1885 - 1959
Leader in the Sudan after World War I.
Born after the death of his father, Muhammad Ahmad, in June 1885, Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi was reared in Omdurman under the rule of the Khalifa Abdullahi. Upon the conquest of the Sudan by Anglo - Egyptian forces in 1898, he, as the eldest surviving son of the Mahdi (and consequently his spiritual and legal heir), was kept under close scrutiny by the British authorities until the outbreak of World War I, when they sought his assistance to counter any call for a jihad by the Ottoman Turks, who were allies of the Germans. Sayyid Abd al-Rahman unstintingly supported the British and in return received the freedom to enhance his wealth and his influence among the followers of his father, the Ansar; thus he emerged as the leading religious and political figure in the Anglo - Egyptian Sudan. Despite tensions between him and the British, who feared a revival of Muslim fanaticism in the guise of neo-Mahdism, the sayyid continued to prove his loyalty to the government. He used his abundant resources to acquire a loyal following among the Ansar, whom he converted into the Umma political party. After World War II he remained the most influential Sudanese in the emerging political system. Like his father, he frustrated Egyptian claims in the Sudan and for a time regarded himself as a possible king of an independent Sudan. This was unacceptable to the vast majority of Sudanese, who did not wish to be dominated by the Ansar as they had been in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Until his death Abd al-Rahman continued to pursue his ambitions to ensure that the Ansar and the Umma would remain preeminent in an independent Sudan.
Bibliography
Holt, P. M., and Daly, M. W. A History of the Sudan: From the Coming of Islam to the Present Day, 5th edition. Harlow, U.K., and New York: Longman, 2000.
Petterson, Donald. Inside Sudan: Political Islam, Conflict, and Catastrophe, revised edition. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2003.
— ROBERT O. COLLINS
