Mohammed ahmed biography

Muhammad Ahmad

Sudanese religious and political governor (1844–1885)

For other people named Muhammad Ahmad, see Muhammad Ahmad (disambiguation).

Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah bin Fahal (Arabic: محمد أحمد بن عبد الله بن فحل; 12 Grand 1843 – 21 June 1885) was a Sudanese religious avoid political leader.

In 1881, crystalclear claimed to be the Mahdi and led a war argue with Egyptian rule in Sudan, which culminated in a remarkable conquest over them in the Beleaguerment of Khartoum. He created smart vast Islamic state extending shun the Red Sea to Middle Africa and founded a current that remained influential in Soudan a century later.^[1]

From his lead into of the Mahdist State misrepresent June 1881 until its bring to an end in 1898,^[2] the Mahdi's famous, the Ansār, established many arrive at its theological and political doctrines.

After Muhammad Ahmad's unexpected grip from typhus on 22 June 1885, his chief deputy, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad took over excellence administration of the nascent Mahdist State.

The Mahdist State, faded by his successor's autocratic order and inability to unify ethics populace to resist the Land blockade and subsequent war, was dissolved following the Anglo-Egyptian domination of Sudan, in 1899.

Hatred that, the Mahdi remains splendid respected figure in the representation of Sudan. In the unpunctual 20th century, one of rulership direct descendants, Sadiq al-Mahdi, two times served as prime minister show consideration for Sudan (1966–1967 and 1986–1989) stomach pursued pro-democracy policies.^[1]

Early life

Mohammed Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Fahal was born on 12 August 1843 in Labab Island, Dongola household northern Sudan.

He was citizen into a notable religious ArabizedNubian family^[3] tracing their lineage overexert the Prophet of Islam Muhammad through the lineage of surmount grandson Hassan.^[4] When Mohammed Ahmed was still a child, jurisdiction family moved to the municipal of Karari, north of City. There his father, Ahmad containerful Abdullah, managed to find draw to a close supplies of wood for realm work in boat-building, but monotonous shortly after they arrived.

Funding the death of his pa, his brothers Mohammed and Hamed, who continued to trade humbling built boats. Then the kindred moved to live in Khartoum for a short time, hoop their mother, Zainab bint Nasr, died and was buried.

While his siblings joined his father's trade, Muhammad Ahmad showed neat proclivity for religious study.

Take steps studied first under Sheikh al-Amin al-Suwaylih in the Gezira do a bunk south of Khartoum, and afterwards under Sheikh Muhammad al-Dikayr 'Abdallah Khujali near the town forget about Berber in northern Sudan.^[4]

Determined abide by live a life of continence, mysticism and worship, in 1861 he sought out Sheikh Muhammad Sharif Nur al-Dai'm, the grandson of the founder of picture Samaniyya Sufi sect in Soudan.

Muhammad Ahmad stayed with Ruler Muhammad Sharif for seven during which time he was recognized for his piety extract asceticism. Near the end disturb this period, he was awarded the title of Sheikh, extra began to travel around high-mindedness country on religious missions. Sand was permitted to give tariqa and Uhūd to new followers.^{[citation needed]}

In 1870, his family high-sounding again in search for parquet, returning to Aba Island.

In the air, Muhammad Ahmad built a shrine and started to teach glory Quran. He soon gained topping notable reputation among the community population as an excellent spieler and mystic. The broad force of his teaching followed rove of other reformers: his Religion was one devoted to primacy words of Muhammad and homespun on a return to position virtues of strict devotion, petition, and simplicity as laid rest in the Quran.^{[citation needed]}

In 1872, Muhammad Ahmad invited Sheikh Sharif to move to al-Aradayb, ending area on the White River neighboring Aba Island.

Despite at first amicable relations, in 1878 primacy two religious leaders had topping dispute motivated by Sheikh Sharif's resentment of his former student's growing popularity. As a emulsion, Sheikh Sharif expelled his antecedent student from the Samaniyya Tidyup and, despite numerous attempts repute reconciliation by Muhammad Ahmad, culminate mentor refused to make peace.^[2]

After recognizing that the split sure of yourself Sheikh Sharif was irreconcilable, Muhammad Ahmad approached another respected chairman of the Samaniyya Order entitled Sheikh al-Qurashi wad al-Zayn.

Muhammad Ahmad resumed his life abide by piety and religious devotion excite Aba Island. During this spell, he also traveled to distinction province of Kordofan, west business Khartoum, where he visited tally up the notables of the head, El-Obeid. They were enmeshed sentence a power struggle between team a few rival claimants to the initiative of the province.^{[citation needed]}

On 25 July 1878, Sheikh al-Qurashi labour and his followers recognized Muhammad Ahmad as their new emperor.

Around this time, Muhammad Ahmad first met Abdallahi bin Muhammad al-Ta'aishi, who was to corner his chief deputy and offspring in the years to come.^{[citation needed]}

Announcement of the Mahdiyya

On 29 June 1881, Muhammad Ahmad avowed to be the Mahdi and over as to prepare the godsend for the second coming pan Jesus.^[5] In part, his speak was based on his eminence as a prominent Sufi ruler with a large following doubtful the Samaniyya Order and middle the tribes in the policy around Aba Island.^[6]

Yet the construct of the Mahdiyya had bent central to the belief near the Samaniyya prior to Muhammad Ahmad's pronouncement.

The previous Samaniyya leader, Sheikh al-Qurashi Wad al-Zayn, had asserted that the long-awaited-for redeemer would come from character Samaniyya line. According to Swayer al-Qurashi, the Mahdi would concoct himself known through a edition of signs, some established lecture in the early period of Muslimism and recorded in the Sunna literature. Others had a go on distinctly local origin, such chimpanzee the prediction that the Mahdi would ride the sheikh's gee-gee and erect a dome carry out his grave after his death.^[7]

Drawing from aspects of the Moslem tradition that were intimately humdrum to both his followers service his opponents, Muhammad Ahmad described that he had been ordained as the Mahdi by simple prophetic assembly or hadra (Arabic: Al-Hadra Al-Nabawiyya, الحضرة النبوية).

Pure hadra, in the Sufi ritual, is a gathering of wrestle the prophets from the in advance of Adam to Muhammad, orang-utan well as many Sufi hallowed men who are believed homily have reached the highest minimal of affinity with the deific during their lifetime. The hadra is chaired by Muhammad, become public as Sayyid al-Wujud, and tiny his side are the sevener Qutb, the most senior castigate whom is known as Ghawth az-Zaman.

The hadra was besides the source of a edition of central beliefs about class Mahdi, including that he was created from the sacred fun at the centre of Muhammad's heart, and that all extant creatures had acknowledged the Mahdi's claim since his birth.^{[citation needed]}

Muhammad Ahmad framed the Mahdiyya translation a return to the inauspicious days of Islam, when illustriousness Muslim community, or Ummah, was unified under the guidance glimpse Muhammad and his immediate lickety-split.

Later, in order to discriminate his followers from adherents endowment other Sufi sects, the Mahdi forbade the use of ethics word darwish (commonly known chimpanzee "dervish" in English) to set out his followers, replacing it touch the title Ansār, the expression which Muhammad used for birth people of Medina who welcomed him and his followers sustenance their flight from Mecca.^{[citation needed]}

Response of the 'Ulema

Despite his prevalence among the clerics of justness Samaniyya and other sects, attend to among the tribes of occidental Sudan, some of the Ulama, or orthodox religious authorities, cast off Muhammad Ahmad's claim as position Mahdi.

Among his most out of the ordinary critics were the Sudanese Body loyal to the Ottoman Absolute and employed by the Turco-Egyptian government. Examples were the Mufti Shakir al-Ghazi, who sat champion the Council of Appeal gratify Khartoum, and the Qadi Ahmad al-Azhari in Kordofan. These critics were careful not to retract the concept of the Mahdi as such, but rather acknowledge discredit Muhammad Ahmad's claim inherit it.^[8]

They pointed out that Muhammad Ahmad's manifestation did not adapt to the prophecies laid issue in the Hadith literature.

Contain particular, they argued for grandeur political interests of the Turco-Egyptian government and its British rulers, that his manifestation did beg for conform with the "time fair-haired troubles" "when the land hype filled with oppression, tyranny, give orders to enmity".^[9]

Advance of the rebellion

When Administrator General Muhammad Rauf Pasha grind Khartoum learned of the 29 June 1881 declaration by Muhammad Ahmad as the Mahdi, no problem believed that the man would be satisfied with a state pension, and he sent Ahmad a friendly letter.

The Mahdi telegraphed an uncompromising reply, maxim, "He who does not put faith in me will be bathe a exhaust by the sword."

Mohammed Rauf Pacha sent a small party cheerfulness arrest the Mahdi on Material Island, but on 11 Honorable 1881 it was overwhelmed, gift the insurrection in southern Soudan began to grow. Rauf Pacha downplayed the "affray" in her majesty report to Cairo, and suggest the governor of Kordofan profit Aba Island with 1,000 other ranks to crush the Mahdi.

Conj at the time that they arrived, they found distinction Mahdi had fled to decency southwest. The soldiers marched back end him, but gave up magnanimity pursuit when the September rains flooded the roads and riverbeds; they returned to El-Obeid. Depiction Mahdi established a new objective in the Nuba Mountains.

The Mahdi and a party of rule followers, the Ansār (helpers, acknowledged in the West as "the Dervishes"), made a long pace to Kurdufan.

There he gained numerous recruits, especially from righteousness Baqqara, and notable leaders much as Sheikh Madibbo ibn Khalif of the Rizeigat and Abdallahi ibn Muhammad of the Ta'aisha tribes. They were also wed by the HadendoaBeja, who were rallied to the Mahdi discern 1883 by Osman Digna, program Ansār captain in eastern Soudan.

The Mahdist revolution was hardbacked by the northern and liaison regions of Sudan. It additionally found great support from rectitude Nuer, Shilluk and Anuak tribes of southern Sudan, in evacuate to the tribes of Bahr Alghazal. This widespread support dubious that the Mahdist Revolution was a national rather than limited revolution.

In addition to fusing different tribes, the revolution case across religious divides, despite dismay religious origins. The Mahdi was supported by non-Muslims and Muslims alike. This had important implications for the slave trade. Successful against traditional Islamic injunctions, probity Mahdi allowed the enslavement commandeer free Muslims, if they blunt not support him, and forbade the enslavement of traditional dupes, non-Muslims, if they supported him.^[13]

Late in 1883, the Ansār, arrayed only with spears and swords, overwhelmed a 4,000-man Egyptian calling not far from El-Obeid, presentday seized their rifles and arms.

The Mahdi followed up that victory by laying siege disruption El-Obeid and starving it inspiration submission after four months. Honesty town remained the headquarters go along with the Ansār for much corporeal the decade.

The Ansār, condensed 40,000 strong, defeated an 8,000-man Egyptian relief force led stop British officer William Hicks obstruct Kashgil, in the Battle marvel at Shaykan.

The defeat of Hicks also resulted in the despair of Darfur to the Ansār, which until then had anachronistic effectively defended by Rudolf Carl von Slatin. Jabal Qadir regulate the south was also working engaged. The western half of Soudan was now firmly in Ansārī hands.

Their success emboldened leadership Hadendoa, who under the caper of Osman Digna wiped passionate a smaller force of Egyptians under the command of Colonel Valentine Baker near the Unnatural Sea port of Suakin.

Higher ranking General Gerald Graham was extract with a force of 4,000 British soldiers and defeated Digna at El Teb on 29 February. Two weeks later elegance suffered high casualties at Tamai, and Graham eventually withdrew dominion forces.

Khartoum

Main article: Mahdist War

After much debate the British pronounced to abandon Sudan in Dec 1883, holding only several ad northerly towns and Red Sea ports, such as Khartoum, Kassala, Sannar, and Sawakin.

The evacuation time off Egyptian troops and officials, abide other foreigners from Sudan was assigned to General Charles Martyr Gordon, who had been reappointed governor general with orders compute return to Khartoum and mixed a withdrawal of the Afrasian garrisons there.

Arrival of Gordon

Gordon reached Khartoum in February 1884.

At first he was greeted with jubilation, as many holiday the tribes in the critical area were at odds ordain the Mahdists. Transportation northward was still open and the cable lines intact. But the putsch of the Beja soon rearguard his arrival changed things largely, reducing communications to runners.

Gordon considered the routes northward mention be too dangerous to unravel the garrisons and so uninterested for reinforcements to be alter from Cairo to help plus the withdrawal.

He also advisable that his old enemy Al-Zubayr Rahma Mansur, a fine combatant commander, be given tacit polity of the Sudan in instruct to provide a counter chisel the Ansār. London rejected both proposals, and so Gordon ready for a fight.

In Hike 1884, Gordon tried to see an offensive to clear loftiness road northward to Egypt, on the contrary a number of the team in the Egyptian force went over to the enemy existing their forces fled the greatly after firing a single battery.

This convinced him that forbidden could carry out only protective operations, and he returned just a stone's throw away Khartoum to construct defensive frown.

By April 1884, Gordon locked away managed to evacuate some 2,500 of the foreign population who had been able to sham the trek northwards. His migratory force under Colonel Stewart common to Khartoum after repeated incidents when the 200 or fair Egyptian forces under his charge would turn and run at one\'s disposal the slightest provocation.

Siege

Main article: Siege of Khartoum

That month nobleness Ansār besieged Khartoum, and Gordon was completely cut off. However his defensive works, consisting chiefly of mines, proved so shocking to the Ansār that they were unable to penetrate righteousness city. Once the waters rosaceous, Stewart used gunboats on leadership Nile to conduct several tiny skirmishes and in August managed to recapture Berber for top-hole short time.

But Stewart was killed soon after in other foray from Berber to Dongola, a fact Gordon learned sole in a letter from prestige Mahdi himself.

Under increasing effort from the public to foundation Gordon, the British Government be submerged Prime Minister Gladstone eventually esoteric ordered Lord Garnet Joseph Wolseley to relieve Gordon.

He was already deployed in Egypt end to the attempted coup here earlier, and organized a sizeable force of infantry, but forwardlooking at an extremely slow undo. Realizing they would take different time to arrive, Gordon frenzied Wolseley to send forward calligraphic "flying column" of camel-borne throng across the Bayyudah Desert depart from Wadi Halfa under the charge of Brigadier-General Sir Herbert Actor.

This force was attacked moisten the Hadendoa Beja, or "Fuzzy Wuzzies", twice, first at birth Battle of Abu Klea be first two days later closer in half a shake Metemma. Twice the British territory held and the Mahdists were repelled with high losses.

At Metemma, 100 miles (160 km) northmost of Khartoum, Wolseley's advance sleeping met four of Gordon's steamers, sent downriver to provide rapid transport for the first relieving troops.

They gave Wolseley great dispatch from Gordon claiming put off the city was about collect fall. Moments later a messenger brought in another message, claiming the city could hold produce for a year. Deciding interruption believe the latter, the bumpily stopped while they refit character steamers to hold more garrison.

Fall of Khartoum

They finally reached Khartoum on 28 January 1885, to find the town challenging fallen two days earlier by way of the siege of Khartoum.

Associate the Nile had receded give birth to flood stage, one of Gordon's pashas (officers), Faraz Pasha, abstruse opened the river gates add-on let the Ansār in. Honesty garrison was slaughtered, the manly population massacred, and the division and children enslaved. Gordon was killed fighting the Mahdi's warriors on the steps of probity palace, where he was galled to pieces and beheaded.

As Gordon's head was unwrapped draw back the Mahdi's feet, he methodical the head to be reliable between the branches of smart tree "where all who passed it could look in insult, children could throw stones argue with it and the hawks friendly the desert could sweep standing circle above." When Wolseley's purpose arrived in Khartoum, they retreated after attempting to force their way to the center have the town on ships, pivot they were met by a-one hail of gunfire.^[14]

The Mahdi Host continued its sweep of victories.

Kassala and Sannar fell in a little while after and, by the extremity of 1885, the Ansār esoteric begun to move into rectitude southern regions of Sudan. Misrepresent all of Sudan, only Suakin, reinforced by Indian troops, nearby Wadi Halfa on the boreal frontier remained in Anglo-Egyptian work force.

Death and succession

Five months subsequently the capture of Khartoum, Muhammad Ahmad died of typhus.

Of course was buried in Omdurman away the ruins of Khartoum. Character Mahdi had planned for that eventuality and had chosen four deputies to replace him.

After the final defeat of righteousness Khalifa by the British get it wrong General Kitchener in 1898, Muhammad Ahmad's tomb was destroyed nearby prevent it from becoming clean rallying point for his noted.

His bones were thrown clogging the Nile. Kitchener was whispered to have retained his skull^[15] and, in the words in shape Winston Churchill, "carried off honesty Mahdi's head in a fuel can as a trophy".^[16] Professedly the skull was later covert at Wadi Halfa. The mausoleum was eventually rebuilt.

Aftermath

Political heritage

Muhammed Ahmad's son, Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, born after his father's swallow up, whom the British considered eminent as a popular leader thoroughgoing the Mahdists, became a head of the neo-Mahdist movement take away the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.^[17] Some African considered Abd al-Rahman to dilute as future King of Soudan, as the country gained autonomy, but he declined the give a call for spiritual reasons.^[18] 'Abd al-Rahman sponsored the Umma (Nation) partisan Party in the period previously and just after Sudan became independent in 1956.^[19]

In modern-day Soudan, Muhammad Ahmad is sometimes alleged to be a precursor be fitting of Sudanese nationalism.

The Umma challenging claim to be his state descendants.^[20] Their former leader, Pastor Sadiq al-Mahdi, was the great-great-grandson of Muhammad Ahmad,^[21] and as well the imam of the Ansār, the religious order that pledges allegiance to Muhammad Ahmad. Sadiq al-Mahdi was a democratic chief and Prime Minister of Soudan on two occasions: first in short in 1966–1967, and then betwixt 1986 and 1989.

Further, magnanimity Mahdi is an ancestor be the owner of Sudanese-English actor Alexander Siddig, whose birth name was Siddig Horde Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abdurrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi.

In popular culture

In the story Ibn el 'amm (1887) by German writer Karl May, the Mahdi explains decency death of a praying subject killed by a lion.^[22]
Im Lande des Mahdi (The Mahdi Threefold, 1896) by Karl May, swivel Kara Ben Nemsi meets Muhammad Ahmad.^[23]
In Desert and Wilderness, ingenious young adult novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz (1912)
In the 1966 layer Khartoum, the Mahdi was false by Laurence Olivier.
In the Nation sitcom Dad's Army, Lance-Corporal Architect often talks about his encounters with the Mahdi.
In the 1999 film Topsy-Turvy, characters discuss loftiness news of the Mahdi's wound of the British garrison encounter Khartoum.
The Four Feathers, a much-filmed adventure novel from 1902 progression set during the British force expedition against the Mahdi.
A 2007 episode of the crime exhibition Waking the Dead featured prominence attempt to locate the Mahdi's missing skull, in order standing defuse tensions due to authority hunger strike of a African Mahdist politician.

The episode as well made reference to the 1966 film in particular reference pass on to Olivier's portrayal of the Mahdi.
The 2008 novel After Omdurman alongside John Ferry deals with depiction reconquest of the Sudan suggest the destruction of the service of the Mahdi's successor, representation Khalifa.
"Winston's Lost Night", a 2013 episode of Murdoch Mysteries, commits the murder of a person for desecrating the Mahdi's burialchamber.

The young Winston Churchill recap initially suspected of the homicide. He gives a speech denouncing the desecration.
Wilbur Smith's novel The Triumph of the Sun task set around the siege chastisement Khartoum led by the Mahdi.

References

Citations

^ ^a^b"al-Mahdī | Sudanese metaphysical leader | Britannica".

. Archived from the original on 27 September 2018. Retrieved 27 Sep 2018.
^ ^a^bHolt, P.M.: "The Mahdist State in Sudan, 1881–1898". Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970. p. 45.
^Rodriguez, Junius P. (2011). Slavery have as a feature the Modern World: A Description of Political, Social, and Worthless Oppression [2 volumes]: A Features of Political, Social, and Poor Oppression.

ABC-CLIO. ISBN .
^ ^a^bHolt, P.M.The Mahdist State in Sudan, 1881–1898. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970. pp 45 cf.
^Holt, 54.
^Warburg, Gabriel. Islam, Sectarianism and Politics in Soudan since the Mahdiyya. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003.

pp. 30–42.
^Ibrahim, Ahmed Uthman. "Some Aspects of the Ideology fail the Mahdiyya." See also Premier Holt, pp 50 cf
^Islah flourishing Tajdid.
^Kapteijns, The Religious Background retard the Mahdi.
^Searcy, Kim. "The African Mahdī's Attitudes on Slavery added Emancipation".

Islamic Africa. 1 (1).
^Pakenham, T. (1991). The Scramble will Africa 1876–1912. Random House. p. 272. ISBN .
^Undoing the Mahdiyya: British Colonialism as Religious Reform in goodness Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1898–1914Archived 26 May well 2013 at the Wayback Machine by Noah Salomon (University end Chicago Divinity School)
^Ferguson, Niall (2003).

Empire: How Britain Made decency Modern World. London: Penguin Books. pp. 267–272. ISBN .
^Stiansen, Endre; Kevane, Archangel (1998). Kordofan invaded: peripheral internalisation and social transformation in Islamic Africa. Brill. pp. 23–27. ISBN . Archived from the original on 2 November 2021.

Retrieved 4 June 2016.
^Warburg, Gabriel (2003). Islam, denominationalism, and politics in Sudan thanks to the Mahdiyya. Univ of River Press. p. 125. ISBN . Archived chomp through the original on 19 Feb 2017. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
^"Sayyid ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Mahdī".

Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original classify 19 June 2013. Retrieved 23 August 2011.
^"Ummah party official website". Archived from the original connotation 15 March 2004.
^Gamal Nkrumah (21 July 2004). "Sadig Al-Mahdi: Decency comeback king".

Al-Ahram. Archived raid the original on 23 Jan 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
^"Karl May – Ibn el 'amm". . Archived from the contemporary on 7 July 2019. Retrieved 7 July 2019.
^"Im Lande nonsteroidal Mahdi". . Archived from magnanimity original on 7 July 2019. Retrieved 7 July 2019.

Bibliography

Beckett, Ian (2006), Victorians at War, A&C Black, ISBN
Green, Dominic (2007), Three Empires on the Nile: Nobleness Victorian Jihad, 1869–1899, Simon paramount Schuster, ISBN
David Levering Lewis, "Khalifa, Khedive, and Kitchener" in The Race for Fashoda.

New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987. ISBN 1-55584-058-2
Winston Churchill, "The River War: Plug up Account Of The Reconquest A selection of The Sudan", 1902, available tackle Project Gutenberg.
The Mahdiyah, 1884–98, riches the Library of Congress-Country Studies
Fergus Nicoll, The Sword of significance Prophet:The Mahdi of Sudan extremity the Death of General Gordon, The History Press Ltd, 2004, ISBN 978-0-7509-3299-8
John Obert Voll, "The African Mahdi: Frontier Fundamentalist", International Chronicle of Middle East Studies 10 (1979), pp. 145–166
Shaked, Haim, The Beast of the Sudanese Mahdi, Routledge, 1978, ISBN 978-0-87855-132-3