Word: mahdy
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...color-loving, fun-seeking Sudanese there were color and fun aplenty. It was Leilat el Isra, anniversary of Mohamed's visit to the seven heavens on his human-faced steed el Buraq. It was also the birthday anniversary of Mohamed Ahmed el Mahdi, whose fanatic desert dervishes destroyed "Chinese" Gordon's British army in the Sudan...
Square Meter in Heaven. This time the British sided not with the Egyptians, but with the Mahdi. The British knew how deeply the Sudanese hate the Egyptians, who still call them Abed (slaves) in memory of the times when Sudanese tribesmen were sold down the river to the slave marts of Alexandria and Cairo. The British also knew the value to Britain of the Sudan under sympathetic native rule...
Last week the dervish spirit was astir again in Khartoum. So was the Mahdi's son. Sir Sayed Abdul Rahman Mohamed Ahmed El Mahdi Pasha lacked his father's messianic complex. But he rode the wave of nationalism that was surging from North Africa to Indonesia. Sir Sayed threatened a second jihad if Egypt won its demand for outright annexation of the Sudan (now an Anglo-Egyptian condomimium...
Common gratitude would ensure Sir Sayed Abdul Rahman's sympathy. The British had rescued him from his father's disgrace, restored his family lands, given him a splendid palace. They had given him lucrative Army contracts for wood. When El Mahdi Pasha promised his followers a square meter in Heaven for every meter of lumber they felled, fanatic Sudanese woodsmen chopped trees with as much zeal as if they had been infidel heads...
Last week the Mahdi sat quietly in his villa, watching his tame cranes and awaiting the results of his mission. In Cairo, diplomats, hard at work on an Anglo-Egyptian treaty of alliance, were deadlocked over the Sudan's future. Probable compromise: the Sudan would be formally placed under the Egyptian crown, but actual administration would remain in the hands of the British (who would lay the groundwork for eventual self-government...