He practiced the craft of boat building, from which he obtained money to marry his cousin, Fatimah bint Hab. He initially refused, then yielded to persuasion and went to the city of Khartoum and married her. On the night of his wedding, women and men gathered to dance. He stood among them and forbade them from dancing and from his wife, so they left angry. In all his dealings, he showed piety, devotion, asceticism, and austerity. After his marriage to his cousin, he withdrew from the world. His brothers would visit him and seek his help through his wife. But he was stubborn and did not care about her words, and was hurt by her abandonment. Finally, one day, while he was reading the Holy Quran, she snatched it from him and threw it on the ground. He became enraged and divorced her, and left his home. He opened a school for teaching the Holy Quran, then closed the school and went to the island of Aba, on the White Nile, a distance of ten days' travel from Khartoum, to the south. There was a man from his tribe named Ahmed Sharfi, whose daughter he married. He provided for all his needs through his craft, which was also the making of sailing boats. His teacher, Sheikh Mad, who was called "Al-Rabia," a Sharif, was staying a few miles away from this journey. There was a great rift between him and his teacher, caused by his inclination towards the Mahdist call. In the early years of 1880, he was drawn to the Mahdist call, and often he would incite him to call for it. The teacher issued a proclamation to his followers, announcing that Ahmed Al-Mahdi was to be removed from the caliphate and that he had deviated from his path. He mentioned in it his flaws and his ambition to make false claims to achieve power and leadership. This greatly angered Ahmed Al-Mahdi, and he almost lost his followers. However, he went to an old man named Sheikh Al-Fathi, one of the students of Sheikh Ahmed.