Meanwhile, in the British Protectorate, similar developments were occurring. Here, although there was no urban growth of consequence, there were very direct contacts with the outside world, through Aden and the small overseas communities of Somali seamen which were forming in the world's main ports. Of greater consequence still was the ever-present memory and example of Sayyid Muhammad's struggle for freedom. Again, the first impetus seems to have come from the few Somalis who, after education in Aden or the Sudan, had returned to find employment in the clerical grades of the civil service. One of the earliest of these to espouse the new aspirations and to seek to promote the general social and political betterment of his countrymen was Haji Farah 'Omar, a former employee of the Administration, who became active in the 1920s.

I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Som…, loc. 315