Africa during the Scramble: Poetry in the Desert

[Gary Oswald]

Discuss this new article by @Gary Oswald here

 

[Charles EP M.]

Some sources indicate a death toll of nearly a third of the able men of British Somaliland during the next ten years as a result of this anarchy.

Bloody hell.

(An actual Dervish state being carved out for seven years because everyone's distracted is amazing. Wonder how that would've developed if it had been able to hold out longer?)

 

[TR1996]

How did the Mullah's take on Islam mesh with that of the Ottomans? Would they even be favourably disposed to him in the event of a massive Central Powers-wank?

 

[Gary Oswald]

Bloody hell.

Imperial apologists often used that as 'see we were needed there, to keep the peace' which is a take.

(An actual Dervish state being carved out for seven years because everyone's distracted is amazing. Wonder how that would've developed if it had been able to hold out longer?)

One of the things the Dervish state was developing was an establishment of a pan Somali identify beyond clan loyalties (proto nationalism like I said but the Mullah was big on referring to people simply as dervishes rather than by their prior identities) and a much stricter sharia law replacing the clan democracy. In terms of effectiveness, it's difficult to argue it was one man's charisma holding it together and there'd be a crisis at his death. Also there was a reign of terror in terms of routine tortures and executions of those deemed disloyal that is unsustainable with such small numbers of rebels and we know that put off other Somali so I'd say the state would have to reform in order to attract more recruits.

How did the Mullah's take on Islam mesh with that of the Ottomans? Would they even be favourably disposed to him in the event of a massive Central Powers-wank?

I think, in the very unlikely event of an ottoman push through British North Africa they'd probably not be inclined to turn down a rebel wanting to join forces but yeah I wouldn't expect it to be a frictionless relationship. Everything I've read indicates that the Mahdi and the Mullah were part of the same reactionary movement and the Mahdi declared the Ottomans to be non muslims. If the ottomans attempted to take personal control of Somalia, they'd almost certainly sideline him, though they might be inclined to just let him do him and not care (I don't know enough about how they dealt with the Saudi to know for sure, cos that's a similar situation).

Its difficult to see any particular reason, beyond worry about a spreading heresy, why the Ottomans would care about who controlled Somalia, tbh. They might throw some guns at the Mullah if it meant the British were distracted but I doubt they'd particularly argue for it in the peace process or care that much if the rebels win or not.

 

[Doctor Sulemain]

It's gotta take some nerve to call the Caliph a non-Muslim.

 

[napoleon IV]

It's gotta take some nerve to call the Caliph a non-Muslim.

Muslims have been calling the Caliph a non-Muslim since there was a Caliph. Hell, there were probably some Muslims back in the 620s who said Muhammad wasn't a true Muslim. It's like how Catholics invariably hate whoever is Pope and wish we could go back to the time when a truly godly man sat in The Chair of St. Peter.

 

[Avian Overlord]

It's gotta take some nerve to call the Caliph a non-Muslim.

Isn't that basically the Sunni/Shi'ite split?

 

[Doctor Sulemain]

Muslims have been calling the Caliph a non-Muslim since there was a Caliph. Hell, there were probably some Muslims back in the 620s who said Muhammad wasn't a true Muslim. It's like how Catholics invariably hate whoever is Pope and wish we could go back to the time when a truly godly man sat in The Chair of St. Peter.

Yeah fair point.

 

[Death's Companion]

Muslims have been calling the Caliph a non-Muslim since there was a Caliph. Hell, there were probably some Muslims back in the 620s who said Muhammad wasn't a true Muslim. It's like how Catholics invariably hate whoever is Pope and wish we could go back to the time when a truly godly man sat in The Chair of St. Peter.

I think you are just a shitty Catholic.

Us true believers have total faith in the bishop of (insert anti Pope seat here).

 

[Geordie]

Bloody hell.

My words exactly.

The Mullah does feel a bit like a recurring antagonist (or, I suppose, protagonist) who keeps slipping through the net in order to reach the sequel. I can imagine reviewers complaining "So now it's the Italian authorities who are letting him operate? What's next, British collapse leaving a vacuum for him to exploit?", but it obviously happened.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

This series is tremendous, and in the next month I'm going to try and make a contribution to it.

 

[Jared]

This series is tremendous

Always an ambiguous word on this forum.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

Always an ambiguous word on this forum.

You'll like my piece, it's going to have Banjo Paterson writing poetry from the point of view of the Mahdi.

 

[Roger II]

Isn't that basically the Sunni/Shi'ite split?

I mean not really? It very much started as a split over political leadership without religious implications which morphed into a split about 1) religious guidance for the believers and 2) esoteric theology (and Robert Hoyland makes the argument that the Rashidun as a unit was a way for religious scholars who didn't think the caliph had authority to make religious rulings to split off present-day caliphal authority). The contention was "they are not the rightful leaders of the community" not "they are not muslims and their followers are not muslims"-and until the Abbasid period the split didn't have "religious" so to speak implications.