Muhammad Ahmad

Muhammad Ahmad ibn Abd Allah ibn Fahal (1844–1885) was a Sudanese religious and political leader, and a sheikh of the Sammaniyya Sufi order. ^{1 2}

On 29 June 1881 he proclaimed himself the Mahdi, the awaited redeemer. The claim was believed by his followers, whom he named the Ansar, and rejected by many scholars of his day — above all the ulama employed by the Turco-Egyptian government — on the ground that his appearance did not match the signs recorded in the Hadith literature. ¹

He led the revolt that overthrew Turco-Egyptian rule in Sudan, taking El Obeid, Darfur and Kordofan and then Khartoum in January 1885, founded the Mahdist State with its capital at Omdurman, and died of typhus five months after Khartoum fell. ^{1 2}

He was born on Labab Island, Dongola, in northern Sudan, into a notable religious Arabised Nubian family of the Danagla tribe, whose lineage the articles trace to the Prophet ﷺ's grandson Hasan. ^{1 2}

His father, Ahmad ibn Abdullah, was a boat-builder; his mother, Zaynab bint Nasr, was of the Kunuz tribe; and he had three brothers who continued the boat-building trade, two of whom were later killed in the revolt's battles. ²

While he was still a child the family moved to Karari, north of Omdurman, where his father died shortly after their arrival; the family later lived for a time in Khartoum, where his mother died and was buried. ^{1 2}

He showed an early bent for religious study, memorising the Qur'an in a khalwa at Karari, studying under Sheikh al-Amin al-Suwaylih in the Gezira and then under Sheikh Muhammad al-Dikayr Abdallah Khujali near Berber; the Arabic article details his attainment in jurisprudence, mysticism, exegesis, literature and the rational sciences. ^{2 1}

In 1861 — the Arabic article dates his formal joining to 1871 — he sought out Sheikh Muhammad Sharif Nur al-Da'im, grandson of the founder of the Samaniyya order in Sudan, stayed with him seven years, and was recognised for his piety and asceticism, awarded the title of Sheikh and permitted to give the tariqa to new followers. ^{1 2}

In 1870 he settled on Aba Island on the White Nile, built a mosque and a school, taught the Qur'an, and gained a reputation among the local people as a speaker and mystic. ^{1 2}

In 1878 he fell out with his sheikh: the English article ascribes the split to the sheikh's resentment of his former student's growing popularity, while the Arabic article also reports his objection to the festivities at the circumcision of the sheikh's sons; the sheikh expelled him from the Samaniyya and refused all his attempts at reconciliation. ^{1 2}

He then joined Sheikh al-Qurashi wad al-Zayn, a rival Sammaniyya leader, who welcomed him and married him to his daughter; when al-Qurashi died on 25 July 1878 his followers recognised Muhammad Ahmad as their new leader, and in this period he first met Abdallahi ibn Muhammad al-Ta'aishi, who became his chief deputy and successor. ^{1 2}

On 29 June 1881 Muhammad Ahmad claimed to be the Mahdi, sent to prepare the way for the second coming of Jesus; the claim rested in part on his standing as a prominent Sufi sheikh with a large following in the Samaniyya and among the tribes around Aba Island. ¹

The idea of the Mahdiyya had been central to Samaniyya belief before him: his own sheikh al-Qurashi had asserted that the awaited redeemer would come from the Samaniyya line and would be known by signs, some recorded in the Hadith literature and others of local origin. ¹

Drawing on the Sufi tradition, Muhammad Ahmad claimed — as the English article reports — that he had been appointed by a prophetic assembly, the hadra, a gathering of the prophets and saints chaired by the Prophet Muhammad, and that he was created from the sacred light at the centre of Muhammad's heart; the Arabic article reports his belief that divine and prophetic orders reached him through dreams and waking voices, and his claim to meet the Prophet awake rather than in sleep. ^{1 2}

He framed the Mahdiyya as a return to the first days of Islam, and renamed his followers Ansar — the term used for the people of Medina who welcomed the Prophet and his followers — forbidding the word "dervish" for them. ¹

Despite his popularity among Samaniyya clerics and other orders and among the tribes of western Sudan, some of the ulama loyal to the Ottoman Sultan and employed by the Turco-Egyptian government rejected his claim — among them the Mufti Shakir al-Ghazi of the Khartoum Council of Appeal and the Qadi Ahmad al-Azhari in Kordofan. ¹

These critics were careful not to deny the concept of the Mahdi as such; they argued that his manifestation did not conform to the prophecies of the Hadith literature, nor to the "time of troubles" when the land is filled with oppression, tyranny and enmity. ¹

The Arabic article records that scholars of his own country, such as al-Amin al-Darir, charged him with declaring unbelievers of those who did not believe in him, and that he built his state on rulings derived from his claimed meetings with the Prophet, by which he and his followers licenced the blood and property of opponents. ²

Governor-General Muhammad Rauf Pasha, hearing of the declaration of 29 June 1881, supposed the man would be satisfied with a government pension and sent a friendly letter; the Mahdi telegraphed back, uncompromising: "He who does not believe in me will be purified by the sword." ¹

A party sent to arrest him on Aba Island was overwhelmed on 11 August 1881; he fled southwest, made a new base in the Nuba Mountains, and marched to Kordofan, gaining recruits among the Baqqara and other tribes, and in 1883 the Hadendoa Beja under Osman Digna in the east. ¹

Late in 1883 the Ansar overwhelmed an Egyptian force near El Obeid, starved the town into submission after four months, and destroyed an 8,000-man relief force under the British officer William Hicks at Shaykan; Darfur and the western half of Sudan were now in their hands. ¹

Britain decided in December 1883 to abandon Sudan, and General Charles George Gordon was sent to evacuate the Egyptian garrisons; he reached Khartoum in February 1884 and fortified it. The Ansar besieged the city from April 1884, and Wolseley's relief advanced too slowly: on 26 January 1885, after one of Gordon's officers opened the river gates, the city fell; Gordon was killed on the palace steps, hacked to pieces and beheaded, and his head was displayed at the Mahdi's order on a tree. ¹

The relief force reached Khartoum on 28 January 1885, two days too late; Kassala and Sannar fell soon after, and by the end of 1885 only Suakin and Wadi Halfa remained in government hands. ¹

He made Omdurman the capital of his state and appointed deputies modelled on the first caliphs: Abdallahi al-Ta'aishi in the station of Abu Bakr, Ali wad Hilu second, a third seat offered to the Sanusi sheikh, who refused it, and his young kinsman Muhammad Sharif fourth. ²

He imposed a strict ascetic code on his followers, as the Arabic article records: tobacco, alcohol and hashish banned; gold and silver forbidden to women; marriage procedures simplified and dowries and wedding feasts curbed; dancing, music-making and wailing over the dead banned; and the books of the legal schools burned while his followers were made to read his own Ratib prayer-book. ²

The English article observes that his revolution united different tribes and cut across religious divides despite its religious origin, and that, going against traditional injunctions, he allowed the enslavement of free Muslims who did not support him and forbade the enslavement of non-Muslims who did. ¹

He died of typhus at Omdurman on Monday 9 Ramadan 1302 AH, corresponding to 22 June 1885, five months after the capture of Khartoum, and was buried at Omdurman near the ruins of Khartoum. ^{2 1}

His first deputy, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad al-Ta'aishi, succeeded him as Khalifa and administered the Mahdist State until the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest destroyed it in 1898–1899. ^{1 2}

After the final defeat, his tomb was destroyed to prevent it becoming a rallying point, his bones thrown into the Nile, and Kitchener was said to have kept his skull as a trophy; the tomb was eventually rebuilt. ¹

This section sets out different positions as reported in the sources. It is not a verdict by the museum — neither on the claim of the Mahdiyya nor on the man. Throughout this article the claim is presented as attributed: as he made it, as his followers believed it, and as his critics answered it.

Followers. His followers believed him the divinely commissioned Mahdi, told of his visions and miracles, and the Ansar composed many poems of praise in his honour. ²

Sympathisers. The Arabic article records that prominent Arab and Muslim thinkers sympathised with his movement, among them Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh, seeing in it a revolt against corrupt foreign rule. ²

Government scholars and opponents. Ulama tied to the Turco-Egyptian government rejected the claim because it did not match the Hadith signs of the Mahdi, and Sudanese scholars such as al-Amin al-Darir charged him with excommunicating his opponents and licencing their blood, property and the enslavement of their women. ^{1 2}

In Sudanese memory. In modern Sudan he is sometimes considered a precursor of Sudanese nationalism; his direct descendant Sadiq al-Mahdi, later imam of the Ansar, twice served as prime minister (1966–1967 and 1986–1989) pursuing democratic policies, and the Umma Party claims to be his political heir. ¹

His writings — letters, proclamations, sermons, prayers and legal rulings, some one thousand pieces produced between 1881 and 1885 — were published as The Complete Writings of the Mahdi of the Sudan in 1993; the Arabic article records an edition of his works in seven volumes edited by Muhammad Ibrahim Abu Salim. ^{1 2}

• English Wikipedia article on Muhammad Ahmad (revision 1381619064); Arabic Wikipedia article «محمد أحمد المهدي» (revision 76435878); Urdu Wikipedia article (revision 11397080); Wikidata item Q298678.
• The sources differ on his birth year: 1844 in Wikidata (followed here; the day, 12 August, is the English article's), 1843 in the leads of the English and Arabic articles (the Arabic gives 8 August, "and it is said 1844"), and 1845 in the Urdu article. On his death: 22 June 1885 in the English article's body, the Arabic article and Wikidata, against 21 June in the English lead alone. On his joining the Sammaniyya: discipleship from 1861 in the English article, 1871 in the Arabic.
• The Urdu article's claim that he studied at al-Azhar and met al-Afghani in Egypt is not used: it has no support in the English or Arabic articles.