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The Mahdist State

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The Mahdist State CHAPTER 1 The Mahdist State 1 Political Establishment Muḥammad Aḥmad b. ʿAbdallāh (1844–85) headed a millenarian, revivalist, reformist movement in Islam in the late 19th century, strongly inspired by Salafī ideas and his Ṣūfī background, in an attempt to restore the theocracy of the Prophet and the “Righteous [Orthodox] Caliphs” (al-khulafāʾ al-rāshidūn).1 The idea of Mahdism had manifested itself in Sudan as early as the 17th century. The Mahdist movement was motivated by eschatological expectations whose source of inspiration can be traced to Egypt in the 18th and 19th centuries.2 In its initial stages the Mahdiyya had many of the characteristics of a social and political protest movement. Its main causes were the conquest of Sudan by Egypt under Muḥammad ʿAlī and the annexation of the former sultanate of Darfur by Egypt in 1874; the replacement, by the Turco-Egyptian regime, of the indigenous religious functionaries with orthodox ʿulamāʾ imported from Egypt; and the attempts to put an end to the slave trade, contrary to Sudanese vested interests.3 Muḥammad Aḥmad b. ʿAbdallāh of Dongolawi origin was born in Baḥr al-Fīl.4 He claimed to have been related to the ashrāf, descendants of the Prophet.5 He attended khalawāt, Qurʾān schools, and studied with local holy 1 On one occasion the Mahdī makes the following statement: “Our time is integrated (mundarij) in the time of the Messenger of God”; see al-Āthār al-kāmila, III, 351. Salafī ideas led the Mahdī to concentrate on the Qurʾān and the Prophetic sunna as the textual sources of his methodology fully detached from the adherence (taʿaṣṣub) to the schools of law. See Abū Salīm, al-Ḥaraka al-fikriyya, 75–77, 79, 86, 164–65; Abū Shūk, “Minhajiyyat al-tashrīʿ,” 11, col. i; below, Ch. 2. Although the Mahdī was strongly influenced by Ṣūfī ideas he decided to abolish the Ṣūfī orders in an attempt to replace loyalty to the orders with loyalty to his revivalist movement. For further details, see below, Ch. 1.4. 2 On the Mahdist idea and its connection to the Shīʿa, see Holt, The Mahdist State, 22ff. Cf. Abū Shūk, “Minhajiyyat al-tashrīʿ,” 19, col. i. 3 Holt, The Mahdist State, 19ff.; idem, “al-Mahdiyya,” 1247ff.; Holt & Daly, The History of Sudan, 87f.; Searcy, The Sudanese Mahdist State, 21–24. 4 Al-Āthār al-kāmila, V, 420. 5 Ibid., I, 93; ibid., V, 96. The Mahdī instructed that his ahl al-bayt, kin—an expression bor- rowed from the Prophet’s kin—be treated with special care and respect; see ibid., V, 67, 377. The ashrāf in east Sudan were not related to the Mahdī’s family; see al-Āthār al-kāmila, I, 361. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/97890043�3996_003 Political Establishment 7 men and fakīs,6 religious teachers propagating Islam; he also received religious education in a state school. Unlike some of his colleagues, he did not proceed to al-Azhar but preferred a life of asceticism and mystic experiences within the discipline of a Ṣūfī order. He spent seven years with Shaykh Muḥammad Sharīf Nūr al-Dāʾim, the grandson of Shaykh Aḥmad al-Ṭayyib al-Bashīr, who had introduced the Sammāniyya ṭarīqa (Ṣūfī order), a branch of the Khalwatiyya, into Sudan;7 he gained a reputation for extreme asceticism and was given ijāza, formal authorization, to teach as a shaykh of the Sammāniyya.8 After having moved to Abā Island, a crisis with his master caused his subsequent expulsion from the order. Muḥammad Aḥmad professed allegiance to Shaykh al-Qurashī wad al-Zayn, a rival head of the Sammāniyya, and when the latter died, his fol- lowers recognized Muḥammad Aḥmad as the new leader of the Sammāniyya.9 According to Abū Salīm, Muḥammad Aḥmad read treatises by al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240), Ibn Idrīs (d. 1264/1847) and Aḥmad Ṭayyib al-Bashīr (d. 1246/1830). At some point he joined the Tijānī order in Berber. He had a good knowledge of the Qurʾān, ḥadīth, tafsīr (commentary on the Qurʾān) and fiqh (legal doctrine). His relations with the various schools of law were a function of the subject matter.10 The Mahdī never left Sudan and lacked orientation in issues that faced Islam outside its borders.11 He seems to have been fully aware of his limited religious and legal education, but he derived comfort and inspiration from the personal example of the Prophet 6 See Glossary, s.v. fakī. 7 Holt, “A Sudanese Saint,” 108–15; idem, The Mahdist State, 21, 45–49; O’Fahey, Arabic Literature of Africa, 304–5; idem, “Sudanese Mahdi,” 268ff.; Trimingham, Islam in the Sudan, 93–95, 226–27; Karrar, The Sufi Brotherhoods, 43–47. The Mahdī reminds Muḥammad Sharīf Nūr al-Dāʾim of his affiliation with the Sammāniyya order and urges him to join the Mahdiyya on the ground that God had informed his grandfather of the Mahdī’s manifestation; see al-Āthār al-kāmila, I, 420, 423; ibid., V, 285–86. 8 Al-Āthār al-kāmila, I, 47ff.; ibid., VI, 16, Abū Salīm’s introduction (Muḥammad Aḥmad used to perform his religious worship in accordance with the litanies {awrād} of the order); Abū Salīm, al-Ḥaraka al-fikriyya, 165; al-Qaddāl, al-Mahdī, 37ff., 44ff.; Shaked, The Life of the Sudanese Mahdi, 56–57; Sulaymān, Dawr al-azhar, 83; Trimingham, Islam in the Sudan, 93; O’Fahey, “The Sudanese Mahdi,” 270. 9 Holt, The Mahdist State, 21, 45–50; idem, “A Sudanese Saint,” 114–15; Trimingham, Islam in the Sudan, 227; O’Fahey, Enigmatic Saint, 35; idem, “Sudanese Mahdi,” 269–71; Abū Salīm, al-Ḥaraka al-fikriyya, 93–94; Maḥmūd, al-ʿIqāb, 93ff.; Searcy, The Sudanese Mahdist State, 24–28. 10 For further details, see below, 27. 11 Abū Salīm, al-Ḥaraka al-fikriyya, 79, 83–84, 95–97, 165. Cf. Mālik, al-Muqāwama, 154; al-Mahdī, Yasʾalūnaka ʿan al-mahdiyya, 180, 192; O’Fahey, “Sudanese Mahdi,” 274–76; al-Qaddāl, al-Mahdī, 53..
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