The current situation in Sudan and what caused this sedition to reach this point, and what are your thoughts regarding Kordofan and Darfur? I answered him that the current situation in Sudan is as Your Excellency sees. As for the reason that brought this sedition and strengthened Muhammad Ahmad, it is that, as you know from others, the rebel Muhammad Ahmad was on Abba Island, located on the White Nile. The former Hakdar, Rauf Pasha, prevented him from crossing to the west. Nevertheless, because he gained strength in the western part of the Nile and was supported by some Arab tribes, believing him to be the awaited Mahdi, as they were incited by this. [He sent] one force after another, which was insufficient. It became known that he was nothing significant, and the Arabs managed to defeat them with the help of God.

His Excellency requested the dispatch of a military force from Egypt, knowing that there was no salvation for the government from him except by executing him or his supporters. The government agreed to send the appropriate number of soldiers. Unfortunately, His Excellency coincided with the time of the general Hakdaria of Sudan, by high order, and Abd al-Qadir Pasha was appointed in his place. This was at the height of the recent events in Egypt. The Arabs relied on the uprising of the rebel Muhammad Ahmad in Sudan and the uprising of Urabi with his astonishing revolution in Egypt, knowing that Sudan could not be supplied with soldiers because Egypt was preoccupied with its necessary preparations to resist the British, in support of the Khedivial government. It is not hidden from Your Excellency what was happening at that time. The rebel also gained strength in Sudan, and the Arabs became his supporters, and the majority of them feared him, lest he send a force against them that would destroy all the tribes of Kordofan. When His Excellency Rauf Pasha left Khartoum for Egypt as ordered, and His Excellency Abd al-Qadir Pasha had not yet arrived from Egypt, Jigalr Pasha was the acting Hakdar. The Egyptian government inquired from him whether it was still necessary.