By 1879, Britain was fully in charge of Egypt. Gordon was made governor-general of Sudan a few years before, but the Brits had little interest in Sudan. At that time, a new movement started on a small island in the White Nile where the charismatic holy man Mohammed Ahmed, started to proclaim himself the Mahdi, "the Guided One". The Mahdi is the prophesied redeemer of Islam, who will change the world into a perfect Islamic society before Yaum al-Qiyamah (literally "Day of the Resurrection").

The Brits in Khartoum didn’t really like the idea of a rebellion and sent soldiers to arrest the Mahdi, but he escaped and fled to the province of Kordofan. It didn’t take long before Kordofan had fallen to the rebellion, including El Obeid – Sudan’s second largest town. The Brits got slightly agitated in Cairo and London and sent an army to ‘restore peace’… The whole army of 10,000 men was slaughtered in the Battle of Sheikan. The regions Darfur, Bhar-al-Ghazal and the Beja tribes of Eastern Sudan rose in support of the Mahdi and by September 1884, the Mahdi arrived at the gates of Khartoum, making his camp in Omdurman.

The gate does not look that impressive, now that a roundabout is built around it:

The arms of the two Niles made Khartoum easy to defend, but the Mahdi wasn’t stupid and began to slowly starve the city into submission. As the waters of the Nile dropped, the city became more and more exposed and on January 26 1885 the city had fallen and Gordon got stabbed to death on the steps of the Governor’s palace. In London, Gordon was canonised as a Victorian warrior-saint.

The Mahdy’s Tomb

Mohammed Ahmed never had time to fully enjoy the spoils of victory. 5 Months after capturing Khartoum, enjoying his harem of slave-girls and good food, he was dead – probably typhoid. A tomb with glittering silver dome was raised in his honour and pilgrimage to the tomb was made incumbent on all Sudanese, replacing the Haj to Mecca as one of the pillars of Islam.

The Mahdy’s Tomb, as seen from Khalifa’s house:

Khalifa’s House

The Mahdi’s successor was the Khalifa Abdullah, from Darfur. Khalifa is Arabic for "stewardship" of nature and family, and is a key obligation of a Muslim. In the case of Abdullah, "The Khalifa" was the Sudanese Ansar (Patron of the late-Mahdi) General and ruler.

Omdurman grew as the new capital, the slave markets were reopened and the taxes went to crippling levels to fill the Khalifa’s private treasury. The Khalifa shared the Mahdi’s expansionist dreams, fighting the Ethiopians (a victory, but more like penalties than in the standard 90 minutes) and even trying to invade Egypt (and fail, again massive loss of life). After a devastating 3-year drought, Sudan began to stagnate again in 1895. On September 2 1898, Kitchener’s army (Yes, another Brit) met the Khalifa’s army and in a clash between the industrial and medieval worlds, called the Battle of Omdurman, 10,000 Sudanese died and the Khalifa fled Khartoum. Kitchener called it ‘A good dusting’

Across the street of the Mahdy’s Tomb is the house of his successor, Khalifa Abdullah. The house with a series of courtyards has been turned into a museum of the Mahdiya period.

The Brits left behind some good stuff when fleeing the first time:

The Mahdi’s favourite Enfield machine gun, captured when Gordon left the building:

The same machine gun made the difference in the Battle of Omdurman. The Mahdi managed to capture some modern fire arms in 1885, but 18 years later the Brits came back with more gunpower. A famous writer of that time wrote the lines "Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim Gun and they have not", and this difference would characterise imperial attitudes ever since.

Soon after their reconquest of Sudan, the British blew up the tomb and threw the Mahdi’s ashes in the river to prevent it from becoming a rallying point for unhappy Sudanese. The present tomb – a straight copy of the original – was rebuilt in 1947, once the Brits got over their fears of its symbolic power.

And here a picture of the two explorers:

Have a good week! Dennis