He brought twenty riyals and entered upon his friends, Ayyub Ibrahim Gamza and Muhammad Al-Shafi'i of Berber, who were imprisoned for their participation in the Mahdist regime of Sultan Pasha. They said: "The prison governor promised us your release if we pay him twenty riyals." I said to them: "If I had it, I would have paid it from the treasury, and not from riyals. But I swear by God, I have no possessions or property except my slave, named Al-Dawm. He is not worth ten riyals, even though his literary value to me is worth thousands of riyals, because he accompanies me to the homes of my Egyptian friends and brothers, and they are generous with their hospitality, food, and drink for me, my wife, and my son. So, if I must pay, I choose to pay with my slave, Al-Dawm, to ransom my family. He is worth more than what the Sudanese contributed to me, out of kindness and affection for me. They paid the twenty riyals from their own money and saved me from this predicament. May God reward them with the best reward and compensate them for their wealth and the great sums of money they lost in prison. As for my enemies, one of them informed my relatives of the Mahdists, and they understood that I was a follower of our master, the Mahdi. They said: 'This affiliation is very harmful and could lead to destruction.' So reflect on the ignorance and injustice of these Mahdists."

Heroes of the Revolution

Among the strange rulings of the Mahdists was that they ordered the closure of public places where water was sold and people drank from them. The Mahdists, who were the majority of the Egyptians, were...