The Majeerteen Sultanate (, ), or Majerteen Kingdom also known as Majeerteenia and/or Migiurtinia, was a Somali kingdom centered in the Horn of Africa. Ruled by Osman Mohamoud during its golden age, the sultanate controlled the areas corresponding to modern-day Puntland. The earliest mention of the kingdom is the late 15th or 16th century. The polity had all of the organs of an integrated modern state and maintained a robust trading network. It also entered into treaties with foreign powers and exerted strong centralized authority on domestic affairs. On April 7, 1889, it became a protectorate of Italy after a treaty. After the Campaign of the Sultanates, a nearly year war, it was eventually integrated into the colony of Italian Somaliland.
Established in 1998, the autonomous Puntland state within northeastern Somalia now administers much of the former territories of the Majeerteen Sultanate (Majeerteenia).Istituto italo-africano, Africa: rivista trimestrale di studi e documentazione, Volume 56, (Edizioni africane: 2001), p.591.
History
Establishment The Majeerteen Sultanate was established by Somalis from the Majeerteen sub-clan of the Darod clan. Charles Guillain places the origins of the state in 1420. Oral traditions describe its formation at the late 15th or early 16th century. Although the area handbook series puts its emergence at the mid-18th century. Francisco Álvares, a Portuguese missionary and explorer who spent six years at the Portuguese embassy in Abyssinia, wrote about a ruler in the Guardafui region subject to Adal. The Kingdom of Adel (as they say) is a large kingdom, and it extends over the Cape of Guardafui, and there in that part another rules subject to Adel. He also describes a visit to the land between Cape Guardafui and the mountain of Felis for the purchasing of wethers and goats. This land where they were bought is between Cape Guardafui and the mountain of Felis,' and the distance between them is thirty-six miles. And it is a very sterile land, with very bad people; money is not used there, only cloths, and the thicker they are the higher they are valued. And much white salt and much white gum are found in this land; and the Captain Major gave orders for a large quantity to be taken on to be sent to Portugal, as they said it was good for caulking ships.It was a semi-nomadic Sultanate, which appeared to have a strong seafaring tradition along the coastal settlements. The Sultanate rose to prominence during the 19th century, under the reign of the shrewd and resourceful Boqor (King) Osman Mahamuud.Helen Chapin Metz, ed., Somalia: a country study, (The Division: 1993), p.10. Haji Ali Majeerteens invasion of the Geledi
Haji Ali Majeerteen arrived in Merca and formed an alliance with the Bimaal clan. He settled in the area near Merca with the consent of the Bimaal clan and began his Dawah activities and education programs. It is established that Ali had secret plans for himself to form a colony at the port of Mungiya, the point where Shabelle River was closest to the Indian Ocean and had obtained permission from Sultan Yusuf Mahamud Ibrahim of the Geledi Sultanate to do so. However, initially, he attempted to play the role of a peacemaker between Sultan Yusuf and the Bimaal clan in their conflict, sending a letter to Sultan Yusuf requesting him that he accepts his reconciliation proposal. The Sultan, upon hearing of the proposal refused the offer, feeling disrespected that a newcomer would interfere with his internal affairs.
Haji Ali was furious and in response declared war against the Geledi and his men raided a string villages near the capital of the Geledi, Afgooye. This included the coastal city of Barawa. Yusuf and the Geledi army confronted Haji Ali's well armed followers which mainly hailed from the Majeerteen tribe, and annihilated them in battle. Munginya was burnt to the ground and Haji Ali's ambitious dreams ended.
Haji Ali’s response Haji Ali penned a letter he sent to the people of Barawa on the Banaadir coast, in that he considered the Geledi Sultanate a polity adhering to a deviated sect, (Firqa Al-Dalah). According to him, this deviation had to be stamped out through either Dawah or ultimate Jihad.
Following his defeat against the Sultans of the Geledi, Sheikh Ali stated that
The hardline stance of Haji Ali, to the propagation of Islam among his people, his mobilization of armed followers, and his siding with the Bimaal clan against Geledi Sultanate displays the militant ideology akin to the Bardera Jama, and the new Wahhabi tendency that was emerging across the Muslim world at the time. Majeerteen-British agreement
Due to consistent ship crashes along the northeastern Cape Guardafui headland, Boqor Osman's kingdom entered into an informal agreement with Britain, wherein the British agreed to pay the King annual subsidies to protect shipwrecked British crews and guard wrecks against plunder. The agreement, however, remained unratified, as the British feared that doing so would "give other powers a precedent for making agreements with the Somalis, who seemed ready to enter into relations with all comers."David D. Laitin, Politics, Language, and Thought: The Somali Experience, (University Of Chicago Press: 1977), p.71
War with Yusuf Ali Kenadid and the Sultanate of Hobyo
Boqor 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 Kenadiid. After almost five years of battle, the young upstart was terribly defeated and the Sultan Kenadiid was finally forced into exile in Yemen. A decade later, in the 1870s, Kenadiid returned from the Arabian Peninsula with a band of Hadhrami musketeers and a group of devoted lieutenants. With their assistance he managed to break away from Majeerteenia, then overpower the local Habar Gidir in Mudug, and establish the separate Sultanate of Hobyo in 1878.
Majeerteen-Italian treaties In the late 19th century, all extant Somali monarchs entered into treaties with one of the colonial powers, Abyssinia, Britain or Italy, except for the Dhulbahante clan, since the Italians considered part of the Dhulbahante subject of the Italian-protected Sultan of Majeerteen. With the intermediation of Sultan Yusuf Ali Kenadid and after a conference of all notables of the sultanate in Bargal, in 7 April 1889 in Alula, Boqor Osman entered into a treaty with Italy, making his kingdom a protectorate known as Italian Somaliland.
In the years following the treaty the protectorate was however rather nominal due to Italian warships tasked with maintaining contact with the sultan and visiting so rarely and irregularly. Piracy, looting of crashed steamships, weapons trade and slave trade could be carried out with almost no consequences.
His second cousin and rival Sultan Yusuf Ali Kenadid had signed a similar agreement vis-a-vis his own Sultanate of Hobyo the year before. Both Boqor Osman and Sultan Kenadid had entered into the protectorate treaties to advance their own expansionist goals, with Sultan Kenadid looking to use Italy's support in his ongoing power struggle with Boqor Osman over the Majeerteen Sultanate, as well as in a separate conflict with the Omani Sultan of Zanzibar over an area to the north of Warsheikh. 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.Issa-Salwe (1996), 34–35.
The terms of each treaty specified that Italy was to steer clear of any interference in the sultanates' respective administrations. In return for Italian arms and an annual subsidy, the sultans conceded to a minimum of oversight and economic concessions.Hess (1964), 416–17. The Italians also agreed to dispatch a few ambassadors to promote both the sultanates' and their own interests. The new protectorates were thereafter managed by Vincenzo Filonardi through a chartered company. 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. With the gradual extension into northern Somalia of Italian colonial rule, both kingdoms were eventually annexed in the early 20th century.The Majeerteen Sultanates 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.
Lead up to the Campaign of the Sultanates
With the arrival of Governor Cesare Maria De Vecchi on 15 December 1923, things began to change in Somalia, Italy had access to these areas under the successive protection treaties, but not direct rule. The Fascist government had direct rule only over the majority of Benadir territory. Given the defeat of the Dervish movement in the early 1920s, and the rise of fascism in Europe, on 1925, Mussolini gave the green light to De Vecchi to start the takeover of the northern sultanates. Everything was to be changed and the treaties abrogated.
To make the enforcement of his plan more viable, he began to reconstitute the old Somali police corps, the Corpo Zaptié, and the new Dubats as a colonial force. Who were mostly led by Capo Hersi Gurey, a major ally of Italy in this conflict.
In preparation for the plan of invasion of the sultanates, the Alula Commissioner, E. Coronaro received orders in April 1924 to carry out a reconnaissance on the territories targeted for invasion. In spite of the forty year Italian relationship with the sultanates, Italy did not have adequate knowledge of the geography. During this time, the Stefanini-Puccioni geological survey was scheduled to take place. Such, concluded that the Majeerteen Sultanate depended on sea traffic, therefore, if this were blocked any resistance could be “mounted” as the first stage of the invasion plan, Governor De Vecchi ordered the two Sultanates to disarm. The reaction of both sultanates was to object, as they felt the policy was against the protectorate agreements. The pressure engendered by the new development forced the two northern sultanates, Hobyo and Majeerteenia, to settle their differences, and form a united front against their common enemy.
Conflict The new Alula commissioner, presented Boqor Osman with an ultimatum to disarm and surrender. Meanwhile, Italian troops began to pour into the sultanate in anticipation of this operation. While landing at Haafuun and Alula, the sultanate's troops opened fire on them. Fierce fighting ensued and to avoid escalating the conflict and to press the fascist government to revoke their policy, Boqor Osman tried to open a dialogue. However, he failed, and again fighting broke out between the two parties. Following this disturbance, on 7 October the Governor instructed Coronaro to order the Sultan to surrender; to intimidate the people he ordered the seizure of all merchant boats in the Alula area. At Hafun, Arimondi bombarded and destroyed all the boats in the area.
On 13 October Coronaro was to meet Boqor Osman at Baargaal to press for his surrender. Under siege already, Boqor Osman was playing for time. However, on 23 October, Boqor Osman sent an angry response to the Governor defying his order. Following this a full-scale naval attack was ordered in November. Baargaal is bombed by the Italian cruiser 'Campania' for 22 hours after initial Italian efforts to take the town are pushed back and several Italian officers are killed. The attempt of the Italians to suppress the region erupted into an explosive confrontation. The Italians were meeting fierce resistance on many fronts. In December 1925, led by the charismatic leader Hersi Boqor, son of Boqor Osman, the sultanate forces drove the Italians out of Hurdia and Haafuun, two strategic coastal towns.