In Judaism and Zoroastrianism there was a common idea that the world had fallen into an evil condition, that religion had been corrupted, that all men were exceedingly wicked, and that only a supernatural being, who was to come at the end of time, could put all things right; this being the Jews called the Messiah, and the Persians Sooshyant; the Jews said he was to be the son of David, and the Persians said he was to be the son of Zoroaster. Muḥammad the Prophet admitted that Jesus Christ was a prophet, and declared him to be the greatest of the prophets of the old dispensation; but he regarded Him as inferior to the line of prophets of which he himself was the first, and said He would only be the servant, or vicar, of the supernatural personage who was to come in the last days, and who was to right all things, namely, the Mahdi. The word Mahdi means he who is directed (or led) [by God]. According to Muhammad, Jesus was to destroy Antichrist and convert Christians to the religion of Islâm! The Mahdi was to be a descendant of the Prophet through 'Ali, the cousin of Muḥammad, who had given him his daughter Fâtima to wife.

When the Persians were conquered by the Muḥammadans, they accepted the religion and doctrines of the Prophet, but they adopted the view that his legitimate successor (Khalifa) was his son-in-law 'Ali, and that the first three khalifas, Abu-Bakr, 'Omar, and 'Othman were impostors, who had seized the Khalifate by intrigue. Thus the Muḥammadan world was split up into two parties, the Sunnites, or "traditionalists," who acknowledge the first three Khalifs, and the Shi'ites, or Imamians, who reject them. 'Ali was declared to be divine by his adherents even during his lifetime, and when he and his sons Ḥasan and Ḥusên had been murdered by the 'Omeyyad usurpers, his life and deeds appealed in a remarkable manner to the imagination of the Persians, and, remembering that the

Prophet had declared that the Mahdi should spring from his own family, they accepted and promulgated the view that he was to be among the descendants of 'Ali. There have been many who assumed the title "Mahdi," but the first of these was "Muḥammad, the son of the Hanefite," i.e., the son of 'Ali by another wife, and he was practically made to adopt it by a cunning man called Mukhtâr. Mahdi after Mahdi appeared in the Muḥammadan world, but when the eleventh Imâm had come to an end, that is to say, had been murdered—the true Mahdi was to be the twelfth and left no successor, men began to fall into despair. At the end of the VIIIth century a schism among the Shi'ites took place, and a large, wealthy body of men, who called themselves Ismaelites (from Ismâîl, the son of Ja'fâr), left them; the leader of the new sect was a Persian dentist called 'Obêdallâh, who sent messengers to Arabia and the north of Africa to announce the advent of the Mahdi, i.e., himself. 'Obêdallâh, moreover, declared himself to be a descendant of ‘Ali, and with this prestige in 908 he succeeded in founding a dynasty in North Africa, having overthrown the reigning Aghlabite king there. also founded the city of Mahdîya. In 925 ‘Obêdallâh attempted to overrun Egypt, but he was defeated, and it was not until 969 that the Fâțimites succeeded in conquering Egypt, which they did under Jôhar, the general of Mu'izz, the great grandson of 'Obêdallâh, who founded the city of Cairo and assumed the title of Khâlifa. Thus a Mahdi made himself master of nearly all North Africa and of Egypt, and his dynasty ruled the last named country for well nigh 200 years.* The next great Mahdi was Muḥammad ibn-Tûmurt, of the tribe of Masmûda, and a native of Morocco, whose followers, known by the name of " Almohades," conquered Spain and ruled it during the XIIth century. The idea of the Mahdi still lives in Northern *A.D. 972-1172.

He

*

Africa, and without taking into account the Mahdi of the Senûsi (see Wingate, Mahdiism, p. 2 ff.), who always calls himself "Muḥammad al-Mahdi," it is said that at the present time another Mahdi is waiting at Massa in Morocco to declare himself to the world. In 1666 a Mahdi called Sabbatai Zevi made his appearance in Turkey, but he disgraced himself by submitting to become a servant of the Sulțân Muḥammad IV. Another appeared at Adrianople in 1694, but he was eventually exiled to Lemnos. In 1799 a Mahdi from Tripoli appeared in Egypt, but he was killed in a fight with the French at Damanhûr.

Muḥammad Aḥmad, the Mahdi who in recent years set the Sûdân in a blaze, was born near Donkola either in 1843 or 1848; his father's name was 'Abd-allâhi, and that of his mother Amina. Thus Ahmad's parents bore the same names as those of the Prophet. His family were boat builders on the White Nile, and he worked at the same trade when a boy. When twelve years of age he knew the Kur'ân by heart, and when twenty-two years old he settled down in the Island of Abba in the White Nile, and meditated there for fifteen years. He lived in a hole in the ground, and fasted and prayed, and his reputation for sanctity spread over the whole country; his followers and disciples increased so fast and in such numbers that at length he declared himself to be the Mahdi. Like his predecessors, he sent forth envoys to all parts to declare his divine mission. In 1881 he and his dervishes cut to pieces 200 soldiers who had been sent to seize him; and a few months later, at the head of 50,000 rebels, he defeated and slew at Gebel Gaddîr nearly 7,000 Egyptian troops. These victories gave him a reputation for invincibility, and thousands of men in all parts of the Sûdân could not help

* On Mahdiism generally, see Querry, Recueil des lois Chyites, vol. I.; Gobineau, Religions, p. 340 ff.; De Slane, Ibn-Khaldur, vol. III., p. 496; Darmesteter, The Mahdi, London, 1885.

believing in his pretensions when they saw city after city fall into his hands. Few now doubted that he was the twelfth and last Imâm, and his adoption of the Shi'ite views, and his calling his followers by the Persian name "Darwîsh,”* made men to assume the heavenly character of his work. On November 5, 1883, he annihilated Hicks Pâsha's army, and Al-'Obed and the neighbouring country fell into the Mahdi's hands. On December 16 Slatin Pâsha surrendered to him, and on January 15, 1884, the valuable province of Darfûr became a part of the rebel's kingdom. In February General Gordon arrived in Kharțûm on his fatal mission, having on his way thither, unfortunately, told the Mudîr of Berber and the Emir of Matammah that he was going to remove the Egyptian garrisons; this became noised abroad, and many people, when they learned that the Egyptian Government was going to abandon the Sûdân, joined the Mahdi. Thus fate played into the Mahdi's hands. The next city to fall was Berber, Gordon's troops having been defeated on March 16. On October 23 the Mahdi arrived in Omdurmân, being well aware of Gordon's desperate condition through the correspondence which had been captured in the steamer Abbas. This unfortunate steamer was wrecked on the Fourth Cataract, and Colonel Stewart was betrayed and murdered there; all letters and papers found in the baggage were sent to the Mahdi. On Sunday night,. January 26, the Mahdi attacked Khartûm and entered the town, and a little before sunrise on the Monday General Gordon was murdered; and in a few days 50,000 Dervishes looted the town and destroyed 10,000 men, women, and children. As a proof of the admiration for General Gordon felt by even his bitterest foes, it is sufficient to quote a common saying in the Sûdân, "Had Gordon been one of us, he would have been a perfect man." After the capture

of Kharțûm, no one doubted the divine mission of the Mahdi, and his word and power became absolute. He now gave himself up to a life of ease and luxury. He who had professed himself satisfied with one coarse garment, and had lived in a hole in the ground, and slept upon a straw mat, and fasted and well-nigh starved himself, now dressed himself in shirts and trousers of silk and in the daintiest fabrics of the East, and lived in a large, fine house, and slept upon the best bed that Kharțûm could produce, and ate dainties and drank immoderately. Father Ohrwalder tells us that he had his clothes perfumed before he put them on, and that his wives anointed his body with the expensive unguent called "Sandalia," musk, and the oil of roses. He had four lawful wives, and an unlimited number of concubines, among whom were representatives from almost every tribe in the Sûdân; with these were a number of little Turkish girls of eight years of age, for the Mahdi's sensuality spared no one. He would recline in his house on a splendid carpet, with his head on a pillow of gold brocade, with as many as thirty women in attendance upon him; some would fan him with great ostrich feathers, others would rub his hands and feet as he slept, and 'Aisha, his chief wife, would cover his head and neck with loving embraces. His blessing was sought for by tens of thousands of men and women, and the earth touched by his foot was held to be holy. His life of ease, however, was his undoing, and a few months after the fall of Kharṭum he became ill, and his disease progressed with such rapidity that he died on June 22, 1885, some say of heart disease, others of poison. When the Mahdi died his sway was absolute over about 2,000,000 square miles of north-east Africa, and his dominions reached from the Bahr al-Ghazal to Wâdi Halfa, and from Darfûr to the Red Sea. The Mahdi was a tall, broad-shouldered man, strongly built, and of a light brown colour; his head was large, and he wore a