page_title: Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi
section_title: Mahdiyah (1885–1898)
hierarchical_section_title: Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi / Mahdiyah (1885–1898)
caption_attribution_description: English: The Flight of the Khalifa after his Defeat at the Battle of Omdurman, 2nd September 1898
context_page_description: Sayyid Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, KBE was one of the leading religious and political figures during the colonial era in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and continued to exert great authority as leader of the Neo-Mahdists after Sudan became independent. The British tried to exploit his influence over the Sudanese people while at the same time profoundly distrusting his motives. Throughout most of the colonial era of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan the British saw Sayyid Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi as important as a moderate leader of the Mahdists.
  Abd al-Rahman was the posthumous son of Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, who had proclaimed himself the Mahdi or redeemer of the Islamic faith in 1881, and died in 1885 a few months after his forces had captured Khartoum. A joint British and Egyptian force recaptured Sudan in 1898. At first, the British severely restricted Abd al-Rahman's movement and activity. However, he soon emerged as the Imam of the Ansar religious sect, supporters of the Mahdist movement.
  The British maintained a close political relationship with Abd al-Rahman, despite him being a Muslim leader.
context_section_description: Muhammad Ahmad died of typhus a few months after his victory, leaving power to his three deputies, or Kalifas. Abd al-Rahman was born on 15 July 1885 in Omdurman, three weeks after his father's death. His mother was granddaughter of a former Sultan of Darfur, Mohammed al-Fadl. As a child, Abd al-Rahman's only formal education was that of a religious school where the pupils memorized the Quran. By the age of eleven he had recited the Quran.
  After a prolonged struggle, by 1891 the Kalifa Abdallahi ibn Muhammad emerged as sole leader due to his support from the warlike nomadic Baggara Arabs of the west. He proved to be an able and ruthless ruler of the Mahdiyah, the Mahdist state. At first the state was run on military lines as a Jihadist state. Later, a more conventional form of administration was introduced. The Kalifa consolidated his rule in Sudan, then invaded Ethiopia, killing Emperor Yohannes IV in March 1889 and penetrating as far as Gondar. The same year, the Kalifa attacked Egypt at Tushki, but was defeated.
  However, the state suffered from economic problems and internal opposition to the Khalifa, particularly from the Mahdi's family, and the Khalifa was forced to concentrate on consolidation. The British detected his weakness, and prepared an invasion motivated in part by a wish to revenge Gordon's death, in part by a desire for raw cotton for their textile industry. A methodical invasion was launched in 1896. slowly moving south supported by a railway that the army built along its route. The force reached Berber in September 1897 and Atbara in April 1898. The British and Egyptian force led by General Kitchener defeated the Kalifa at the Battle of Omdurman on 2 September 1898. The battle is known as the Battle of Karari to Mahdists.
  In his book The River War, Sir Winston Churchill, who was present at the Battle, summed up the result: "The River War is over. In its varied course, which extended over fourteen years and involved the untimely destruction of perhaps 300,000 lives, many extremes and contrasts have been displayed, There have been battles which were massacres, and others that were mere parades. There have been occasions of shocking cowardice and surprising heroism... of wisdom and incompetence. But the result is at length achieved and the flags of England and Egypt wave unchallenged over the valley of the Nile".
  The British sent the Mahdi's family to al-Shakaba on the Blue Nile in September 1898. The group included the Khalifa Muhammad Sharif, the Mahdi's cousin and one of his chosen successors. In 1899 the government heard rumors that the family group was advocating a Mahdist revival and dispatched a military force to al-Shakaba. One account says the force attacked the family and followers, firing on them at random. Abd al-Rahman was badly wounded and his two elder brothers were killed. Another account says Muhammad Sharif and the two elder sons of the Mahdi were arrested. There was a skirmish when an attempt was made to rescue them. Muhammad Sharif and the Mahdi's two sons were found guilty by a court martial trial and were shot.
  Organized resistance to the British had ended by 1899, although sporadic fighting continued for a few more years. In theory the British ruled the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in partnership with Egypt through an arrangement called the "condominium". In practice, although Egypt bore most of the costs of the military conquest and occupation of Sudan, the British ran the country as they chose. The head of the military and the civil administration under the 19 January 1899 Condominium Agreement was a British-nominated Governor General, who acted independently of the Cairo government.
caption: Battle of Omdurman: the Flight of the Khalifa (1898)
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:12:30 01:25:54", "Image WhitePoint": "[0, 0]", "Image PrimaryChromaticities": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Image YCbCrCoefficients": "[0, 0, 0]", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "0", "Image ReferenceBlackWhite": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Image ExifOffset": "360", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "994", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6779", "EXIF ExposureTime": "0", "EXIF FNumber": "0", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "[0, 0]", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "0", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "0", "EXIF ApertureValue": "0", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "0", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "0", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Unidentified", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "0", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "800", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "530", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "0", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "0", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "0", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "0", "EXIF SensingMethod": "0", "EXIF FileSource": "0", "EXIF SceneType": "0", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "0", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}