THE MAHDI. 33
given to the slave trade by the present insurrectionary movement, and by the withdrawal of the Egyptian authority from the interior.”
However, public opinion is now less soft-hearted, and the intention seems to be at all hazards to—“ smash the Mahdi.”
What a Mahdi is.
The ordinary reader is perhaps satisfied to think that el Mahdi signifies nothing more than “ the prophet ”—or, in the case of Mahomet Achmet, the rebel of the Soudan, “the false prophet.” But the word Mahdi has a deeper meaning, and con¬ tains a whole history in itself.
At the risk of being tedious, not to say “ dry,” a few remarks may be here inserted on the origin and growth of the true notion of the Mahdi.
On the death of Mahomet, no successor having been appointed, and uncertainty existing as to whether the succession should be elective or hereditary, three different parties put forward pretensions: first, the Mohadjirs, or early converts; second, the Ansars, who had powerfully contributed to the prophet’s success; third, the prophet’s near relations. This last party gained the succession, but personal rivalries led to a long and bitter conflict between the partisans of Ali, the prophet’s cousin and son-in- law, and the supporters of Moawia, a more distant relative. In the long run the latter were successful, but the adherents of Ali’s descendants continued to regard Moawia and his successors as usurpers, and held that the true line would some day again be looked upon as the proper successors of Mahomet, and the personage who would soon appear to demand and seize the succession would be—the Mahdi.
This, in brief, is the history of the idea, but it is invested with many metaphysical, theological, and mystical doctrines. A renegade Jew, by name Abdallah-ibn-Saba, preached that Ali was an incarnation of the divine essence; that he had disappeared from the world for a time, and would reappear as Mahdi. The object of this Abdallah- ibn-Saba was to overthrow the Abbaside dynasty (the successors of Moawia); he cared little for consistency, and explained the Mahdi theory under various forms : to the Jew he represented him as the Messiah, to the Christian he identified him with the Paraclete.
In all ages it has been believed that the Mahdi would have both a political and a religious mission. It is in this sense, probably, that the simple people of the Soudan have received Mahomet Achmet. They think little—probably know little—of his presumed descent from Ali, of his being an incarnation of the divine essence; they have heard naught of the mystical and theosophical dogmas with which the office is encompassed. “ It is enough for them to know,” says a Constantinople correspondent, “that Allah has sent a prophet and a deliverer who is to drive unbelievers and tax- gatherers out of the country, and to give his followers abundance of opportunities for obtaining plunder. So long as he continues to accomplish successfully this holy mission his pretensions to being something more than an ordinary mortal will not be too closely scrutinized, and the fetwahs of learned sheikhs in Cairo, Mecca, or elsewhere, declaring him to be an imposter, will produce very little effect upon his followers. The followers, on their part, need not know anything of the early history of Islam, or be capable of understanding pan-theistic doctrines. All they require is to be brave and enduring, and to be capable of a certain enthusiasm for the cause which they have espoused. That they possess these requisites in a very high degree they have abundantly proved.”