First Jihad: Khartoum, and the Dawn of Militant Islam (6 page)

Of the two smaller factions created from this schism, the Shi’ites and the Kharijites, the latter eventually became a small and obscure fragment of the Moslem world.
The Shi’ites, however, remained a minority of sufficient size-–roughly a fifth of the faithful—and influence to remain a power within Islam.
The fact that the former Persian Empire—today’s Iran—went into the Shi’ite fold lent the schism political and ethnic importance.
Much as the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland had less to do with religous theology than with the ability of Great Britain to hold sovereignty over Ireland, so did the Persian dominance of Shi’ite Islam present a political challenge to Sunni Arabs.

The fundamental dispute between the Shi’ites and Sunnis is that the Shi’ites believed that the only legitimate leadership of Islam rested in the lineage of Muhammed, specifically through his cousin and son-in-law, Ali.
Consequently they did not recognize the legitimacy of the Caliphate when it passed to Abu Bakr and his successors, after Ali had been killed in battle near Karbala, Iraq.
Instead the Shi’ites regard the twelve descendants of Ali as Imams, or spiritual successors of the Prophet.
The name “Shi’ite” came from the Arabic phrase “shi’at Ali,” which literally means the followers of Ali.
The Sunnis in turn refused to accept that Ali was the designated successor to Muhammed.
Because within the validity of the succession to Muhammed rests the legitimacy of all the laws, teachings, and instructions given by those who have held the office of the Caliphate, it was—and remains—a major issue to Moslems.

Because the Shi’ites are a minority—and not a particularly popular one—within Islam, they have often been subject to varying degrees of persecution at the hands of their fellow Moslems.
Because of the persistence and sometimes severity of the persecution, Shi’ite theology has made the suffering of Shi’ites at the hands of Sunni and infidel alike an essential doctrine of their belief.
Shi’ite theologians teach that because the Sunni know they are wrong in their belief that the Caliphs were the true successors to the Prophet, and the infidels know they are condemned to perdition by their refusal to embrace the true faith, both feel the need to bring suffering to the Shi’ite faithful in order to assuage their guilty consciences.
So deeply did this sense of persecution become ingrained in Shi’ite dogma that no amount of reassurance to the contrary by either Sunni Moslems or Christians could convince them otherwise.

It is an attitude and belief that has persisted into the 21st century, though on an ever-shifting playing field.
On the one hand, in today’s Iraq, for example, the West can see the battlelines drawn starkly between Shi’ite and Sunni areas; on the other hand, the war against Israel waged by the Shi’ite group Hezbollah (“Party of God”) in Lebanon in 2006 forged a common front, after initial resistance, across both major Islamic groups.
Though the difference between Shi’ite and Sunni Islam is profound, the West would do best not to overestimate the division, just as any invaders of Christendom—past or present—would be advised not to misjudge the degree of theological or political separation between Catholics and Protestants.

Into this somewhat volatile mix of beliefs stepped the theological figure of the Mahdi.
Because the doctrine of the Mahdi was not found in the Koran, the Sunni, who recognized the authority of the Caliphs, embraced the tradition of “mahdis” as enlightened teachers, and imbued them with much less credence and authority than did the Shi’ites.
To the Shi’ite Moslems, the Mahdi was the “hidden Imam,” the ultimate true successor to the Prophet Muhammed.
To them, the Mahdi would carry greater authority than any of the Caliphs, second only to that of the Prophet himself.

The Shi’ite tradition held that the Mahdi would appear during the last days of the world, and precede the second coming of Jesus, who Moslems believed to be the Messiah.
The Mahdi and Jesus were two distinct individuals, who would work together to fight the evils of the world and effect justice on Earth.
The Mahdi would first come to Mecca, then rule from Damascus, preparing the world for the return of Jesus.
He would confront and reveal the false Messiah, known as Dajjal, but not defeat him: that was to be done by Jesus, who would overthrow and destroy the pretender.
Once Dajjal was defeated, Jesus and the Mahdi would live out their lives on Earth.
Some teachings even maintain that Jesus would marry and have a family, eventually dying a natural death.
There is an old Moslem tradition that claims a grave has long been excavated for him next to Muhammad’s in the Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina.

There was even considerable detail about the Mahdi’s exact appearance, in order that he would be properly identified and to eliminate the chance for a false claimant to usurp the title.
It was believed that the Prophet Muhammad had actually foretold the coming of the Mahdi, having said that the Mahdi’s father would bear the name Abdullah (as did the father of the Prophet), while his mother’s name would be Aamina, (the same as the Prophet’s mother).
He would be born in “medina”—the word as used literally means a township, not the city in Arabia—and he would be forty years of age when he was revealed to be the Mahdi.
A sign that would indicate his appearance would be twin eclipses of the sun and moon in the month of Ramadan just prior to his appearance.
The Mahdi would be tall and smooth-complexioned, facially resembling the Prophet Muhammad.
He would speak with a slight stutter, and at times strike his thigh as a means of breaking the stutter.
Finally, there would be a v-shaped gap between his upper front teeth, a sign of good luck and favor from Allah among Arabs.

As to his character, Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth Caliph, said that the Prophet Muhammed declared of the one who would become known as the Madhi, “Even if only a day remains for the Day of Judgment to come, yet Allah will surely send a man from my family who will fill this world with such justice and fairness, just as it initially was filled with oppression.” One striking detail that emerges from the accumulated teaching and doctrine regarding the Mahdi is the remarkable similarity between the Mahdi and the Christian figure of John the Baptist.
In 19th-century Sudan, which was unaffected by the broader conflict between Shi’ite and Sunni Islam, Sufism, aspects of Shi’ism, and Sunnism, including its stern Wahhabi offshoot, were all available to earnest students of the greater faith.

Although Muhammed Ahmed was careful at first to avoid making any claim to being the Mahdi, such was the strength of his message and the power of his personality that many Sudanese came to believe of their own volition that he actually was the Expected One.
A murmur of resentment toward their Egyptian conquerors had been running through the Sudanese for nearly four decades, but they lacked a leader to give focus to their unhappiness.
Dismayed not only by the bleak condition of Islam in the Sudan under the self-proclaimed shaykhs who were little more than tools of the Egyptian government, but also by the suffering of his countrymen directly at the hands of the Egyptian officials, Ahmed began to see himself as sent by Allah to purge Islam of its evils and to return it to the purity of the faith of Mohammed the Prophet.
His teachings began to take on end-of-the-world overtones as he gradually came to view himself as the rightful leader of Islam, the successor to the Prophet Muhammed, the great presiding figure of the end of time.

While it may have been that at first Muhammad Ahmed found himself being carried along by a tide of quasi-nationalist and anti-foreign, as well as religious, feelings, his upbringing and religious training unquestionably made him susceptible to being seduced by such sentiments.
Certainly he gave in to the feelings expressed by the majority of the Sudanese he saw every day—the wishes and desires of the people in their expectation of the imminence of the Mahdi.
Yet there is little if any evidence that Ahmed had consciously aspired to become more than a great imam and mullah.

Though passionate about his faith and in its proclamation, there seemed to be little of the fanatic or militant about him.
Undoubtedly there was a strong streak of mysticism in his character, as quite early in his youth he made it clear to his father that he had no desire to follow into the family trade of boat-building, preferring instead to continue and expand his studies in Islam.
That mysticism took him into the realm of Sufism, the most esoteric and ethereal branch of Islam, then brought him into a form of semi-exile on the island of Abba, from whence he journeyed across the Sudan, preaching, teaching, and healing where he could, feeling that in every step of the way his life was being divinely guided by Allah.

At the same time it would be foolish to suggest that Muhammed Ahmed was unaware of the unique combination of gifts he possessed.
He had a sharply analytical mind capable of quite subtle thought, an uncanny ability to understand the motives, desires, and greeds of any man brought before him—along with the personal charisma that allowed him to manipulate those motives and desires to his own ends if he chose—and a commanding physical presence and persuasive speaking voice which could dominate, even overwhelm, the masses to whom he spoke.
He was handsome, intelligent, articulate, and charming—a combination of characteristics that have proven throughout history to hold the potential for great danger, especially when possessed by any would-be demagogue.

Yet it is no small step from inspired and inspiring religious leader to divinely appointed visionary; it is a step that countless imams, mullahs, ministers, pastors, and priests of every religion, denomination and sect never come close to taking.
But something deep within Muhammed Ahmed compelled him to cross that invisible divide that separated him from being simply a spiritual guide for his people to assuming the mantle of a God-anointed, semi-divine figure of prophecy who would lead his people to a victory pre-ordained by Allah Himself.

Undeniably, there were numerous similarities between Ahmed and the prophetic description of the Mahdi.
His place of birth, the names of his parents, his physical appearance, the slight stutter, even the gap in his teeth, all tallied exactly with the prophecies told of the Mahdi.
Yet there were differences—when Muhammed Ahmed chose to proclaim himself the Mahdi, for example, he was probably only thirty-seven years old, three years short of the prophesied age.
But despite such inconsistencies, Ahmed believed—or chose to believe—that he truly was “the Expected One.”

So it was that in 1879—the exact date is maddeningly uncertain, for as always there were few records kept by Ahmed or his followers—he proclaimed himself the true Mahdi.
Disciples began gathering on the island of Abba, dedicating themselves to him and the cause he espoused—which before long Ahmed began to make inseparable—and were prepared to sacrifice their lives for him.
Because of their scarcity the records are unclear exactly what shape the opening of the Mahdi’s rebellion took, although it seems that in the beginning Ahmed was exhorting his followers to a form of passive resistance to the Egyptian authorities.
This soon escalated into outright defiance, as the Sudanese finally discovered a release for the great wellhead of anger they had accumulated over a half-century of suffering and oppression.

“Suffering and oppression” is a convenient catchphrase that is often too easily tossed about, as if the words themselves have meaning without a context; frequently the phrase is used by political activists to describe some real or imagined impugning of civil or political rights and ideals by an authoritarian government.
Unarguably the Sudanese were subjected to the severest social oppression, even by the standards of the mid-19th century.
They had no civil liberties, no civil rights, no
habeas corpus
.
The law was whatever the local Egyptian magistrate decided is was at any given moment; people could be imprisoned indefinitely without ever being charged, simply on the whim of a government official.
Flogging and torture were part of every day’s routine in Egyptian-run prisons.

But there is still a vast difference between the “suffering and oppression” experienced by those who are at the mercy of a capricious legal and political system, and the suffering and oppression known by those to whom the words represent starvation and ruin for themselves and their families because of the rapacity of their rulers.
In the Sudan in 1879, the suffering was physical and brutal, and so was the oppression—the country was literally falling apart.

What little infrastructure once existed was crumbling, as Egyptian officials lined their pockets with the money intended to build roads, dig wells, and construct public buildings.
Taxation was confiscatory in the literal sense, as the levies were extracted in kind as well as in cash, and often farmers were compelled to turn over as much as three-quarters of their crops to their Egyptian overlords, usually at gun- or sword-point.

The slave trade, which involved some fifteen thousand Arab Moslems in the Sudan, had grown to unprecedented proportions.
By the beginning of the 1870s some fifty thousand slaves were being brought out of the Sudan each year, sold in the markets of Khartoum in the north and on the island of Zanzibar just off the Red Sea coast in the south.
The slave traders were so powerful that in some places they had become a law unto themselves.
One trader known as Agad, for example, was awarded a contract by the Egyptian government which made him virtually autonomous over an area of 90,000 square miles in central and western Sudan.
He was even permitted to raise and maintain a small private army.
The Sudanese had become so demoralized that by 1875, Khartoum, once a thriving city of thirty thousand people and the Egyptians’ administrative capitol in the Sudan, had shrunk to half that size.
There had been a brief respite in the late 1870s, when a British soldier of fortune, General Charles Gordon, had been appointed governor over the northern half of the Sudan by the Egyptian Khedive Ismail, and Khartoum’s population swelled once more, rising at one point to nearly a hundred thousand inhabitants.
But when Gordon resigned his post in 1879 after a quarrel with Ismail over the Khedive’s spendthrift ways, the chaos that followed his departure was worse than it had ever been.