THE RISE OF THE MAHDI

One of the most infamous conflicts of Queen Victoria's reign lasted from 1881 to 1899 - but exactly how did Britain become embroiled in a war in which it had little interest?

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The rise of the Mahdist movement T lies with Muhammad Ahmad ibn al-Sayyid Abd Allah. Born in Dongola province, Nubia, in 1844, Muhammad was the son of a humble boatbuilder. His father uprooted the family and move to Karari, a village near Khartoum in Sudan, where Muhammad developed a strong interest in Islam. He veered away from the more orthodox studies and leaned towards the Sufi tradition. As he grew, his religious beliefs and practices became increasingly strict.

No photograph of Muhammad exists but Father Joseph Ohrwalder, once a prisoner of the Mahdists, described him in his Ten Years' Captivity in the Mahdi's Camp: "His outward appearance was strangely fascinating; he was a man of strong constitution, very dark complexion, and his face always wore a pleasant smile... Under this smile gleamed a set of singularly white teeth, and between the two upper middle ones was a V-shaped space... As a messenger of God, he pretended to be in direct communication with the Deity. All orders which he gave were supposed to have come to him by inspiration, and it became therefore a sin to refuse to obey them; disobedience to the Mahdi's orders was tantamount to resistance to the will of God, and was therefore punishable by death."