"[9] Osman Mahamuud's Kingdom was under attack in the mid-19th century due to a power struggle between himself and his ambitious cousin, Yusuf Ali Kenadid.

With their assistance along with aid and weaponry from Boqor Osman, he managed to overpower the local clans and establish the separate Sultanate of Hobyo (Obbia) in 1878.

April 1889 in Alula, Somalia, Boqor Osman entered into a treaty with Italy, making his kingdom a protectorate known as Italian Somaliland.

[14] In the years following the treaty the protectorate was however rather nominal due to Italian warships tasked with maintaining contact with the sultan visiting so rarely & irregularly.

In signing the agreements, the rulers also hoped to exploit the rival objectives of the European imperial powers so as to more effectively assure the continued independence of their territories.

[16] An Anglo-Italian border protocol was later signed on 5 May 1894, followed by an agreement in 1906 between Cavalier Pestalozza and General Swaine acknowledging that Baran fell under the Majeerteen Sultanate's administration.

[15] With the gradual extension into northern Somalia of Italian colonial rule, both Kingdoms were eventually annexed in the early 20th century.

[17] However, unlike the southern territories, the northern sultanates were not subject to direct rule due to the earlier treaties they had signed with the Italians.

As the primus inter pares, Boqor Osman taxed the harvest of aromatic trees and pearl fishing along the seaboard.

[22] According to official reports from 1924 commissioned by the Regio Governo della Somalia Italiana, the Majeerteen Sultanate maintained robust commercial activities before the Italian occupation of the following year.

The latter included tax collection, which typically came in the form of the obligatory Muslim alms (seko or sako) ordinarily tithed by Somalis to the poor and religious clerics (wadaads).