160 ISLAM AT WAR
inward-looking Sudanese. The garrison was sufficient to oppress the prov-
ince, but insufficient to stop slavery. Slavery in fact, was a primary form
of revenue to the corrupt governor-generals. That these officials sent no
revenue upriver to Cairo was an accepted fact, reciprocated by the fact
that Cairo sent no support to the officials or peoples of the sad province.
However, this unhappy state of affairs would come to an end as the Egyp-
tian government began to feel a pressing need for funds.
The first inkling that change was afoot in the Sudan came when the
khedive began hiring British officers to bring the province into line. One
of these was Charles “Chinese” Gordon, who appeared in the Sudan as
early as 1877. Gordon had served in China and was certainly an able and
honest administrator as well as a competent soldier. Sadly, his honesty
caused him to spend Sudanese revenues for the betterment of the Sudan,
partially correcting years of abuse, when Cairo needed those revenues for
weightier matters. After a leave, Gordon was reappointed governor-
general of the Sudan and by 1884 was installed in Khartoum, the provin-
cial capital. He was about to meet a peculiarly Muslim phenomena.
Muhammad Ahmad was born in about 1844 in the southern part of the
Sudan. By age sixteen he declared himself to be a mystic and began travels
around the country to learn and share his faith. What he saw in his travels
was the brutality and indolence of the “Turk” or Egyptian occupation.
Ahmad was plainly an intelligent and dedicated man, and after years of
self-inflicted poverty, he declared himself to be theMahdi,or “expected
one.” The concept of mahdi is deep in Islamic tradition, although it is not
from the Koran. The idea was almost certainly adapted from the Jewish
and Christian hope for a messiah, as the mahdi is to be the person who
ushers in an era of equity and justice, which sweeps away all who oppose
the mahdi as he gloriously reestablishes a pure Islamic state. The clear
difference between the Judeo-Christian messiah and the Muslim mahdi,
is that the mahdi would use murder as the main intellectual and spiritual
argument—accept or die.^1 Muhammad Ahmad was not to be the first
bandit to claim to be the mahdi, and he would not be the last, for the
combination of charlatanism and oppression is not uncommon, and it has
frequently offered warlords the tool to motivate the ignorant and foolish
into becoming fanatic followers. Fortunately, mahdism is an unstable
device, and the soldiers’ fanaticism tends to wane with the new leader’s
degree of oppression and as quick victories and easy plunder dwindle.
Outside forces will inevitably be hostile, of course, but it remains that
mahdism can be a formidable force when young. This is clearly so when
the mahdi publicly postures after the life of the original Muhammad,
an understandable temptation and one that strengthens his hold on his
followers.