Starting in the late 1890s, Mohammad Abdullah Hassan rallied the Somali people to fight against European expansion in East Africa. With Hassan’s impassioned battle cry, the Dervish State was created, encompassing northern Somalia. Meanwhile, on the eastern shores, the Sultan of Zanzibar leased the city of Mogadishu to Italy in 1905. Known as Mogadiscio, the city became the capital of Italian Somaliland, which stretched from the Eastern tip of British Somaliland all the way down the coast to Kenya.
To the right, Somali soldiers stand for a portrait photograph, taken in Yemen in the early 1900s. A French postcard shows a young man wearing traditional attire on the left.
