Fatwa and Propaganda: Contemporary Muslim Responses to the Sudanese Mahdiyya

Abstract

The powerful call (daʿwa) of Muḥammad Aḥmad, the self-styled Mahdī, and his ensuing jihad against Ottoman-Egyptian rule in Sudan provoked a variety of responses within the larger Muslim community. The ʿulamāʾ, al-Azhar-trained orthodox legal and religious scholars in Khartoum and Cairo, responded with outrage and detailed legal arguments, challenging the credentials of an individual they insisted was an impostor, and rehearsing instead the legitimacy of the Ottoman Sultan as the bona fide leader of the faithful. Beyond the establishment hierarchy, politically- and religiously-motivated activists and propagandists, in Sudan, Egypt and beyond, joined the debate over Muḥammad Aḥmad’s credibility: at stake was a substantial body of susceptible Muslim opinion, in the Ottoman provinces of the Hejaz and Syria and as far away as British-ruled India. This article describes in detail the spiritual and legal arguments over a personality whose claimed mandate had implications for two of the world’s largest empires.