9-th, 2004 - 09: 2   (Posted By: Webmaster)
Mohammed Ahmed - The Mahdi

Previous Pageto justify myself."

Raouf Pasha offered a large sum for him, dead or alive. The Mahdi retorted by calling jehad, or holy war, in which he promised his followers four-fifths of all the wealth taken from the oppressors. Raouf Pasha sent two separate companies of soldiers to seize the Mahdi, but when they neared his island, the commanders of the two companies fell out over which of them should seize the Mahdi first and thus get the reward. The quarrel broke into an open fight, and the Mahdi, waiting until both companies had been weakened sufficiently, fell upon them and scored a signal victory. This was hailed as a miracle. The enemies who had come to kill the Mahdi had killed themselves. Verily, the Messiah had come! !~ From all over the land the people now flocked to him, bringing captured weapons. The Egyptians sent a large army against him. The Mahdi, ambushing it, wiped it out to a man. The miracle increased. That a poorly-armed mob should defeat a well-armed body of regular troops could only have been the work of Allah. The Mahdi's leaders declared that Allah had sent invisible angels to fight for them during the battle and that this divine aid would always be forthcoming as long as they served Allah faithfully.

From the hills and the plains, deserts and forests, the tribes rallied to the black flag of the Mahdi--tens of thousands of them, the Selem, Baggara, Risega, Homer, Dinka, Bongo, Madi, Bari. They came on horseback armed with rifles or lances, or with homemade spears. Some, the poorest of the poor, wore only filthy loincloths. But all, fanatically brave, had but one goal: Freedom or Paradise. The Egytpians, recalling Raouf Pasha, sent another governor-general with a stronger army, but in battle after battle the Paradise-intoxicated hordes of the Mahdi swept all before them. The Mahdi himself, tall, powerfully built, with the features of a god cast in black bronze, dressed in flowing white, on a splendid white Arabian horse, led them on. The victories continued. At Senaar, of 6000 Egyptians only 20 escaped alive; at Djebel-Gadir in June, 1882, two whole army corps were wiped out; at Seribah on July 11 of the same year, of an army of 6100 only 12 escaped. In October, he inflicted another defeat on an Egyptian force of 10,000.

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