Muḥammad Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Faḥal (Arabic: محمد أحمد بن عبد الله بن فحل; 12 August 1843 – 21 June 1885) was a Sudanese religious and political leader. In 1881, he claimed to be the Mahdi and led a war against Egyptian rule in Sudan, which culminated in a remarkable victory over them in the Siege of Khartoum. He created a vast Islamic state extending from the Red Sea to Central Africa and founded a movement that remained influential in Sudan a century later.
From his announcement of the Mahdist State in June 1881 until its end in 1899, the Mahdi's supporters, the Ansar, established many of its theological and political doctrines. After Muhammad Ahmad's unexpected death from typhus on 22 June 1885, his chief deputy, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad took over the administration of the nascent Mahdist State.
The Mahdist State, weakened by his successor's autocratic rule and inability to unify the populace to resist the British blockade and subsequent war, was dissolved following the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan, in 1899. Despite that, the Mahdi remains a respected figure in the history of Sudan. In the late 20th century, one of his direct descendants, Sadiq al-Mahdi, twice served as prime minister of Sudan (1966–1967 and 1986–1989) and pursued pro-democracy policies.
Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah bin Fahal was born on 12 August 1843 in Labab Island, Dongola in northern Sudan. He was born into a notable religious Arabized Nubian family from the Danagla tribe tracing their lineage from the Prophet of Islam Muhammad through the lineage of his grandson Hassan. When Mohammed Ahmed was still a child, his family moved to the town of Karari, north of Omdurman. There his father, Ahmad bin Abdullah, managed to find enough supplies of wood for his work in boat-building, but died shortly after they arrived. After the death of his father, his brothers Mohammed and Hamed continued to trade and built boats. Then the family moved to live in Khartoum for a short time, where their mother, Zainab bint Nasr, died and was buried.
While his siblings joined his father's trade, Muhammad Ahmad showed a proclivity for religious study. He studied first under Sheikh al-Amin al-Suwaylih in the Gezira region south of Khartoum, and subsequently under Sheikh Muhammad al-Dikayr 'Abdallah Khujali near the town of Berber in northern Sudan.
Determined to live a life of asceticism, mysticism and worship, in 1861 he sought out Sheikh Muhammad Sharif Nur al-Dai'm, the grandson of the founder of the Samaniyya Sufi sect in Sudan. Muhammad Ahmad stayed with Sheikh Muhammad Sharif for seven years, during which time he was recognized for his piety and asceticism. Near the end of this period, he was awarded the title of Sheikh, and began to travel around the country on religious missions. He was permitted to give tariqa and Uhūd to new followers.
In 1870, his family moved again in search for timber, returning to Aba Island. There, Muhammad Ahmad built a mosque and started to teach the Quran. He soon gained a notable reputation among the local population as an excellent speaker and mystic. The broad thrust of his teaching followed that of other reformers: his Islam was one devoted to the words of Muhammad and based on a return to the virtues of strict devotion, prayer, and simplicity as laid down in the Quran.
In 1872, Muhammad Ahmad invited Sheikh Sharif to move to al-Aradayb, an area on the White Nile neighboring Aba Island. Despite initially amicable relations, in 1878 the two religious leaders had a dispute motivated by Sheikh Sharif's resentment of his former student's growing popularity. As a result, Sheikh Sharif expelled his former student from the Samaniyya Order and, despite numerous attempts at reconciliation by Muhammad Ahmad, his mentor refused to make peace.
After recognizing that the split with Sheikh Sharif was irreconcilable, Muhammad Ahmad approached another respected leader of the Samaniyya Order named Sheikh al-Qurashi wad al-Zayn. Muhammad Ahmad resumed his life of piety and religious devotion at Aba Island. During this period, he also traveled to the province of Kordofan, west of Khartoum, where he visited with the notables of the capital, El Obeid. They were enmeshed in a power struggle between two rival claimants to the governorship of the province.
On 25 July 1878, Sheikh al-Qurashi died and his followers recognized Muhammad Ahmad as their new leader. Around this time, Muhammad Ahmad first met Abdallahi bin Muhammad al-Ta'aishi, who was to become his chief deputy and successor in the years to come.
On 29 June 1881, Muhammad Ahmad claimed to be the Mahdi so as to prepare the way for the second coming of Jesus. In part, his claim was based on his status as a prominent Sufi sheikh with a large following in the Samaniyya Order and among the tribes in the area around Aba Island.
Yet the idea of the Mahdiyya had been central to the belief of the Samaniyya prior to Muhammad Ahmad's pronouncement. The previous Samaniyya leader, Sheikh al-Qurashi Wad al-Zayn, had asserted that the long-awaited redeemer would come from the Samaniyya line. According to Sheikh al-Qurashi, the Mahdi would make himself known through a number of signs, some established in the early period of Islam and recorded in the Hadith literature. Others had a distinctly local origin, such as the prediction that the Mahdi would ride the sheikh's pony and erect a dome over his grave after his death.
Drawing from aspects of the Sufi tradition that were intimately familiar to both his followers and his opponents, Muhammad Ahmad claimed that he had been appointed as the Mahdi by a prophetic assembly or hadra (Arabic: Al-Hadra Al-Nabawiyya, الحضرة النبوية). A hadra, in the Sufi tradition, is a gathering of all the prophets from the time of Adam to Muhammad, as well as many Sufi holy men who are believed to have reached the highest level of affinity with the divine during their lifetime. The hadra is chaired by Muhammad, known as Sayyid al-Wujud, and at his side are the seven Qutb, the most senior of whom is known as Ghawth az-Zaman. The hadra was also the source of a number of central beliefs about the Mahdi, including that he was created from the sacred light at the centre of Muhammad's heart, and that all living creatures had acknowledged the Mahdi's claim since his birth.
Muhammad Ahmad framed the Mahdiyya as a return to the early days of Islam, when the Muslim community, or Ummah, was unified under the guidance of Muhammad and his immediate successors. Later, in order to distinguish his followers from adherents of other Sufi sects, the Mahdi forbade the use of the word darwish (commonly known as "dervish" in English) to describe his followers, replacing it with the title Ansār, the term which Muhammad used for the people of Medina who welcomed him and his followers after their flight from Mecca.
Despite his popularity among the clerics of the Samaniyya and other sects, and among the tribes of western Sudan, some of the Ulama' (scholars), or orthodox religious authorities, rejected Muhammad Ahmad's claim as the Mahdi. Among his most prominent critics were the Sudanese Ulema loyal to the Ottoman Sultan and employed by the Turco-Egyptian government. Examples were the Mufti Shakir al-Ghazi, who sat on the Council of Appeal in Khartoum, and the Qadi Ahmad al-Azhari in Kordofan. These critics were careful not to deny the concept of the Mahdi as such, but rather to discredit Muhammad Ahmad's claim to it.
They pointed out that Muhammad Ahmad's manifestation did not conform to the prophecies laid out in the Hadith literature. In particular, they argued for the political interests of the Turco-Egyptian government and the British, that his manifestation did not conform with the "time of troubles" "when the land is filled with oppression, tyranny, and enmity".
When Governor General Muhammad Rauf Pasha in Khartoum learned of the 29 June 1881 declaration by Muhammad Ahmad as the Mahdi, he believed that the man would be satisfied with a government pension, and he sent Ahmad a friendly letter. The Mahdi telegraphed an uncompromising reply, saying, "He who does not believe in me will be purified by the sword."