Mahdist War: A History from Beginning to End

by Hourly History

The Mahdist War, which took place at the end of the nineteenth century, was officially a war against colonialism in Sudan. In reality, though, it was much more than that; fighting took place across a continent, and reverberations were felt around the world. The Mahdist War began—technically—as a religious conflict. An Islamic religious leader named Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah led a group of Muslim fundamentalists in rebellion against Egypt, which controlled Sudan, and Great Britain, who supported Egypt financially and had a large stake in the construction of the Suez Canal in Egypt. Ostensibly, the war was also against the Ottoman Empire, since they still maintained a presence in the region, but by this point, that presence was largely symbolic.

domestic governance and has not been immune to religious conflicts, particularly between Christians and Muslims. Before the sixteenth century, the region was primarily Christian but was then heavily settled by Arab nomadic peoples, causing the spread and proliferation of Islam. In the centuries before being conquered by Egypt in 1819, Sudan was largely controlled by the Ottoman Empire (primarily in the north) and the two Muslim kingdoms of the Sultanate of Darfur and the Sultanate of Funj. Even after Egypt conquered Sudan, the Ottoman Empire maintained a presence in the region (and in Egypt itself).

Muhammad Ali then set about modernizing Egypt. Across the Middle East, North Africa, and within the Ottoman Empire especially, rulers looked to Europe as a model in order to modernize their peoples and kingdoms. This modernization entailed efforts to further literacy, provide better medical care, industrialize, build infrastructure, and streamline the economy, among other things. Loftier goals included making strides in literature, the arts, and the sciences. In this regard, Muhammad Ali was quite successful. He built railroads, raised a powerful army, bureaucratized the government, and introduced a standard currency. He also established a medical school for women, technical colleges, and sponsored the beginning of the Arabic literary renaissance. He is considered one of the fathers of modern Egypt.

Just as many revolutions and uprisings have a figurehead at the helm, the Mahdist War had Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, known as Muhammad Ahmad. He was a Muslim religious leader from the Sudan region. His family claimed to be direct descendants of the prophet Muhammad himself, though he grew up in humble circumstances. As a calling, he took the religious life, studying with several sheikhs of the Samaniyya order and became a sheikh himself.