Egyptian Sudan 24 Egyptian Sudan Only Before the Egyptian government was forced by the British government to evacuate Sudan, Abd al-Qadir Pasha Hilmi, who was the Minister of War in 1885, was offered to return to Sudan to quell the rebellion. He stipulated two conditions: first, that he be given 15,000 soldiers, and second, that the British government withdraw its demand for evacuation. They agreed to the first condition but did not reject the second because the goal was not to return Sudan to its mother, Egypt, but to evacuate the approximately 40,000 Egyptians and others who were in Sudan. He proved himself capable of accepting this mission. Abd al-Qadir Pasha ruled Sudan from 1882 to 1883 and managed to curb the rebels and quell the sedition in Sennar despite his weak forces. Whenever he requested reinforcements, he was told that the British had disbanded Urabi's army and Egypt had no second army. However, this statement did not hold true until he saw that his successor had reached Khartoum while he was preoccupied with reorganizing Sennar. Abd al-Qadir Pasha has a statement that reveals the secret of his dismissal, mentioned in the book "Sudan" by its author, Numi Bey Shuqair. He said, "I asked Abd al-Qadir Pasha, 'Why were you recalled from Sudan, when you were successful in subduing the rebels and restoring peace to its lands?'" He replied, "They accused me of aspiring to independence. You will not understand the meaning of this word unless we return to the spirit that prevailed at that time. That spirit was the fear of the British remaining in Egypt, to the point where some began to openly advocate using Sudan and its strength to expel the British from the Nile Valley. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani used to pretend to do this and call for envoys to go to Muhammad al-Mahdi to organize a force for this purpose. Abd al-Qadir himself felt these employees of the Mahdi and the rebels acting in accordance with this spirit. So he fell ill. When Lord Salisbury, the founder of Al-Ahram, asked about the Sudanese revolution, he told him, 'It is a revolution, or rather a sedition, that you have brought upon yourselves, and the British have abandoned you with their policies.'"