A word about The Mahdi
Earlier on this site, I have commemorated General Charles “Chinese” Gordon on this date in 1885 who fell defending the city of Khartoum in Sudan from the forces of an Islamic jihad. Today let’s look at the leader of that movement, Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah known as “The Mahdi”.
Muhammad Ahmad was born in 1844 to a family of boat builders in Sudan who claimed descent from Muhammed, the 7th-century founder of Islam. At an early age he took an interest in religion and after studying with local Sufis, developed a reputation for wisdom and piety. He began to preach and began to attract followers; in 1881 he announced that he was The Mahdi.
The Mahdi is a figure in Islamic eschatology, prophesied to appear in a time of crisis and, accompanied by the Prophet Isa (Jesus), to usher in a new era of justice and universal peace. The hadith literature gives certain signs by which to know the true Mahdi but a multitude of local legends and variations have allowed for wide disagreement in Islam about the figure. Numerous Muslims of Muhammed’s lineage have appeared in history claiming the title.
Recognizing the potential for unrest attendant on anyone claiming the title, the Egyptian government of the Sudan first tried bribing and then arresting Muhammad Ahmad. He eluded capture and began to assemble forces large enough to pose a military threat. He defeated force after force of Egyptian troops, some of them led by British officers. By 1883 after his defeat of Hicks Pasha at the battle of El Obeid he controlled half of Sudan with more tribes coming over to him.
The reign of the Mahdi was not a happy one for those who doubted his claims. His variety of Islam was of the harsh and fundamentalist sort; he also restored the slave trade which the Egyptian authorities had suppressed. His success prompted the British to withdraw from most of the Sudan and to send Charles Gordon to oversee the evacuation of Egyptian garrisons, civilians and administrators. Gordon attempted to convince The Mahdi to come back to obedience and offered him a governorship if he agreed. The reply was stark: “I am the Expected Mahdi and I do not boast! I am the successor of God’s Prophet and I have no need of any sultanate of Kordofan or anywhere else!” Gordon was unable to hold Khartoum and along with all his troops was massacred when the city fell to the Mahdi, who ordered that Gordon’s head be cut off and stuck in a tree “where all who passed it could look in disdain, children could throw stones at it and the hawks of the desert could sweep and circle above.”
The Mahdi did not long survive Gordon, dying six months later of typhus. His successor, known as the Khalifa, ruled Sudan until a British expedition retook the country in 1898. General Kitchener took the opportunity to desecrate the Mahdi’s tomb, throw his body in the Nile and carry his head home as a souvenir.