Al-Mahdi

[Ar., guide, leader.]
Among Mohammedans, the last imam or leader of the faithful. The Sunni, the largest sect of the Mohammedans, believe that he is yet to appear.

Note: The title has been taken by several persons in countries where Mohammedanism prevails, -- notably by Mohammad Ahmed, who overran the Egyptian Sudan, and in 1885 captured Khartum, his soldiers killing General Gordon, an Englishman, who was then the Egyptian governor of the region.

For more information on al- Mahdi, visit Britannica.com.

Mohammed Ahmed (ca. 1844-1885) was an Islamic puritan, reformer, and military leader of the Sudan. He is better known as the Mahdi.

Mohammed Ahmed was born on an island in the Nile River near Dongola in what is now the northern Sudan. His father was a boatbuilder. Mohammed Ahmed took an early and intense interest in Islamic mysticism and asceticism, becoming a religious teacher and joining the Sammaniya order in 1861. Gathering pupils and disciples about him, he established his retreat on Aba Island in the White Nile south of Khartoum, where he earned a reputation for holiness and mystical powers.

Messianic Leader

His religious experiences and contemplations on Aba Island caused Mohammed Ahmed to feel that Allah had selected him as the true Mahdi, the right-guided one or the messianic leader called to battle against immorality and corruption and for the rejuvenation and purification of Islam. He saw himself as sent by Allah to purge Islam of its evils and to return it to the purity of the faith of Mohammed the Prophet. In addition, his theological views had eschatological overtones in that he not only viewed himself as the rightful head of the Islamic community fulfilling the role of Mohammed the Prophet but as the ultimate figure presiding over the end of time.

Mohammed Ahmed found ideal conditions in the central and northern Sudan for a mass emotional movement, not only in the religious devotion of the Moslem population of the area but especially in the resentment of the inhabitants toward the corruption and oppression of the Turkish and Egyptian rulers who had dominated the Upper Nile region since the reign of Mohammed Ali earlier in the 19th century. Mohammed Ahmed thus found support from the Sudanese for a variety of reasons and motives - from pious and religious believers who accepted his puritan and reformist views, from nomadic groups who opposed all governmental restrictions, and from others who profited from the slave trade and rejected efforts of the Egyptian khedive Ismail and Gen. Gordon to eliminate it.

Mohammed Ahmed's movement for reform and reorganization spread rapidly following his public appearance as the Mahdi in June 1881 because of its wide appeal. But the weakness and indecision of Egyptian authorities because of economic and political problems within Egypt played a key role in the success of the Mahdi's campaign. The Egyptian government declared its bankruptcy in 1876 owing to, at least in part, Khedive Ismail's efforts to build a vast Egyptian empire in the Sudan and Upper Nile area. Foreign debt supervisors secured considerable influence and power in Egypt in the late 1870s, thus popularizing the nationalist movement against this foreign presence and culminating in Col. Arabi's coup of early 1882 and the consequent British intervention and occupation later that year.

Military Victories

Successive victories over halfhearted Egyptian attempts to overcome the Mahdi vastly strengthened the new movement through the acquisition of much military equipment and the apparent proof of Allah's support. After the British occupation of Egypt in 1882, the new British authorities in Cairo ignored the Sudan, but the Egyptian government did seek to demonstrate its own power despite British overrule by ordering a new campaign to oust the Mahdi. In 1883 the Mahdists overwhelmed the Egyptian army of Gen. Hicks, and Great Britain ordered the withdrawal of all Egyptian troops and officials from the Sudan. How could Britain reestablish financial order in Egypt if the country's resources were being utilized in expensive campaigns in the Sudan?

The victorious followers of the Mahdi occupied most of the Sudan; Lord Cromer, the British consul general in Cairo, sent the famous Gen. Gordon to carry out and accelerate the Egyptian evacuation. Khartoum, the capital and center of the country, fell to the Mahdi in January 1885 following Gen. Gordon's legendary and foolhardy defense.

The Mahdi had successfully expelled foreign influences and had united most of the Sudan area in a unique religiopolitical movement. According to Mahdist theology and theocracy, the Mahdi held his superior power directly from Allah and then delegated power directly to others as he chose. The Mahdi died in 1885, probably of typhus, but his theocratic state continued for another 13 years under his follower and friend the caliph Abdullahi. The British general Kitchener reoccupied the Sudan primarily with Egyptian troops in 1898, not only because of any threat the Mahdist movement itself posed to the British position in Egypt but because of British imperial needs in the partition of Africa among the great powers of Europe.

To members of the Ansar (Helpers) movement today, a powerful religious brotherhood and an important but conservative political factor in the Republic of the Sudan, the Mahdi was a nationalist leader who liberated the people of the Sudan from alien oppression and began the modern history of the country.

Further Reading

An old and romantic view of the Mahdi is in the biography by Richard A. Bermann, The Mahdi of Allah (1931). The Mahdist movement is well treated in A. B. Theobald, The Mahdiya: A History of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1881-1899 (1951), and in P. M. Holt, The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1881-1898 (1958). For general background on the Sudan see a work by a Sudanese, Mekki Shibeika, The Independent Sudan (1959), and P. M. Holt, A Modern History of the Sudan (1966).

Additional Sources

Farwell, Byron, Prisoners of the Mahdi: the story of the Mahdist revolt which frustrated Queen Victoria's designs on the Sudan …, New York: W.W. Norton, 1989.

c. 1840 - 1885

Islamic politico-religious leader, called al-Mahdi, known as the father of Sudanese nationalism.

Born Muhammad Ahmad ibn Abdullah, Muhammad Ahmad was the son of a boat builder on Labab island, in the Nile, south of Dongola, Sudan. His father claimed descent from the family of the Prophet. The family moved to Karari, north of Omdurman, and then Khartoum, while Muhammad Ahmad was a child. He was enrolled in Qurʿanic schools and then pursued advanced studies under Shaykh Muhammad al-Dikar in Barbara and then under Shaykh al-Quashi wad al-Zayn in the Sammaniyya tariqah (religious order) school in Khartoum. An ascetic person, who sought a puritanic, meditative lifestyle, he broke with his religious teacher in 1881, soon after he moved to Aba island in the White Nile.

In June 1881, he dispatched letters to religious leaders throughout the Sudan, informing them that he was the "expected Mahdi," the divine leader chosen by God to fill the earth with justice and equity at the end of time. After emissaries from the Turko - Egyptian government tried to dissuade him, an armed force was dispatched to capture him and his small band of followers. His three hundred adherents, armed only with swords and spears, defeated the expedition on Aba island, 12 August 1881. Following that seemingly miraculous victory, the Mahdi led his followers to Qadir mountain in the region of Kurdufan. Their migration imitated the prophet Muhammad's hijra (holy flight) from Mecca to Medina. The move to Kurdufan also enabled him to recruit adherents from the Nuba and baqqara (cattle-herding Arab) tribes of the west, who had long defied the control of the central government. The Ansar (helpers or followers) defeated government expeditions in December 1881, June 1882, and November 1883.

By then, the Mahdi had flooded the country with letters that explained the politico-religious significance of his mission: his task was to reverse the socioreligious abuses of the Turko - Egyptian regime, which had departed from God's path, and to revive the simple and just practices of early Islam. Since his mission was divinely ordained, those who opposed him were termed infidels. Efforts by the government and established clergy to denounce him as an imposter had diminishing effect, as growing numbers of tribes and religious leaders rallied to his banner. By the time that the Mahdi besieged Khartoum in late 1884, some 100,000 Ansar were camped outside. The Mahdi captured Khartoum on 26 January 1885 and established his capital across the White Nile at Omdurman. Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi died of a sudden illness on 22 June 1885 and was succeeded by his principal baqqara follower, Abdullahi ibn Muhammad, who converted Mahdi's religious state into a military dictatorship and ruled until the Anglo - Egyptian conquest in 1898. Under the leadership of his son Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, the Mahdi's followers formed a brotherhood to continue his teachings.

Sudanese nationalists later viewed the Mahdi as "the father of independence," who united the tribes, drove out the foreign rulers, and founded the Sudanese nation-state; he saw himself, rather, as "a renewer of the Muslim Faith, come to purge Islam of faults and accretions" (Holt and Daly, p. 87). Moreover, as the successor to the prophet, he was restoring the community of the faithful: That belief justified his political role. Finally, his belief that he was the "expected Mahdi" emphasized the ecstatic dimension and the idea that his coming foretold the end of time. The combining of those elements - political, religious, and social - produced a powerful, popularly based movement that swept away the decaying Turko - Egyptian regime. The Mahdi's death, immediately after gaining control over almost all of northern Sudan, made it impossible to assess whether he had the ability to craft an Islamic polity on the basis of his charismatic authority.

Bibliography

Holt, P. M. The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1881 - 1898: A Study of Its Origins, Development, and Overthrow. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970.

Holt, P. M., and Daly, M. W. The History of the Sudan: From the Coming of Islam to the Present Day. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979.

Shibikah, Makki. The Independent Sudan. New York: R. Speller, 1959.

— ANN M. LESCH

For other uses, see Mahdi (disambiguation).

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This article is about the Abbasid caliph. For Twelfth Imam and Islamic Promised One, see Muhammad al-Mahdi.

Muhammad ibn Mansur al-Mahdi (Arabic: محمد بن منصورالمهدى ‎) (ruled 775–785), was the third Abbasid Caliph. He succeeded his father, al-Mansur.

Al-Mahdi, whose name means "Rightly-guided" or "Redeemer", was proclaimed caliph when his father was on his deathbed. His peaceful reign continued the policies of his predecessors.

Rapprochement with the Shi'ite Muslims in the Caliphate occurred under al-Mahdi's reign. The powerful Barmakid family, which had advised the Caliphs since the days of al-'Abbas as viziers, gained even greater powers under al-Mahdi's rule, and worked closely with the caliph to ensure the prosperity of the Abbasid state.

Dirhem of Al-Mahdi, 775-785, Baghdad, silver 2.97g.

The cosmopolitan city of Baghdad blossomed during al-Mahdi's reign. The city attracted immigrants from all of Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Persia, and lands as far away as India and Spain. Baghdad was home to Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Zoroastrians, in addition to the growing Muslim population. It became the world's largest city.

Al-Mahdi continued to expand the Abbasid administration, creating new diwans, or departments, for the army, the chancery, and taxation. Qadis or judges were appointed, and laws against non-Arabs were dropped.

The Barmakid family staffed these new departments. The Barmakids, of Persian extraction, had originally been Buddhists, but shortly before the arrival of the Arabs, they had converted to Zoroastrianism. Their short-lived Islamic legacy would count against them during the reign of Haroun al-Rashid.

The introduction of paper from China (see Battle of Talas) in 751, which had not yet been used in the West – the Arabs and Persians used papyrus, and the Europeans used vellum – had a profound effect. The paper industry boomed in Baghdad where an entire street in the city center became devoted to sales of paper and books. The cheapness and durability of paper was vital to the efficient growth of the expanding Abbasid bureaucracy.

Al-Mahdi had two important religious policies: the persecution of the zanadiqa, or dualists, and the declaration of orthodoxy. Al-Mahdi singled out the persecution of the zanadiqa in order to improve his standing among the purist Shi'i, who wanted a harder line on heresies, and found the spread of syncretic Muslim-polytheist sects to be particularly virulent. Al-Mahdi declared that the caliph had the ability – and indeed, the responsibility – to define the orthodox theology of Muslims, in order to protect the umma against heresy. Although al-Mahdi did not make great use of this broad, new power, it would become important during the 'mihna' crisis of al-Ma'mun's reign.

Contents 1 Daughter 2 Description 3 Character 4 Bibliography 5 References

Daughter

Banuqa (c767 - c783) was a Muslim Abbasid princess, the daughter of Al-Mahdi, Caliph of Baghdad, and his wife Al-Khaizuran, and sister to Harun Al-Rashid.

Banuqa had her own palace in the grounds of the royal palace in Baghdad. Beautiful and elegant, she was her father's favourite daughter. The caliph allowed her to ride in his own retinue, disguised in male attire and carrying a sword. She died young, and contemporary poets produced many elegiac works to honour her memory. ^[1]

Description

In the words of Ibn_Khallikan (CE 1211-1282):

This prince had great talent as a singer and an able hand on musical instruments; he was also an agreeable companion at parties of pleasure. Being of dark complexion, which he inherited from his mother, Shikla- who was a Negro-he received the name "At-Thinnin" (the Dragon).

Character

Al-Masudi (p. 34f) relates some anecdotes in his Meadows of Gold that illumine a little the character of this caliph. There is the story of al-Mahdi out hunting stopping to take a simple meal from a peasant. With him on this occasion was one companion who felt the peasant should be punished for serving such food. Al-Mahdi rewarded the peasant.

Another tale has the caliph dining with a bedouin unaware of the identity of his guest. After tasty food the bedouin offers al-Mahdi liquid refreshment. Progressively al-Mahdi tells the bedouin that his guest is one of the caliph's eunuchs, one of the caliph's generals and then the caliph himself. The bedouin says no more for you. Next you'll be claiming you're the Messenger of God.

Al-Mahdi alarmed his treasurer by charitably spending the vast amount that al-Mansur had left him. However, the caliph was unconcerned and, indeed, incoming revenue soon arrived, enabling his bounty to continue. His generosity was compared to the waves of the sea.

Just before his death, al-Mahdi is supposed to have had a supernatural visitation who recited to the caliph ominous verses.

Bibliography

• Al-Masudi The Meadows of Gold, The Abbasids, transl. Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone, Kegan Paul, London and New York, 1989

References

1. ^ N. Abbott, Two Queens in Baghdad (1986)

Al-Mahdi Abbasid Born:  ? Died: 785
Sunni Islam titles
Preceded by Al-Mansur	Caliph of Islam 775 – 785	Succeeded by Al-Hadi

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