Maxamed Cabdille Xasan

Maxamed Cabdille Xasan was born in 1856 or in 1864, according to the sources, and learned the Koran by heart while young. During a pilgrimage to Mecca, he joined the Salihiyya, a reformist and rigorist Sufi brotherhood, then returned to preach in Somalia. In 1899, he proclaimed holy war against the colonial powers and their allies, and his dervishes held out for some twenty years against the British, the Italians and the Ethiopians, until the bombings that struck his fortress of Taleex in early 1920. The British called him the Mad Mullah. Having taken refuge in the Ogaden, he died there on 21 December 1920.

In the catalogue 1

• PoetryGudbanMaxamed Cabdille Xasan · 1907not translated into EnglishLiterature