| Osman Mahamuud عثمان محمود |
|
|---|---|
| King of the Majeerteen Sultanate | |
| Reign | mid-1800s-early 1900s |
| Full name | Cismaan Maxamuud |
| Titles | Boqor |
| Dynasty | Majeerteen Dynasty |
| Religious beliefs | Islam |
Osman Mahamuud (Somali: Cismaan Maxamuud, Arabic: عثمان محمود) was a Somali ruler. He was the most prominent King of the Majeerteen Sultanate, leading the polity during its Golden Age in the mid-19th to early 20th centuries.
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The Majeerteen Sultanate was established in the mid-18th century by Somalis from the Majeerteen Darod clan. It rose to prominence the following century, under the reign of the resourceful Boqor (King) Osman Mahamuud.[1]
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."[2]
Osman Mahamuud's Sultanate was nearly destroyed in the mid-1800s by a power struggle between himself and his ambitious cousin, Yusuf Ali Kenadid. After almost five years of battle, the young upstart was finally forced into exile in Yemen. A decade later, in the 1870s, Kenadid returned from the Arabian Peninsula with a band of Hadhrami musketeers and a group of devoted lieutenants. With their assistance, he managed to overpower the local Hawiye clans and establish the separate Sultanate of Hobyo in 1878.[1][3]
In late 1889, Boqor Osman entered into a treaty with the Italians, making his realm an Italian protectorate. His rival Sultan Kenadid had signed a similar agreement vis-a-vis his own Sultanate the year before. Both rulers had signed the protectorate treaties to advance their own expansionist objectives, with Boqor Osman looking to use Italy's support in his ongoing power struggle with Kenadid over the Majeerteen Sultanate. Boqor Osman and Sultan Kenadid also hoped to exploit the conflicting interests among the European imperial powers that were then looking to control the Somali peninsula, so as to avoid direct occupation of their territories by force.[4]
With the gradual extension into northern Somalia of Italian colonial rule, both Kingdoms were eventually annexed to Italian Somaliland in the early 20th century.[4]