Secret Policemen and Funky Bass Lines: A Somali Democratic Republic TL

[GoulashComrade]

Caashooy [Wildcats] by Ahmed Abubakar and the Sharero Band

Salaad Gabeyre Kediye just prior to the Las Anod coup



"In Moscow, we were taught that revolution is a science, carefully plotted and planned. Revolution is a science, one only needs to study Lenin to see that, but any person who has been in the vanguard of great social change can tell you that it is a messy science. When the first comrades of the Academy and I discussed the future, we imagined ourselves as herders leading the camel of state to water. In practice, the camel runs to water without your help and you're left clinging to the back, hoping to stay on. I didn't understand the meaning of the maxim "the masses lead, the statesmen follow" until the day after Las Anod.
--- Jaalle Salaad Gabeyre Kediye, excerpted from his memoirs

Introducing the TL​

Welcome to Secret Policemen and Funky Bass Lines (or as I like to call it, The TL My Grandpa Would Have Wanted Me to Write.)

During the late Sixties and Seventies, the Somali Democratic Republic may have been the most topsy-turvey place in Africa. Communism was associated with prosperity, religious freedom, and the blossoming of the arts, while the lingering taste of Shemarke's Somali Republic left the concept of liberal democracy tied to corruption, the violent suppression of Islam, and cultural stagnation in the minds of the Somali public.


There were power struggles and rights abuses inside the Supreme Revolutionary Council's "Blue Star Republic", but the coming of scientific socialism was an economic boon compared to the mismanagement of the former country. The country also similarly abandoned its anti-tribal stances after Siad Barre killed his fellow Troika members Kediye and Koshel, then centralized power in the grasp of his Marehan clan. On the other hand, food production greatly increased, as inital plans for forced collectivization were abandoned early on in favor of introducing farming colleges and subsidizing the mechanization of agriculture. The Somali military was one of the largest and most modernized in all of Africa, thanks to purchases of surplus military hardware from the Warsaw Pact and the prevalence of Soviet Army trainers. Small businesses were allowed to run as before while the government nationalized and expanded manufacturing. The XHKS (Xisbiga Hantiwadaagga Kacaanka Soomaaliyeed, or Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party) pushed heavily for the inclusion of women in the workforce, universities, and military while remaining popular with the moderate ulema for ending the Somali Republic's suppression of mosque jama'ah prayers. All this was possible because the XHKS was pragmatic enough to make serious efforts toward improving the daily lives of Somali citizens, and the citizens of the SDR were alright with having the Supreme Revolutionary Council heading the country if it kept them away from the kleptocratic sectionalist mess that was the Somali Republic and pointed them towards increasing modernization/wealth.


The most incredible part of the Somali Democratic Republic was the renaissance in new music, art, and literature that happened during the first 20 to 25 years under its government. With the XHKS generally well-liked by the populace, the party allowed and actually promoted everything from expressive new paintings to modernist versions of Somali traditional poetry. The government allowed its citizens to watch Western movies, particularly Italian and French films, in large public cinemas. A veritable explosion in new music occurred, with jazz, blues, and funk making waves in Hargeisa's nightclubs.


We know how this story ends, though. Like a dictatorial Icarus, Siad Barre flies too close to the Sun when he rejects Soviet calls for a ceasefire after grabbing the Ogaden. He wanted to push into Addis Ababa and humiliate the Ethiopians, instead losing all of his gains as well as the friendship of the Warsaw Pact. Having spent millions on a top-quality military just to blow it at the final moment, the XHKS had broken the unspoken agreement between the populace and the party. When people raised their voices in protest, Siad stopped the "gentle hand" style of rule preferred by the party in the past and went full Stalin. The Hangash gendarme went from political legbreakers to vicious killers, the security services dragged out families in the night to disappear into the bowels of the installation called "The Hyena's Den", and members of non-Darod tribes were expelled from the Congress. When the North's Issaq tribe rose in revolt, Barre went to total war with his own people and terror bombed modern-day Somaliland. The Blue Star Republic descended into a brutal civil war that has left the country divided to this day.

This TL will explore what the Horn of Africa could have been like if the Somali Democratic Republic held on to its golden days, if the dark times following the Ogaden disaster never came to pass. Particularly, we'll see would have happened if the popular young Comrade Kediye came out on top of the brief but bloody power struggle between the members of the revolutionary troika.




You've got a real suspicious screen name there, pal. Are you some kind of tankie Siad apologist? Not in the slightest, mate. My family is from the Issaq in Burao, so I have a truly depressing number of relatives who died at that butcher's hands. I'm not writing this for that guy, and he's gonna be offed quick to be frank, but I won't make Kediye to be some saint either. I'm a socialist, but I don't think authoritarian party rule lends itself well to a "flowers and happiness forever" kind of governance.

I will say that as a son of Somalia, the thought that we as a nation had struggled up from the depth of colonial oppression to the heights of the Seventies just to crash back down to failed state status hurts a lot too. I'll try to have events occur as they would logically and there won't be any "XHKS conquers all of Arabia and builds a rocket to Mars" ASB-type scenarios, but we need a good Somalia-wank on the board!


I thought there weren't many records or studies done on the SDR following the Civil War? What are you gonna use for sources? It's true that the coming of the Civil War really screwed the progress of a lot of Western scholarship into the workings of the Somali Democratic Republic, the stabilization of Puntland and Somaliland means that there's a considerable amount of really good studies being done by professors and investigative journalists in Somali. Luckily for us, Somali is a language I read


What's with the YouTube link? I'll admit, it's a blatant ripoff of @The Red and the fantastic art/film accompaniments he does for his "Our Struggle" TL. A big part of understanding the weird world of Communist Somalia is getting to know the wonderful array of popular and experimental music that it produced. There's everything from Somali operas to Somali bluegrass to Somali neo-traditional music, but the American music that caught on the most in the Democratic Republic was funk. There's some wild tracks out there and I'll try to include some in the TL as we go along so that readers can immerse themselves a bit better in Kediye's Somalia.

 

[The Red]

A great concept, I'm looking forward to more!

 

[Neoteros]

From what I've read and heard from very elderly first-hand sources, Somalia's experience with colonialism might be summed up in the phrase "illiterate, poor peasants from rural Italy being forced to fight against a people they didn't even know the name of by a cadre of genocidal madmen that tried to overcompensate for their lack of prestige on the international stage by being even more hateful and racist than their British and French counterparts while having less than half the firepower". After what happened, it's a miracle the place could even bounce back in the 1970s, even if it didn't last.

I'm looking forward to more, anything that could make Mussolini roll over in his grave is welcome.

 

[ramones1986]

This is promising, especially for a country with little AH coverage like Somalia. Watched.

 

[Art]

Indeed probably Red Sea piracy is put down by a Somali navy, rather than run by Somali pirates.

 

[Some Bloke]

The title made me laugh. I'm following this.

 

[St. Just]

Communism and funk? Sign me up!

 

[Electric Monk]

Pop culture in booming Somalia? Sold!

 

[Zulfurium]

Another incredibly fascinating Timeline about a country and period I know absolutely nothing about? Fantastic! Sign me up

 

[GermanDjinn]

seems interesting, can't wait to see where it'll go

 

[GoulashComrade]

The Birth and Death of an Illiberal Democracy - Part I​

Dooyo [Wandering] - Sahra Dawo on vocals with the Dur Dur Band

An early Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party anti-corruption poster, showing a hand labeled "the rectifying revolution" stabbing a shadowy arm [1] grasping at money. The upper text reads "THE CROOKS WHO GET RICH BY STEALING OUR WEALTH WILL NOT BE MISSED BY THE SWORD OF REVOLUTION!"




"Everything you might want to know concerning what Abdi [2] thought about the First Somali Republic can be summed up by the fact that the news of President Shermarke's assassination was celebrated with all-night parties in Mogadishu coffeehouses and prayers of thankfulness at the Masjid al-Qiblatayn."
--- Colonel Axmed Maxamed Guuleed, first chairman of Somali National Movement rebel milita

"We'd watch these movies, from Britain or Italy or wherever, and all the characters on screen talked about how bad living under Communism would be. We, I mean my sisters and I, we'd never get it. The Somali Youth League were the ones who failed to keep their promises of progress and growth. Under the old Parliament, we never had enough to eat and nobody could afford to become a musician. After the XHKS, the government took over all the big clan conglomerates so regular people could open up shops, while they built up the industry. Electric lights in streets, cars on every curb, TVs in every home, big government grants for singers and performers; that was all the Communists. We thought the white people were crazy. [3]"
--- Nimco Jamaac, singer-songwriter and theater actor






Excerpted from "British Colonial Somalia: Underpinnings for a Communist State" by Raageh Omar

"The Somali Republic has often been described by historians studying post-colonial Africa as an dysfunctional centrist oligarchy, doomed to fall apart because of both social pressures and external factors, but perhaps the novelist Nuruddin Farah said it best when he called the Somali Youth League's nationalist dream a "reanimated cadaver, already dead but made to keep walking by unnatural energies." This dark (if evocative) sentiment aside, the first Republic is important in understanding the later progression of the heterodox Communist rule of Kediye's XHKS. The defeat of their former Fascist Italian masters who had seemed invincible not only gave the new British Administration great prestige in Somali eyes, but also prompted an increasing Somali sophistication in the evaluation of foreign nations. In practical terms, the liberalizing effect of the British Military Administration, while it did not lead to the promotion of Somali civil servants to the extent followed in Eritrea, led to the training of a cadre of junior Somali officials and a smaller number of more senior police officers. This, as later events were to show, provided a sound if modest basis for more extensive Somali advancement in the civil service in the trusteeship period preceding independence. Of even greater significance, however, was the Administration’s attitude towards local politics. Once it had found its feet, the new government abolished the restrictions of the Italian régime on local political associations and clubs. Immediately, a proliferation of Italian societies arose, expressing all shades of metropolitan opinion from that of the extreme right to the extreme left. After the fall of the fascists, local branches of the Christian Democrats gained the largest affiliation amongst the Italian community. All these Italian groups were naturally interested in the question of the future status of Somalia, an issue on which all shades of Italian party opinion showed virtual unanimity, the strength of patriotism being apparently greater than that of party doctrine. This issue and the upsurge of activity among the Italian clubs and associations attracted considerable Somali interest.


In these conditions, the currents of progressive Somali opinion which had begun to seek expression in the closing days of the fascist period, took concrete form with the establishment of a number of Somali societies and clubs. The first and most important of these movements to achieve a formal existence was the Somali Youth Club opened at Mogadishu on 13 May, 1943, after several weeks of discussion with the local Political Officer on the form of the society’s constitution. The Club had thirteen founder members representing all the main Somali clan groups. Much of the inspiration came from ‘Abdulqadir Sekhawe Din, a prominent religious figure of Mogadishu, and from Yasin Haji ‘Isman Shirmarke of the Majerteyn clan of northern Somalia. Another prominent religious leader who played an important part in the Club’s early days was Haji Muhammad Husseyn, also of Mogadishu. Thus, from its inception the new society contained representatives of the majority of the traditional clan divisions within the nation, and of men of religion as well as laymen, united in the desire to abolish the wasteful clan rivalries of the past and to establish a new conception of nationhood. These aims had always been present in Somali Islam, and forty years earlier, at the time of Sayyid Muhammad ‘Abdille Hassan, this was the only means by which national patriotism could be expressed coherently. Now, however, these religious aims were married to a modern consciousness of nationhood, and strengthened by a desire for progress in general expressed through the new vehicle of the Somali Youth Club.


By 1946 the British Military Administration officially estimated the Club to number no less than 25,000 affiliates, and by the end of 1947 it had changed its name to the Somali Youth League and was strongly organized as a political machine with branches throughout Somalia, in the Ogaden, Haud, British Protectorate, and even in Kenya where its activities, in a different administrative milieu, were viewed with distinctly less favour. The League had now a four point programme: ‘To unite all Somalis generally, and the youth especially with the consequent repudiation of all harmful old prejudices (such, for example, as tribal and clan distinctions); To educate the youth in modern civilization by means of schools and by cultural propaganda circles; To take an interest in and assist in eliminating by constitutional and legal means any existing or future situations which might be prejudicial to the interests of the Somali people; And finally, to develop the Somali language and to assist in putting into use among Somalis the ‘Osmaniya Somali script.’


These were aims with which, as will be evident, no reasonable and self-proclaimed progressive administration could possibly find fault. Of particular interest in this programme is its realistic attitude towards modern education, so different from the traditional religious opposition to western schooling. Nor was the League’s view on this matter merely verbal propaganda. Already, on its own initiative, and with the approval of the Administration, the S.Y.L. had opened a number of schools and classes in English. Now too, the ingenious Somali ‘Osmaniya script, was no longer merely a cultural curiosity, but had acquired definite nationalist significance. The difficulties attending its wholesale adoption, partly practical and partly as a result of competition with Arabic, have proved more intractable than some of the other objectives in this initial S.Y.L. statement of policy.


Although the largest and best organized movement, the League was not the only organization to emerge in this initial period. Apart from a number of ephemeral smaller groups, mainly with limited local and particularistic interests, the most important rival was originally formed under the name of the Patriotic Benefit Union, or ‘Jumiya’, representing chiefly southern Rahanweyn and Digil tribesmen, the partly Bantu riverine peoples, and some of the local Arab community. This organization, with the welcome addition of Italian financial support, favoured a more conservative policy and sought particularly to protect the interests of the southern agricultural tribesmen from domination by the northern nomads who overwhelmingly supported the League. Out of this body, which was markedly less anti-Italian than its rival, developed the Hizbia Digil-Mirifle Somali, formed on 25 March, 1947, under the presidency of Sheikh ‘Abdallah Sheikh Muhammad. Meanwhile, the tempo of political activity and interest had soared after the war with increasing speculation on the future status of the Somalilands, an issue which could only be resolved in the context of the whole tangled problem of the disposal of all the former Italian colonies. Already Ethiopia was pressing for the return of the Ogaden and Reserved Areas, her sovereignty over which had been recognized in the 1942 and 1944 Anglo-Ethiopian Agreements. Ethiopian pretensions extended also even to Somalia, which of course Italy was now claiming strongly. To the four Powers initially charged with the disposal of the Italian colonies, however, the British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, sensibly proposed in the spring of 1946 that the interests of the Somali people would be best served if the existing union of Somali territories were continued. A trusteeship, preferably under Britain, although this was not an essential condition, was suggested.


Unfortunately for Somali aspirations but scarcely surprisingly, this solution was strenuously opposed by Ethiopia. Nor was Ethiopia to be distracted from her determination to regain the Ogaden by the promise of British support for her claims to Eritrea, or more directly, by the offer of the port of Zeila and parts of the north-west of the Protectorate in exchange for those areas of the Haud and Ogaden regularly frequented by British protected clansmen in their grazing movements. This tardy British attempt to adjust the situation showed some concern for Somali nomadic interests, and a recognition of the real problems created by the partition of a nomadic people. Even under the unitary control of the British Military Administration these had proved singularly troublesome and had been a constant source of friction. This argument, however, had no appeal for Ethiopia. Nor did it carry much weight with the other three powers concerned with the problem of the disposal of the Italian territories..."

1. The hand is actually based on the gnarled claw of an evil cannibal witch from Somali folklore called Dhegdheer (or Long Ear in English.) Unsurprisingly, her trademark feature is one long ear which she used to hear her human prey from long distances away. Mostly used as a scary story to freak out kids, her greedy nature leading to her eventual defeat is also something like an Aesop's Fable warning against selfishness in Somali culture. Naturally, she's used heavily by the XHKS in propaganda denouncing wreckers and capitalists. She's basically the Porky meme of 70s Somalia.
2. "Abdi" or "the average Abdi" is Somali slang for any random person, much like "Joe Shmoe" or "John Q. Public" in English.
   
3. A good way to think about the first 20 years of "the soft rule" under the XHKS is to imagine a proto-Dengist semicommand economy with the government holding the "controlling heights" of the economy in their hands, combined with a liberal stance on social control, Islamic overtones, and fervent Somali irredentism.

EDIT: Thanks for all the interest and kind comments! It's not well-known that Somalia's Communists were so initially successful, though they did have a lot going for them. The Somali Youth League did the nasty work of forcibly settling many nomadic populations, suppressing the tribal separatists, and crushing the conservative wing of the ulema. This made them widely unpopular, letting the Communists come off squeaky clean because the previous regime had committed most of the atrocities they would have had to do if they ran things from the start. As far as the Communists themselves, they were remarkably pragmatic as far as allowing capitalism and freeholding farmers to run at the small scale while quickly taking over industries. They never picked up the abhorrence of Western media that other parties did and had tons of Warsaw Pact money poured in because of Somalia's strategic location. It's basically the mirror image of the hardliner Derg that takes power in Ethiopia.

 

[King of the Uzbeks]

Interesting. I'm greatly enjoying thus as I am your other timeline.

 

[fasquardon]

Ohhh, just the timeline I've been waiting for! I've always found this period of Somali history fascinating.

If you are able to throw more light on how the Somali economy worked at this point, I'd be grateful.

fasquardon

 

[GoulashComrade]

Ohhh, just the timeline I've been waiting for! I've always found this period of Somali history fascinating.

If you are able to throw more light on how the Somali economy worked at this point, I'd be grateful.

fasquardon

Thanks for reading and commenting, fam!

If you're wondering what the economy is like at this stage under the British rule, just the rudiments of capitalist industry are showing up in Somalia, with the caveat that the British are strangling the aspirations of native-born industrialists in favor of Brit-corps like imperialists tend to do. At this point, Somalia holds the paradoxical position of being one of Sub-Saharan Africa's most urbanized colonies while also having one of (if not THE) largest pastoral nomadic populations in the world. The nomad herdsfolk make up something around 36% of Somalia's citizens and a large part of the meat and dairy production business, though it's hard to measure their population or tie them to one state or the other because the nomads couldn't care less about borders.

 

[fasquardon]

If you're wondering what the economy is like at this stage under the British rule, just the rudiments of capitalist industry are showing up in Somalia, with the caveat that the British are strangling the aspirations of native-born industrialists in favor of Brit-corps like imperialists tend to do. At this point, Somalia holds the paradoxical position of being one of Sub-Saharan Africa's most urbanized colonies while also having one of (if not THE) largest pastoral nomadic populations in the world. The nomad herdsfolk make up something around 36% of Somalia's citizens and a large part of the meat and dairy production business, though it's hard to measure their population or tie them to one state or the other because the nomads couldn't care less about borders.

Hm. Is that why I've read people saying that environmental degradation was factor in what made Barre thrust Somalia into the Ogaden war? The nomadic sector was dropping in productivity and quality of life so he tries to invade Ethiopia to remove Ethiopian interference with the nomadic migrations?

And what did Somalia export at this point? Meat and qat?

EDIT: And suddenly I am imagining a TL where qat imported from their Somali ally is seen as an epidemic drug problem like marijuana from Mexico was seen by the US...

fasquardon

 

[ETA50M]

This looks like its going to be so exciting. Someone writing a possible Greater Somalia/Somali Wank TL rather than endless WIs about the Ogaden war. I had some ideas about a POD centered on Imam Ahmed's Conquest of Abbysina succeeding but I'm still gathering sources on it.

 

[GoulashComrade]

Hm. Is that why I've read people saying that environmental degradation was factor in what made Barre thrust Somalia into the Ogaden war? The nomadic sector was dropping in productivity and quality of life so he tries to invade Ethiopia to remove Ethiopian interference with the nomadic migrations

Environmental concerns were beginning to take hold, particularly the eternal quest to get enough water for the citizenry from the Jubba and Shabele Rivers, but if anything, the nomads would be the ones who could take that hit the best. They're a remarkably adaptable people who are used to living in sparse conditions and the return of many agricultural Somalis to nomadism saved thousands of lives during the famines following the government's collapse. I'd say that the blocking of traditional nomad migration paths was the reason for the drop in the productivity of the meat and dairy sector of the economy, which started just after the porous Ethiopian border became increasingly patrolled. When faced with prospect of having their flocks die because some suit told them the watering hole their family used for a century is now on the other side of an imaginary line on a map, it's unsurprising that many nomads began a low intensity border war with the Ethiopian authorities. Pressure from the nomad community was part of the justification, but you have to remember, the Somalis honestly didn't see this as another country's territory. The Ogaden and the NFD had voted in plebicites to join with Somalia, but the British gave them away to other polities. In their minds, the Somali Communists were simply correcting a wrong done to them by the colonial powers.

And what did Somalia export at this point? Meat and qat?

EDIT: And suddenly I am imagining a TL where qat imported from their Somali ally is seen as an epidemic drug problem like marijuana from Mexico was seen by the US...

In the colonial days? Mostly meat, but interestingly, the production of qat was small-scale and mostly intended for local consumption. This is due to the fact that qat is a "thirsty plant", in that it requires a large amount of water for a semi-arid agricultural situation. With the British (as much as I like to bash the Brit-Colonials, the career officers in the Somali service post-WW2 were often men who cared deeply for their "charges" and tried to improve aspects of Somali life according to their ideas of progress) and the Communist government later on subsidizing the growing of crops like millet and coffee, there was no reason for farmers to grow such a wasteful plant except in small amounts for local trade. With the collapse of the government, suddenly farmers couldn't support themselves on growing millet and coffee alone, especially with a much reduced population of city Somalis to sell to. They resorted to intensive growing of qat, which brought in enough money through the drug trade to keep them afloat, but destroyed the soil and accelerated the famines when the only reliable source of grains left in the country vanished in favor of drugs.

A black market export that was very important to the colonial economy at this time was guns. The Brits brought cheap and simple-to-make Sten guns to the Horn post-WW2 and Somalis quickly figured out how to produce homebuilt versions. The nomads supplemented their meat/milk income by running guns to the Mau Mau rebels during their insurgency and after arming themselves to the teeth, they could basically go where they pleased since a large nomad family at this time could probably outgun an actual Ethiopian military patrol.

This fascination of Somalis with military tech is really old, as old as the days when the Dervish State stole Maxim guns and tore apart colonial troops with them. There's a saying of Sayyid Muhammad Abdullah Hassan that Somalis are fond of; it basically translates to - "A European colonist without the advantage of his guns is nothing but a confused man far from home."

 

[GoulashComrade]

This looks like its going to be so exciting. Someone writing a possible Greater Somalia/Somali Wank TL rather than endless WIs about the Ogaden war. I had some ideas about a POD centered on Imam Ahmed's Conquest of Abbysina succeeding but I'm still gathering sources on it.

Ah, Left-Handed Axmed - the first in Somalia's long tradition of Sufi poet-militants. My mom's family built a Sufi shrine venerating him in a village smack in the middle of Nowheresville called Gar Adag. I'm not sure exactly what he was the saint of - writing love poetry or beating up Ethiopians perhaps? If you need a hand translating documents, I'd be more than happy to help.

 

[fasquardon]

Environmental concerns were beginning to take hold, particularly the eternal quest to get enough water for the citizenry from the Jubba and Shabele Rivers, but if anything, the nomads would be the ones who could take that hit the best. They're a remarkably adaptable people who are used to living in sparse conditions and the return of many agricultural Somalis to nomadism saved thousands of lives during the famines following the government's collapse. I'd say that the blocking of traditional nomad migration paths was the reason for the drop in the productivity of the meat and dairy sector of the economy, which started just after the porous Ethiopian border became increasingly patrolled. When faced with prospect of having their flocks die because some suit told them the watering hole their family used for a century is now on the other side of an imaginary line on a map, it's unsurprising that many nomads began a low intensity border war with the Ethiopian authorities. Pressure from the nomad community was part of the justification, but you have to remember, the Somalis honestly didn't see this as another country's territory. The Ogaden and the NFD had voted in plebicites to join with Somalia, but the British gave them away to other polities. In their minds, the Somali Communists were simply correcting a wrong done to them by the colonial powers.

VERY interesting! And with what you say about the nomads being 36% of the population, I can see why Barre felt war was the answer.

This fascination of Somalis with military tech is really old, as old as the days when the Dervish State stole Maxim guns and tore apart colonial troops with them. There's a saying of Sayyid Muhammad Abdullah Hassan that Somalis are fond of; it basically translates to - "A European colonist without the advantage of his guns is nothing but a confused man far from home."

Well, to be fair the Dervish state isn't that old. They fought in WW1 and all. It's just that we think they're old because Europeans lied on their maps and liked to paint their enemies as primitive barbarians.

But Ahmad al-Ghazi was pounding Ethiopians with canon in 1527, so your point still stands.

EDIT: Also, that is a great quote.

Ah, Left-Handed Axmed - the first in Somalia's long tradition of Sufi poet-militants.

To be fair, militant Sufi poets aren't just a Somali tradition. The Safavids in E. Turkey and Iran were militant Sufis as well (and Iranians and poetry go together naturally).

fasquardon

 

[ETA50M]

Ah, Left-Handed Axmed - the first in Somalia's long tradition of Sufi poet-militants. My mom's family built a Sufi shrine venerating him in a village smack in the middle of Nowheresville called Gar Adag. I'm not sure exactly what he was the saint of - writing love poetry or beating up Ethiopians perhaps? If you need a hand translating documents, I'd be more than happy to help.

That would be very helpful! I like to think he was the Saint of beating up Ethiopians considering much of the damage caused lasted well into the 20th century. Plus making a people starting eating raw meat as a national dish? The sheer trauma he inflicted I hear still makes him a scary story Ethiopans parents tell their children till today.