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Mahdist Military Drill

Mahdist Military Drill Many European observers to the battle of Karari offered compliments to the Ansar and their level of drill. The correspondent Bennet Burleigh, for example, remarked: “It seemed to be a well-organised, intelligently-handled enemy we had in front” (Khartoum Campaign, 131). Likewise, Churchill asserted: “[t]heir drill was excellent, and they all stopped as by a single command,” and that “[t]he Dervishes were not the abandoned savages they had long been declared. They possessed a drilled and disciplined army, an organised Government, a mint, a powder factory, and courts of law” (River War, 2/99, 394). But what did said drill look like?  The Mahdist system of drill often times mirrored those of the Turco-Egyptian government which had preceded the, though with some modifications. For example, the Mahdists employed soldiers of the old army as drill instructors, both Egyptians, such as Muhammad Bey Iskandar, ex-commander of soldiers in al-Ubayyid, as well as Sudanese,...
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A Unique Account of the Battle of Omdurman

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Photo: Andrew Hilliard Atteridge, Battles of the Nineteenth Century. Vol. v, Campaigns of the Nineties (London: Cassell and Company, 1901), 83. Recalling al-Sayyid ʿAbd al-Raḥman wad al-Mahdī's 1959 funeral, Amīn al-Tūm tells in his memoirs how one attendee related the late-Sayyid's own account of the battle of Kararī. Having since checked this retelling against ʿAbd al-Raḥman's memoirs ( Mudhakirrāt al-imām ʿAbd al-Raḥman al-Mahdī, published in 1995), I feel quite confident that the attendee spoke truthfully in relating this event. Perhaps at a later date I will make a translation of the relevant section of ʿAbd al-Raḥman's memoir for comparison. Regardless, one should find this account intriguing considering that it is the only one that I am aware of that portrays the shelling of Omdurman from a civillian point of view. One of us said - and the conversation was continuous in the shadow of the ihlīlaj [ balanites aegyptiaca ] tree:  The boy ʿAbd al-Raḥman wad al-Mahd...
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Notes on Sultanic Bodyguards in Sinnar and Darfur

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Bibliography of the Mahdiyya

Notes on the Mahdiyya Unpublished Theses: Ahmed Ibrahim Ahmed Shouk. “The Fiscal Administration of the Mahdist State in the Sudan (1881–1898).” MA thesis (University of Bergen, 1991).  Ahmed Khalid Abdalla. “The Lahawiyin: Identity and History in a Sudanese Arab Tribe.” PhD thesis (Durham University, 2010).  Badini, Francesca. “Le Pie Madri della Nigrizia e i Comboniani prigionieri della Mahdiyya (1881–1898): memoire ed epistole.” MA thesis (University of Bologna, 2016–2017). Deemer, James (Khalid) Davidson. “Umm Durmān during the Mahdiyya.” PhD thesis (Harvard University, 1988). Ewald, Janet Joran. “Leadership and Social Change on an Islamic Frontier: The Kingdom of Taqali, 1780–1900.” PhD thesis (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1982). Johnson, Nels. “The Ideological Structure of the Sudanese Mahdiya.” MA thesis (McGill University, 1972). Kramer, Robert S. “Holy City on the Nile: Omdurman, 1885–1898.” PhD dissertation (Northwestern University, 1991).  Kuhn, Michael Will...
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