Mohammed Abdullah Hassan - Religious Mission

Religious Mission

In 1895, Hassan returned to Berbera. The British considered Berbera merely 'Aden's butcher's shop', since they were only interested in getting regular supplies of meat from Somalia through this port for their British India outpost of Aden.

Taking advantage of Britain's complacency, Emperor Menelek II of Ethiopia asked Ras Makonnen, the Governor of his newly conquered Hararghe Province, to send armed bands to plunder and occupy Ogaden politically. The British withdrew from this area of their territory in Somalia.

In Berbera, Hassan could not succeed in spreading the teaching of the Saalihiya order due to the hostility of the local Qadiriyyah inhabitants. They did not like him criticising their eating khat, gorging on the fat of sheep's tail and following their traditional Qadiriyyah order. In 1897, he left Berbera to be with his Dulbahante kinsmen. On the way, at a place called Daymoole, he met some Somalis 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 him, 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 accusing his camp of stealing the gun and asking him to return it immediately. This enraged Hassan and he sent a very brief and curt reply refuting the allegation. Hassan's attention had been focused on the Ethiopian invaders of Somalia, but this incident brought him into conflict with the British as well. The British, Ethiopian Emperor Menelek II, and a small numbers of Somalis then joined together to crush Hassan's Dervish movement.