable of rallying support against the Dervishes. That the Dulbahante were left utterly unprotected was considered justified in view of the fact that they had no treaty with the British. This, however, had not prevented Britain in the past from regarding the Dulbahante as part of the Somaliland Protectorate when it was convenient to do so.