Muhammad Abdille Hassan (1864-1920) was a politico-religious leader and poet who is considered the father of Somali nationalism for his inspiration and leadership in a 20-year war against European and Ethiopian imperialism in Somaliland.

Muhammad Abdille Hassan was born on April 7, 1864, in northern Somaliland, and by age 12 he had decided to dedicate his life to the religion of Islam. His subsequent travels throughout Arabia and East Africa in search of knowledge, his reputation for learning, and his abilities as a teacher soon earned him the honorary title of sheikh. While in Mecca he met leaders of certain Moslem revivalist movements, and when he returned to Somalia in 1897, he began to condemn all excessive indulgences and luxuries and exhorted his people to return to a strict path of Moslem devotion.

During that era of the European partition of Africa, Sheikh Muhammad's contact with Catholic missionaries and British colonial officials...