First Jihad: Khartoum, and the Dawn of Militant Islam Read Online Free PDF Page B

steppe, Islam had been coopted to serve as the religious camouflage for overt wars of territorial expansion.The purpose of the Islamic sword was no longer conversion but conquest: foreign lands were subjugated in the name of Allah, but for the greater glory of Empire.The Moslems had learned well the lessons of their Crusader teachers three centuries earlier, and were now empowered to teach new ones.
But the Sudan was a long way away from the Levant, and what news came to that arid land of the struggle between the two faiths were only rumors of wars.And yet, the two centuries of warfare between Christians and Moslems were bound to leave their mark, and that which was left on the Moslem world was an indelible impression of hostility toward Islam on the part of Christendom.For the common people of Islam what would resonate for the eight hundred years that followed the Crusades was not how the faith had become a tool of the politically ambitious, much as had happened to Christianity.Instead, what they would come to believe was that Christianity and all who tolerated it were forever outside of Islam’s “realm of peace.”

CHAPTER 2
THE COMING OF THE MAHDI
The tales of the passing centuries have been replete with charismatic religious and political figures whose origins are lost in obscurity, shrouded in controversy, or otherwise deemed “mysterious.” And fittingly enough it could not be otherwise for Muhammed Ahmed ’ibn Abdullah, known to the world as “the Mahdi”—“the Expected One.” He would materialize unheralded out of the sand-blown desert of the Sudan, and like a meteor burn a scar across Africa, the Middle East, and Europe to sear Islam and Christendom alike, and then suddenly die within months of his greatest victory.
Unlike so many figures of the past, however, the obscurity of Muhammed Ahmed’s origins were not fabrications deliberately contrived to enhance his mystique or add to his stature through tenuous claims of divine or royal descent.The cloudiness surrounding his early years stems from the region in which he was born and attained maturity.He was born sometime between 1840 and 1844, the latter date being the most widely accepted, although there is some debate over its accuracy within Arab and Moslem tradition.
Almost without doubt his birthplace was Dirar, an island just above the Third Cataract of the Nile River, off the Sudanese city of Dongola.It is widely accepted that his family was of mixed Arab and Nubian heritage, and that he was the son of a shipbuilder, although there is some sketchy evidence that there were some religious figures of note in his ancestry.His grandfather in particular was said to be a “shariff” known for his good works among the people of Dongola.Tradition held that his father was named Abdullah and his mother Aamina.As early as the age of five he began to show a comprehension of the sometimes complex and subtle doctrines of Islam that was far beyond his years, and from then on his education began to focus on theological studies.By early manhood Ahmed was widely admired among the Moslem clergy of the southern Sudan for his piety and asceticism.He learned the Holy Koran in Khartoum and Kararie and later he studied fiqh under the patronage of Sheikh Muhammed Kheir, a northern Sudanese nobleman.Muhammed Ahmed mastered different aspects of Islamic studies and was known for his Sufi tendency among his mates.In 1861 he approached Sheik Muhammad Sheief, the leader of the Sammaniyya Sect of the Sufi, and requested to become one of his students to learn more on Sufism.
Sufism, while today regarded by many Moslems as being outside the realm of Islam, was at that time seen as the inner, esoteric, mystical dimension of Islam.In its simplest form, Sufi practice was quite simple: it was surrender to God (Allah), in love, embracing each moment of the soul’s consciousness as a gift from or manifestation of God.It was, in short, a gentle philosophy, a far cry from the fiery brand of