Somaliland

The Republic of Somaliland is an unrecognized de facto state on the Horn of Africa on the coast of the Gulf of Aden adjacent to Somalia and Ethiopia. Somaliland declared independence from Somalia on May 18, 1991, following the outbreak of the Somali civil war but is internationally considered to be an autonomous region of Somalia and is not diplomatically recognized by any foreign state. The society of Somaliland is clan based, and clan structure has a powerful effect on politics and social interaction. The population of Somaliland is almost exclusively Muslim, primarily Sunnī and Sufi, and Islam is the official state religion. Islam is an important element of Somalilander identity, and there is a high rate of adherence to the religion. Somaliland, like Somalia itself, has significant historical connections with the Arabian Peninsula, and Islam spread to the region relatively early in its history.

Excellently preserved Neolithic cave paintings in the Laas Geel cave complex in Somaliland represent the first evidence for human inhabitance and religious belief in the region. Islam came to Somaliland in the 7th century and became entrenched during the 11th and 12th centuries. Somali society was traditionally decentralized, nomadic, and pastoral for much of its history. The Ottoman Empire annexed coastal portions of Somaliland in the 16th century as it provided a strategic location on the Gulf of Aden. In 1888, Britain took control of the region and instituted the British protectorate of Somaliland, ruled from British India, and this territory forms Somaliland today. In 1899, a resistance movement led by Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan challenged British control of the region. Hassan, the religious leader of the Dervish state, known colloquially as “The Mad Mullah,” waged a bloody struggle against the British for more than 20 years before succumbing to superior British military technology and force. On June 26, 1960, Somaliland gained independence from the British and remained independent for 5 days before joining with Italian Somaliland to form the Republic of Somalia.

In the late 1980s, Siad Barre, president of Somalia, who had seized power during a military coup d’état in 1969, used military forces to attack clan enemies who opposed his rule. This use of force sparked an ongoing civil war, leading to the deposition of Barre in 1991 and the collapse of the Somalian government. Somaliland declared its independence in an effort to avoid the intensifying violence in the rest of Somalia. Somaliland was then able to create a stable democratic government [Page 1197]with a functioning judicial system, which has decreased the necessity of Shari'a courts. Somaliland resisted politicized Islam, and unlike in Somalia proper, Wahhabism has had little effect on Somaliland, although there is some evidence that both trends are growing in the region.