The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-09-13
THE MORGHANI FAMILY.
Future Princes of the soudan.


 Tuesday, January f. 1898, was high day at Kassala, and promises to be- come historic in the annals of the Sou dan. On that day Sidi Ali Morghani, the head of the Morgilani family, ar rived at the capital of Taka to resume the work of his family in the eastern Soudan and the Upper Nile. He was accompanied by Captain McKerrell, with an escort of a hundred men of the Camel Corps and was received by Col- onel Parsons, the governor, who rode out with an escort some two miles from Kassala and welcomed him to the home of his fathers.
 When Sidi Ali left Suakim on Decem- Der 21 he had a following of hundred men, but he was joined by many of his adherents on his way through the Tokar district and up the Baraka val ley. He had thus a following of some five hundred when he arrived at Kas- sala riding on his big white camel His coming had been eagerly awaited by the devout Moslems of Kassala and district. AS soon as his caravan was sighted hundreds of them went out to greet him and do him reverence.
 As the head of the Morghani family Sidi Ali is head, or primate, of the Khatimiya order. This is a Moslem so- dality-tariqa or "path'-which was in- troduced into the Soudan by the head of the Morghanis early in the present century. "The Khatimiyeh," wrote Sir Charles Wilson in 1887. are of the many Tarikahs, or religious orders, of Islam; and their head is known as the Sirr i-Khatm, Lord of Perfection, or the man who has attained the high est degree of learning and piety. The Khatimiyeh are strict Sunnis and strongly opposed to all non Koranic teaching. they play the same part in the Soudan as Senusiism does among the Arabs of the country to the north and west. The object of the order is to strive after perfection in religion and to spread their tenets among the people; with this view mosques have been built and schools established in the villages, and nearly every young man I met who could read and write had been instructed by member of the order" con the Tribes of the Nile Valley, North of Khartoum. D
 JOulHetl bl lHe ATlIHTOpOlOSlCdl lnSIl- tute," Vol. XVII, D. 6.) A note of Ma jor Wingate, in his 'Mahdism and the Soudan' helps to elucidate the title which is borne by the head of the order. "The title Sirr- he says, implies that the Morghani creed is the 'Khattam,' or finality of all creeds, that any further development of the Mahometan creed can only be a work of supererogation; in fact, that the Morghani creed includes everything that is necessary for the highest de- velopment of the Moslem religion. ' From what is here said by Sir Charles Wilson and Major Wingate it seems probable to student of Arabic and Is- lam that in the name of the order, as well as in the title of it's head, there is an allusion to one of the titles of Mu- hammad, who is called the Khatim, or Seal of the Prophets"
 In the days of General Gordon the head of the order was Sidi (Muham- maO Osman of Kassala, whose name is often met with in connection with Gordon's last term of residence at Khartoum. It was he who was the an- imating spirit in the defence of Kassa- la, in maintaining the loyalty of the Beni Amr tribe, and in keeping open communications with the coast by way of Kassala and Massowah. Through him came General Gordon's letters and