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In the final part of this series, Owen Bennett-Jones examines the Islamic leader who confronted the might of the British Empire. The Mahdi was a devout man, who developed a huge following. This programme examines his rise to power and his clash with the British General, Charles Gordon.

The frontline between Christendom and the Islamic world has shifted for over a millennium, and at several key moments has erupted into war.

To the list of combatants from the past - Richard the Lionheart, Saladin and Suleiman the Magnificent, the Mahdi and Gordon of Khartoum - we now have to add George Bush and Osama bin Laden.

The Crescent and the Cross, explores several turning points in the relationship between Christianity and Islam.

In the final part of this series, Owen Bennett-Jones examines the Islamic leader who confronted the might of the British Empire.

The guided one

The siege of Khartoum was a rare moment of defeat for imperial Britain. And the conflict had a religious edge. The two sides were led by very devout men: General Charles Gordon and Mohammed Ahmed, a boat builder’s son who declared himself to be the Mahdi, or guided one.

The British government had in fact sent General Gordon to Khartoum to evacuate some Egyptian troops who were garrisoned in the city. But he did not want to leave without inflicting a defeat on the Mahdi.

The Mahdi though had recruited followers who admired his devotion to his faith. “When he felt hungry he would go the river and throw in the hook without putting a bait on it,” says his great-great-granddaughter Dr Mariam Sadiq al Mahdi. The young man thought bait was an unfair trick which cheated the fish. “If he gets a fish, that is what Allah brought to him. If not, that is his fate.” 

Listen: Mariam Sadiq al Mahdi speaks to Owen Bennett-Jones

From those pious beginnings the Mahdi built a mass movement with remarkable speed. “He was very charismatic,” said Dr Ali Saleh Karah of Sudan’s National Record Office, “and he appealed to a number of Sudanese people because he claimed to be a descendant of the prophet.”

The Record Office houses a collection of documents relating to the Mahdi. His fatwas in particular give a clear indication of the kind of Islam he believed in.

Anti imperialist father of the nation

Today many Sudanese revere the Mahdi as an anti imperialist father of the nation. But some modern historians are not convinced. “I think this is entirely historical,” says Justin Willis of Durham University. “I think the Mahdi himself had very little idea of a Sudanese nation and certainly would have had no idea that he would be seen as the father of it in years to come. I think probably it’s equally misleading to see him in some way as leader of a crusade against Christian invaders. The Mahdi was from his own point of view quite clearly interested in the revival of Islam and his struggle was against corrupt Muslim rulers.”

The Mahdi may have wanted to wage war on fellow Muslims but before doing so he had to win control of Khartoum. And with Gordon determined to hold the city, a clash became inevitable. After months of siege in which Gordon and his men were reduced to eating their horses, the Mahdi’s men broke through the city’s defences.

Gordon himself was beheaded - although historians on both sides now believe this was probably not under the Mahdi’s orders. “Both Gordon and Mahdi respected one another as human beings,” says one of Sudan’s most respected historians, Dr Yusuf Fadl Hassan. “The Mahdi thought highly of Gordon as a good Christian, compared with some of the Muslims whom he thought did not follow the teaching of Islam.”

If the Mahdi respected Gordon, the British press lionised him as a Christian hero whose devotion to duty knew no bounds. The Daily News, for example, wrote that “General Gordon will be remembered always in our history as the noblest type of warrior.”

That assessment overlooked the fact that had he obeyed orders, Gordon would never have tried to hold on to Khartoum in the first place. But he did and having been humiliated, London had to respond. The Mahdi himself died in 1885, but in 1896, an expedition was sent to avenge Gordon’s death and the Mahdi’s forces were defeated at Omdurman.

First broadcast 30 November 2009

This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons.

Wikipedia: Muhammad Ahmad

Muhammad Ahmad ibn as Sayyid Abd Allah (otherwise known as The Mahdi or Muhammad Ahmed Al Mahdi Arabic:محمد أحمد المهدي) (1844-08-12 – 1885-06-22) was a religious leader in Sudan who proclaimed himself the Mahdi (the prophesied redeemer of Islam who will appear at the end of times) in 1881, and declared a jihad against Egyptian authority in Sudan. He raised an army and led a successful religious war to topple the Egyptian occupation of Sudan.

Under his religious authority the divided clans of the Baggara and their rulers the Fur tribesmen were united into an alliance dedicated to establishing an “Islamic” state as the first step in a universal Islamic state.

In the West, due to the film Khartoum and other historical accounts, he is known for leading a siege against the city to drive the Egyptians and the British from Khartoum or to slaughter them. When Ahmad’s armies overran the city, they beheaded British general Charles George Gordon, in the fall of Khartoum. Ahmad himself died soon after.

Without his leadership his movement and state lost much of its momentum. Attempts to expand by invading neighbors were unsuccessful, and famine, disease, persecution and warfare killed off about half Sudan’s population.^[1] In 1898 an invading British army destroyed the Mahdi’s army at the battle of Omdurman.

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Mahdi and jihad declarations

In 1881 Muhammad Ahmed declared himself Mahdi and ruler so as to prepare the way for the second coming of the Prophet Isa (Jesus),. “After consulting the ulama”, Egyptian authorities “attempted to arrest him for spreading false doctrine.” A military expedition was sent to reassert the government’s authority on Aba Island, but the government’s forces were ambushed and nearly annihilated by the Mahdi’s followers.^{[citation needed]} Muhammad Ahmed retaliated by declaring jihad.

I am the Mahdi, the Successor of the Prophet of God. Cease to pay taxes to the infidel Turks and let everyone who finds a Turk kill him, for the Turks are infidels ^[3]

Unlike other Muslim reformers, the Mahdi did not advocate the application of ijtihad but “claimed to receive direct inspiration from God”, so that his own proclamations superseded traditional jurisprudence. This, however, did not usurp the prophet Muhammad’s position as seal of the Prophets, because the Prophet was — in some way — the intermediary of his revelations.

Information came from the Apostle of God that the angel of inspiration is with me from God to direct me and He has appointed him. So from this prophetic information I learnt that that with which God inspires me by means of the angel of inspiration, the Apostle of God would do, were he present.^[4]

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Khartoum

Main article: Mahdist War

Given their general lack of interest in the area, the British decided to abandon the Sudan in December 1883, holding only several northern towns and Red Sea ports, such as Khartoum, Kassala, Sannar, and Sawakin. The evacuation of Egyptian troops and officials and other foreigners from Sudan was assigned to General Gordon, who had been reappointed governor general with orders to return to Khartoum and organize a withdrawal of the Egyptian garrisons there.

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Modifications of Sharia

With Sudan now in Sudanese hands, the Mahdi formed a government. The Mahdiyya (Mahdist regime) modified the Shariah, (Islamic law) which would be implemented by Islamic courts headed by various Islamic imams, in accordance with the view of an Islamic state. The courts enforced a Sharia law that the Mahdi claimed was founded on instructions conveyed to him by God in visions.

According to this doctrine loyalty to him was essential to true belief. The recitation of the shahada was modified to include and Muhammad Ahmad is the Mahdi of God and the representative of His Prophet. Among the five pillars, service in the “jihād” replaced the hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) as a duty incumbent on the faithful (though Jihad-warfare is central to orthodox Islam, it is not considered one of the five pillars of faith).

He also authorized the burning of lists of pedigrees and books of law and theology because of their association with the old regime and because he believed that they accentuated tribalism at the expense of religious unity.

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