Ten Years' Captivity in the Mahdi's Camp 1882-1892

by Josef Ohrwalder; Sir F. R. Wingate

The Mahdi is gradually sinking from his half doze into a sound slumber, when Aisha very gently rouses him and tells him that the appointed time for ablutions and prayers is already passed. The women now assist him to rise, his red shoes are brought, and then he proceeds to the place of ablution, followed by four women carrying his water-bottle. On his return the women throw themselves down frantically on the spots which his feet have touched, and struggle with each other in their endeavours to embrace the ground on which he has trodden.

It is believed that the earth touched by the Mahdi's foot has healing properties, and has, moreover, the effect of ensuring a quick and painless delivery; it is therefore distributed amongst holy women, and even to this day is carefully preserved for the purpose which I have cited. Not a drop, too, of the water with which the Mahdi has washed is allowed to be wasted, but is hoarded with the greatest care, and drunk as an unfailing remedy for every sort of illness and malady.

But to return to my friends' description. The Mahdi's ablutions over, his son Bashra runs up to him and shows him a golden ring his mother has given him. Bashra asks permission to wear the ring, but the Mahdi, who has by this time noticed the presence of two strangers, says, "Oh, my son, only the Turks wear such ornaments, because they love the things of this world; but it is not becoming in us to wear such ornaments, which are perishable; we strive to obtain things imperishable. Give the ring back to your mother." The little hypocrite well understands what his father means, and obeys.

Aisha then clothes the Mahdi in his Dervish jibbeh, girdle, and turban, and in this godly raiment he marches off to the mosque. As he quits the palace, his bodyguard surround him and keep off the crowd. On reaching the mihrab he is received with a shout by the assembled multitude. After prayers he gives a short sermon, and then returns to his wives.

Thus did the Mahdi enjoy the sweets of victory indoors, whilst outside he practised the most abominable hypocrisy. Most of his principal emirs (with the exception of his uncle, Sayid Abdel Karim, who had been sent to reduce Sennar) followed in their divine master's footsteps, and led a life of pleasure and debauchery. Sometimes the Mahdi used to cross over to Khartum and disport himself in Gordon's palace, whither he ordered a portion of his harem to be transferred.

But all this good living and unbridled sensuality were to be the cause of his speedy dissolution. He grew enormously fat. The two visitors, whom I mentioned above, saw him only eight days before his death, and told me that they believed then he could not live much longer. Early in Ramadan he fell sick, and soon became dangerously ill. The hand of God's justice fell heavily upon him; and it was decreed that he should no longer enjoy the empire which he had raised on the dead bodies of thousands of the victims to his wretched hypocrisy and deceit.

It is, indeed, terrible to think of the awful misery and distress brought upon his own country by this one man. His disease grew rapidly worse; he complained of pain in the heart, and died, on the 22nd of June, 1885, of fatty degeneration of the heart. Some say that he was a victim to the vengeance of a woman who had lost husband and children in the fall of Khartum, and who repaid the Mahdi's outrage on her own person by giving him poison in his food. This may be so; and it is true, poison is generally used in the Sudan to put people out of the way; but I am rather inclined to think that it was outraged nature that took vengeance on its victim; and that it was the Mahdi's debauched and dissolute mode of life which caused his early death. He died in the mortar hut, which I previously described; and his adherents gave out that he was about to travel through the heavens for a space of three years. People were not allowed to say "The Mahdi is dead," but "El Mahdi intakal" (i.e. "The Mahdi has been removed").

The shock of his death was terrible. The wild fanatics were, so to speak, struck dumb; their eyes were suddenly opened; and their very confusion showed that they had realized, the Mahdi was a liar. Omdurman was full of suppressed murmuring; and the people were collected in groups, talking of this awful catastrophe.

Those who were oppressed believed that the sudden collapse of Mahdieh must result in a revolution. No one believed that the Mahdi's party could continue ruling in his name. Would that some good man could have been found to rapidly seize this opportunity of putting himself at the head of the anti-Mahdiists; he must have been successful!

The confusion in the Mahdi's household was beyond description; his women wept and wailed in the wildest grief. Ahmed Wad Suleiman and the Mahdi's nearest relatives prepared a grave immediately beneath the bed on which he had died; the body was washed, wrapped in a shroud, according to the Moslem custom, and, in the presence of the Khalifas and all the members of the Mahdi's family, it was lowered into the grave, amidst the lamentations and wailing of the enormous crowd collected outside the building. Before the grave was filled in, the body was sprinkled with perfumes; then each person present took a handful of earth and threw it into the grave, amidst murmurs of "Ya Rahman, Ya Rahim!" (i.e. O merciful, O gracious God!) A simple monument was erected over the tomb.