The Mad Mullah was the name given by British authorities to Mohammed bin Abdullah, a Somali mullah, religious agitator and dervish of the Habr Suleiman tribe in what was then British Somaliland. He gave the British and Italian authorities no end of trouble from 1900 to 1920.

He acquired great influence in the Dolbahanta country. He was a charismatic figure credited by his followers with supernatural powers. At first peaceful, he bagan attacking neighbouring tribes friendly to the British and declared himself a Mahdi.

After heavy fighting in 1900 to 1901, British forces drove the Mullah and his followers into Italian Somaliland. However, by 1903 he was a problem again. With the cooperation of the Italians and Ethiopians, and after much fighting, including one battle on 19 January 1904 in the Nogal country where the dervishes suffered over 1,000 men killed, he was once again driven out of the colony. The Italians seemed to solve the problem through agreement with him.

In 1909 he was once again raiding tribes friendly to the British. The British Government came to the conclusion that it must withdraw from the interior of the colony. It did so in 1910 and confined its control to coastal towns.

After a while the British decided to retake their colony and launched an offensive in the summer of 1914. Unfortunately for them World War I broke out just as it was getting underway. Hastings Ismay, later Lord Ismay and Winston Churchill's military advisor during World War Two, was a staff officer during the campaign. Adrian Carton De Wiart lost an eye storming a rebel fort. The dervishes were severely handled during the campaign, but the need for troops in other theatres of the war caused a withdrawal and the Mad Mullah's forces regained control of most of the colony.

After the war the British decided to put an end to this problem. Using ground troops and aircraft, they routed dervish forces and drove the Mullah into Ethiopia in 1920. He died there in January, 1921. After this time the colony remained quiet for the rest of the British time there (except for a brief Italian occupation in World War II).

Today the Mad Mullah seems an almost quaint figure, but in many ways he bears a striking resemblance to Osama bin Ladin. He lacked bin Ladin's wealth and access to modern weapons. He did not have an overseas Moslem diaspora to tap into, so as to strike Britain at home. But, he was as charismatic as bin Ladin, as determined, and lasted for 21 years. He inflicted several defeats on the world's then superpower forcing it to withdraw from contested areas.

However, the British persisted and eventually won. All this to hold an impoverished corner of the world, not really worth having.