The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1885-02-12
THE NAHDE.

Imagine msa about 40 years OF age.
Of medium height. as lean. as the saying
is, as shotten herring. with a mahogany
complexion, coal black beard and eyes,
and three vertical slashes on his pallid
cheeks; add to this long cotton shirt as
q garment, q narrow turban as q head
dress. q pair OF wooden sandals, and in
his hands-drY as those of 8 mummy--a
string of ninety beads, corresponding to
an equal number of diYine attributes.
and you have the Mahdi. Those who
have seen him say that Mohammed
Ahmed plays to perfection the part OF
visionary dervish. waving his head
when walking, and murmuring constant
prayers, his eyes fixed on heaven. His
father was carpenter on Naft Island,
In the NubiaA Province of D0ngola, and
about 1852 came, with his four children.
TO Chindi, small city on the banks OF
the Nile south of Berber. When still
very young he was placed as an appren-
tioe uader the care of one OF his uncles,
shipbuilder of Chabakah, opposite
SEMINAR. 1t seems that the future
prophet was not without his faIlings.
tor one day his uncle thought well of
hngging him IN regular French style
The proceeding was not appreciated,
and the child ran away until he arrived
in Khartoum, where he entered sort of
school or convent of begging dervishes,
who were in charge of the monument
erected over the venereted remains of
Check Hoghali, patron of the city
There his life was q remarkable one for
his pietY; but as t. education, he never
learned how t. write, or even how to
read fiuently. Later he went to a SINH
lar institution In Berber, then to one in
Arsdup. on the south of Kena. In the
tie disciple of an eminent faker, Cheik
Nur- el-Daip, and finally was ordained
by him and went TO Abbas Island,
White Nile. His fame as a sanity
man was every year on the in
crease He lived in kind of pit or 81 b.
terranean repository fer grain, called
silo, which he had dug up with his own
hands; and there he passed his life, fast
ing and praying, burning incense day
and night, and repeating the name OF
Allahtor hours at time until he would
fall to the ground painting and exhaust
ed. II snybody spoke to him be gave
no answer, except sentences from the
sacred books of Islam. Earthly things
saamed IN ipSDi 70 him oDIv, uyi4b d;surat
and pity. He had made vow to alb
sorb himself in the contemplation of di-
vine pertectlons and to weep all his life
for the sins of mankind. But his tears
did not destroy his powers of vision,
and Kept his best eye wide open to bus
iness; and the faithful coming by thou
sands and depOslting rich offerings at
the mouth OF his silo, he never failed to
see the gifts nor to stow them away care
fully for stormy days. In 1878 ne had
become SO wealthy that he telt the ne
cessity to declare that Allah had order
ed him to leave his silo and take unto
himself large collection of wives,
whom as a practical man, he choose
among the most Influential families of
the country, especially that of the Ba-
garas, the most opulant slave traders On
the White Nile.
Every one has still fresh in his mem
Org the appalling determination Hicks
P asha's II 600 men, surrounded on the
9th of November, 1SS3-the first day of
the fourteenth century OF the Hegira =
at Kasghll, while marching on Ell Obeid.
This horrible bu5chery, happening ON
the threshold of the century announced
as the Que of the Last Prophet, gave q
bloody conservation TO Monammed All
med, who, after the three days. battle,
went all over the battlefield, piercing
with his spear the CHASTITY corpses OF his
enemies, and exclalming: ut is I, I,
the Prophet, who destroyed the here
tics" Compared to him Mohammed
was no more, in his mind, than a small
prophet. He alone was the only great
and powerful Messiah announced by
MOhGmmed himself. The sultan OF
Constsntinople was no more the supreme
Caliph, the chief of Islamism; it was
he, Mohammed Ahmed, aud he ordered
his own name to be invoked ia public
worship in the place of Mohammed's;
right after the name of Allah!
L have said enough to show what kind
of 4 man is the Nubian Mahdi.
ALFRED N COTE, LII. D.