Mahdist State

The Mahdist State — also known as Mahdist Sudan or the Sudanese Mahdiyya — was the state based on the religious and political movement launched in 1881 by Muhammad Ahmad, who declared himself al-Mahdi, against the Khedivate of Egypt, whose forces had governed Sudan. Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi enlisted the people of Sudan in what he declared a jihad against the administration that was based in Khartoum, which was dominated by Egyptians and Turks; the Khartoum government initially dismissed his revolution, but he defeated two expeditions sent to capture him in the course of a year. The movement overthrew the Egyptian administration and established its own 'Islamic and national' government with its capital in Omdurman; Ahmad's new polity functioned as a jihad state, run like a military camp. Thus, from 1885 the Mahdist government maintained sovereignty and control over the Sudanese territories — the state shown on the map. The Mahdist state lasted until its existence was terminated by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1898; the formally recorded end follows in 1899, when the territories the Mahdiyya had ruled passed under the Anglo-Egyptian arrangement that succeeded it.