[8][9][10] The Dervish movement aimed to remove the British and Italian influence from the region and restore an "Islamic system of governance with a Sufi doctrine as its foundation", according to Mohamed-Rahis Hasan and Salada Robleh.

[11] Hassan established a ruling council called the Khususi consisting of Sufi tribal elders and spokesmen, added an adviser from the Ottoman Empire named Muhammad Ali, and thus created a multi-clan Islamic movement in what led to the eventual creation of the state of Somalia.

[10] According to Abdullah A. Mohamoud, traditional Somali society followed a decentralized structure and a nomadic lifestyle dependent on livestock and pastureland.

[9][10] By the close of the 19th century, the European colonial powers expanded their reach in the Horn of Africa, the region of Somalia came under the influence of the British, Ethiopians and the Italians.

The withdrawal of the Egyptian troops from Harar enabled Ras Makonnen and Menelik II to expand the burgeoning Ethiopian realm eastward into the Ogaden territory.

In 1884, Britain established a protective authority over Somaliland, aiming to safeguard Aden and the Bab-el-Mandeb strait's strategic interests in the Red Sea.

The arrival of the colonial powers and the consequent partitioning of Africa greatly affected the Somalis, with Sufi poets such as Faarax Nuur writing poems expressing his opposition to foreign rule.

[10] The Dervish movement was led by a Sufi poet and religious nationalist leader named Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, also known as Sayid Maxamad Cabdulle Xasan.

[20] It was a mobile state with fluid boundaries and fluctuating population given the guerrilla style militant approach of Dervishes and their practice of retreating to sparsely inhabited hinterland whenever the colonial forces with superior firearms overwhelmed them.

[36] Hasan commanded the Dervish movement soldiers in a martial manner, ensuring that they were religiously committed, powered up for warfare and men of character sworn with an oath of allegiance.

[39] In 1913, after the British withdrawal to the coast, the Dervishes created a walled town with fourteen fortresses in Taleh by importing masons from Yemen.

[40] The Taleh structures also included the Hed Kaldig (literally, "place of blood"), where those whom Hasan disliked were executed with or without torture and their bodies left to the hyenas.

[40][42] In an April 1920 letter transcribed from the original Arabic script into Italian by the incumbent Governatori della Somalia, the British are described taking twenty-seven garesas or 27 houses from the Dhulbahante clan.

It is said that the Bimal thanks to their size being numerically powerful, traditionally and religiously devoted fierce warriors and having possession of much resources have intrigued Mahamed Abdulle Hassan.

[11] In August 1899, the Dervish army occupied Burao, an important centre of British Somaliland, giving Muhammad Abdullah Hassan control over the city's watering places.

[46] Hassan also succeeded in making peace between the local clans and initiated a large assembly, where the population was urged to join the war against the British.

Malcolm McNeill who commanded the Somali Field Force against Hassan reported that the Dervish were completely defeated, and that they have suffered a heavy loss amounting to 2,800 killed, according to the Ethiopians.

McNeill notes that by June 1900, Hassan made his position even stronger than before his March 1900 defeat and had "practically dominated the whole of the southern portion of our Protectorate".

Lack of supplies and access to fresh drinking water in the large expanse of flat land made this a challenging feat for the British and their allies.

In contrast, Hassan and his dervishes adapted harsh conditions of the land by eating carcasses of beasts and drinking water from the dead bellies of animals.

[48] Despite possessing superior weapons, including Maxim machine guns, until 1905, the Anglo-Ethiopian forces were still struggling to gain hold on the dervish movement.

It is said that the challenge of the Dervishes presented the British with a suitable environment to trial its new doctrine of warfare, which stressed "the use of aircraft as the primary arm, usually supplemented by ground forces, according to particular requirements.

The secretary administrator of British Somaliland, Douglas James Jardine noted that the Isaaq sub clans inhabiting the Haud were in fact militarily superior and stronger than their Ogaden counterparts.

[50][51]After the bombing campaign of the Taleh fort the Dervish retreated in to the Ogaden territory in Abyssinia and the Mullah was able to attract followers from his tribe.

[61] The general consul of the Somali Coast Protectorate based in Berbera downplayed the role of antagonism to Christian missionaries to the Dervish that "originated in the Dolbahanta":[62] I do not consider that the presence of this Mission in Berbera has had anything to do with the movement that originated in the DolbahantaDouglas Jardine likewise deemphasized a religious role, rather attributing Dervish motives to "avarice" and them considering tribal confrontations as a "national sport".

After studying in the markaz in Beer he opened a Sufi tariqa (order) sometime in the 1930s, where he preached his ideology of anti-imperialism, stressing the evil of colonial rule and the bringing of radical change through war.

His ideology was shaped by a millennial bent, which according to Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm is the "hope of a complete and radical change in the world shorn of all its present deficiencies".

These Somalis were "declared infidels" and Dervish soldiers were ordered by Hasan to "kill them, their children and women and snatch all their property", according to Shultz and Dew.

[70][71] The military government of Somalia led by Mohamed Siad Barre, for example, erected statues visible between Makka Al Mukarama and Shabelle Roads in the heart of Mogadishu.

These were for three major Somali History icons: Mohammed Abdullah Hassan of the Dervish movement, Stone Thrower and Hawo Tako.