Muhammad Ahmad: The Sudanese Messiah Who Delivered His People from Turco-Egyptian Rule

Summary

Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah, known as the Mahdi, was a key Sudanese leader who, in 1881, declared himself the Mahdi and established the Mahdist State. This vast Islamic state was formed after a prolonged struggle against Turco-Egyptian rule. Ahmad (1843-85) gained prominence through his religious studies and Sufi practices. His movement capitalised on widespread discontent with the ruling class’s injustices and anti-slavery efforts.

Ahmad’s forces resisted multiple Egyptian attempts to suppress the rebellion, eventually capturing significant territories. His most notable victory was the siege of Khartoum in 1885, leading to the death of British Governor-General Charles Gordon. Though Ahmad died shortly after, his successor expanded the Mahdist State until it fell to the British in 1898. Ahmad’s legacy remains as a symbol of Sudanese nationalism and resistance against foreign domination.

Deep Dive

Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah bin Fahal, or simply Muhammad Ahmad, was a prominent Sudanese religious and political leader. In 1881, the so-called al-Mahdi (meaning ‘Right Guided One’) created the Mahdist State, an Islamic state that extended all the way from the Red Sea to Central Africa. The establishment of this state required a lengthy war against Turco-Egyptian rule in Sudan. Nonetheless, Muhammad Ahmad was more than up to the task and ultimately led his people to victory.

In this article, we will discuss how Muhammad Ahmad rose to prominence and his enduring legacy in Sudan.

The Young Al-Mahdi

Muhammad Ahmad was born on 12^th August 1843 to a notable Muslim family in Dongola, a major city in northern Sudan. While Ahmad was still a child, his family moved to Karari, a river village north of Omdurman, and then to Khartoum, the capital city.

As a boy, Muhammad developed an affinity for religious study. He studied first under Sheikh al-Amin al-Suwaylih in Gezira state in the east-central region, and then under Sheikh Muhammad al-Dikayr Abdallah Khujali in the northern town of Berber.

In 1861, instead of seeking an orthodox education at al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, 18-year-old Ahmad pursued tutelage under Sheikh Muhammad Sharif Nur al-Dai'm. Sheikh Muhammad Sharif was the grandson of the founder of the Samaniyya Sufi sect of Islam in Sudan. After Ahmad’s 7-year tutelage ended, he was conferred the title of Sheikh and began to tour the country on religious missions. Ahmad was deeply pious, strictly dedicating himself to the practice of self-denial. As a sheikh, he quickly amassed a few of his own followers.

In 1870, Ahmad’s family relocated once more to Aba Island in the White Nile to the south of Khartoum. There, Ahmad built a mosque and began to teach the Quran. His reputation as an exceptional speaker and mystic bloomed on the Island and spurred many more to follow him. 

In 1872, Ahmad implored Sharif to move to al-Aradayb, a neighbouring area. However, by 1878, the relationship between the two sheikhs had become rocky. Sharif appeared to be threatened by his former student’s growing popularity while Ahmad now considered his mentor to be too worldly. In response, Sharif expelled Ahmad from their brotherhood in the Samaniyya Order. Unable to reconcile with Sharif, Ahmad then joined a rival Samaniyya brotherhood, led by Sheikh al-Qurashi wad al-Zayn. When Sheikh al-Qurashi died on 25^th July 1878, Ahmad was recognised as the new leader of the brotherhood.

The Mahdist Leader

To understand Ahmad’s journey to becoming a political leader, it is necessary to first establish the political situation in Sudan at the time. In 1821, the North African nation was made a dependency of Egypt, which in turn was a province of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Consequently, Sudan was ruled by the same multi-racial Turkish-speaking ruling class that ruled Egypt.

Many of the Sudanese subjects were deeply upset with the ways of the ruling class. Taxpayers were enraged by fiscal injustices and fed up with being frequently flogged for late tax payments. Slave traders detested the government’s efforts—incited by Great Britain—to abolish slavery. Pious Muslims were disturbed by the occupation of non-Muslim European leaders who excessively consumed alcohol. Peasants who lived by the Nile were tired of being forced to tow government ships.

All it took was one man, in the person of Muhammad Ahmad, to recognise this profound discontent across board and galvanise the masses to resist the ruling class. Coincidentally, Ahmad also believed he was the Mahdi, a divinely appointed leader. According to Islamic eschatology, the Mahdi is supposed to rid the world of evil and prepare the way for the second coming of Jesus at the End Times.

Consequently, in June 1881, Ahmad declared himself ‘al-Mahdi’ and called his followers ‘Ansar’, the term which Prophet Muhammad had used for his helpers in Medina. Al-Mahdi considered Sudan a defiled land that needed to be purged of the evil ruling class. Thus, he rallied the masses and organised them into an invincible military force.

When Muhammad Rauf Pasha, the Egyptian governor-general of Sudan, heard of al-Mahdi’s declaration, he tried to placate him with the promise of a government pension in a letter. Instead, al-Mahdi replied to Rauf’s letter saying, ‘He who does not believe in me will be purified by the sword’.

Rauf sent a small party to arrest al-Mahdi on Aba Island, but on 11^th August, the party was defeated by al-Mahdi’s people. At this point, the rebellion in southern Sudan had begun to grow, yet Rauf downplayed its extent in his report to Cairo. He then sent the governor of Kordofan to Aba Island with 1,000 soldiers to defeat al-Mahdi.  But upon arriving on the island, they discovered that al-Mahdi had fled to the southwest. Their pursuit of him was impeded by heavy rains, so they returned to El Obeid in North Kordofan. Meanwhile, al-Mahdi established a new base in the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan.

Al-Mahdi and his Ansar went about recruiting more followers throughout the northern and western regions of Sudan. The movement transcended tribalism, as people from more than five ethnic groups banded together. Interestingly, it transcended religion too as al-Mahdi was also supported by non-Muslims.

Within less than four years, al-Mahdi had conquered most of the former Egyptian territory and claimed a massive booty of money, sophisticated military supplies and jewels. By the end of 1883, his Ansar, which had grown 40,000 strong, had extinguished three sizeable Egyptian armies. Al-Mahdi also successfully led his troops to besiege El Obeid. From then on, the town became the Ansar’s headquarters.

At El Obeid, Al-Mahdi collected taxes in accordance with the Quran, his first acts as the head of a theocracy. Al-Mahdi excelled at spreading intelligent propaganda to fuel his military operations. His fame spread to Arabia to the north and as far west as the Bornu Empire in present-day Nigeria.

Al-Mahdi and the British

From his installment in 1863, the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, Isma’il Pasha, hoped to expand his empire and transform it into a modern state. To achieve this, he sought financial assistance from European powers, including Great Britain. However, their main requirement for investing was that Isma’il intensified his campaign against the slave trade in Sudan.

Accordingly, from 1869, Isma’il commissioned Englishman Sir Samuel White Baker to lead a military expedition against the slave trade in some parts of Sudan. By 1874, Isma’il had appointed another Englishman, Major General Charles George Gordon, as the governor of the Equatoria province of Sudan. Three years later, Gordon rose to the ranks of governor-general of the entire nation.

In the same year (1877), Isma’il signed the Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention which dictated that the Sudanese slave trade would be completely abolished by 1880. In line with this, Gordon zealously broke up slave markets and imprisoned slave traders throughout the country. The British military became heavily involved in Sudan from then on.

The Sudanese pushed back against the anti-slavery campaign for two major reasons: it was a threat to the economy, and it violated the perceived tenets and traditions of Islam. As mentioned before, this was one of the incentives al-Mahdi used to recruit people into the Mahdist movement.

Al-Mahdi’s crowning victory was the siege of Khartoum from 13^th March 1884 to 26^th January 1885. Gordon had arrived in the Sudanese capital in February 1884 but was unable to reach other garrisons which had already been besieged by the Mahdists. Gordon had only a few thousand troops compared to the mighty Ansar and defensive weapons which were frightening enough to keep the Ansar from penetrating the city for a while.

By January, 10 months after the siege started, Gordon and 7,000 soldiers had run out of food supplies and begun to starve. The reinforcements the British government had sent to relieve Gordon were painfully slow to arrive and so, Gordon and his company were essentially deserted.

On 26^th January, the Mahdists finally broke through the defences, with the help of one of Gordon’s officers, and annihilated the entire garrison, including Gordon. The Mahdists also killed 4,000 male civilians and enslaved several women and children. By the time the British reinforcements had arrived on 28^th January, they were far too late. Consequently, the British withdrew from Sudan. Al-Mahdi then established a sovereign Mahdist State, or Mahdiyya, with its capital at Omdurman.

Al-Mahdi’s Short-Lived Rule and Timeless Legacy

Unfortunately, al-Mahdi did not get to reap the fruit of his labour for too long. On 22^nd June 1885, merely five months after Khartoum fell, al-Mahdi died of typhus at Omdurman. The rule of the state then fell to his Khalifa (successor) Abd Allah ibn Muhammad.

In the consolidated Mahdiyya, al-Mahdi’s rule had been chiefly characterised by religious leadership. He gave proclamations and sermons about Islamic principles and left the administrative aspects of leadership to his deputies, of which Abd Allah was part.

Abd Allah was far more ruthless in his quest to expand the Mahdist State. Under him, the Mahdists were able to conquer more territories, including some parts of Ethiopia. However, it was also under his rule that the Mahdist State fell.

In 1895, the British government authorised Herbert Horatio Kitchener’s campaign to reconquer Sudan. The victory of the British reconquest mission was sealed by the Mahdist’s crushing defeat in the Battle of Omdurman on 2^nd September 1898. The 5-hour battle saw 11,000 Mahdist deaths and only 48 Anglo-Egyptian losses. In total, the campaign recorded over 30,000 Sudanese casualties and fatalities, and about 700 Anglo-Egyptian casualties and fatalities.

After the campaign, al-Mahdi’s tomb was bombed since the British feared it would become a rallying point for his supporters. However, Kitchener also used this as a means of vengeance. He exhumed al-Mahdi’s bones, threw them into the Nile River and then took al-Mahdi’s skull as a trophy. Soon after, Sudan became a British protectorate.

Though the state he created did not last long, Muhammad Ahmad’s legacy endures till today. In present-day Sudan, he is widely considered to be the precursor of Sudanese nationalism. Though his claim of being the Mahdi is retrospectively considered ill-conceived, Ahmad was a most pious leader who secured his people’s freedom in his short lifetime.