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Somalia The Majeerteen Sultanates
Farther east on the Majeerteen (Bari) coast, by the middle of
the nineteenth century two tiny kingdoms emerged that would play
a significant political role on the Somali Peninsula prior to
colonization. These were the Majeerteen Sultanate of Boqor Ismaan
Mahamuud, and that of his kinsman Sultan Yuusuf Ali Keenadiid of
Hobyo (Obbia). The Majeerteen Sultanate originated in the
mideighteenth century, but only came into its own in the
nineteenth century with the reign of the resourceful Boqor Ismaan
Mahamuud. Ismaan Mahamuud's kingdom benefited from British
subsidies (for protecting the British naval crews that were
shipwrecked periodically on the Somali coast) and from a liberal
trade policy that facilitated a flourishing commerce in
livestock, ostrich feathers, and gum arabic. While acknowledging
a vague vassalage to the British, the sultan kept his desert
kingdom free until well after 1800.
Boqor Ismaan Mahamuud's sultanate was nearly destroyed in the
middle of the nineteenth century by a power struggle between him
and his young, ambitious cousin, Keenadiid. Nearly five years of
destructive civil war passed before Boqor Ismaan Mahamuud managed
to stave off the challenge of the young upstart, who was finally
driven into exile in Arabia. A decade later, in the 1870s,
Keenadiid returned from Arabia with a score of Hadhrami
musketeers and a band of devoted lieutenants. With their help, he
carved out the small kingdom of Hobyo after conquering the local
Hawiye clans. Both kingdoms, however, were gradually absorbed by
the extension into southern Somalia of Italian colonial rule in
the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
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