Tariq Ahmed Othman

The Egyptian religious influence on Sudan during the Egyptian government. (10)

The Mahdia and Egypt

The Mahdia period was a period of interruption in Egyptian-Sudanese relations. The Egyptian government's call was based on changing the conditions created by the Turkish government. Injustices, oppression, and the bitter collection of taxes and unlawful levies continued. The Mahdist revolutionaries saw the Muslim Egyptian government using Austrian, English, and other non-Muslim officers in Sudan, leading to a general conviction among the people that this government was infidel and therefore had to be fought and expelled. In any case, any form of colonialism was never commendable. Imam Al-Mahdi considered the elimination of the writing systems that came to the country with the Turkish government a primary task and a sacred duty. He forbade imitating the Turks in everything and urged the adoption of the Quranic spelling system instead of the script followed by the Turks. However, a complete implementation of this was not possible at that time, so the Mahdists had to resort to the Egyptian administration's writings for administrative matters. (1)

The Mahdi believed that the call of Islam was a universal call and that the Mahdia was an idea that would unite Muslims in all parts of the earth. Therefore, he wrote letters and dictated books to spread this message throughout the regions. He even aspired to more than that; his followers hoped he would conquer non-Muslim lands. The Mahdi longed to conquer the Levant, Constantinople, and the Hijaz. He wrote a letter to the Wali of Egypt, inviting him to distinguish between good and evil, stating that there is no path to salvation with God except by following his religion, reviving the Sunnah of his Prophet, and eradicating falsehood and misguidance and turning to God. This was confirmed in this era when ignorance spread throughout the lands due to the conspiracies of the infidels who introduced them to the people of Sudan, leading to the decline of religion and the suspension of the rulings of the Book and the Sunnah. The rituals of Islam became strange, darkness accumulated, innovations spread, forbidden things were permitted, and hardship intensified for the people. Al-Mahdi reminded the Khedive that God had bestowed upon him the great Mahdist caliphate and granted him victory over his enemies, and that whoever doubted his Mahdiship had erred. (10) The Mahdi also wrote another letter to all the inhabitants of Egypt and...

...a group of eight.