The Sudanese Mahdi's attitudes on slavery and emancipation

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Periodical article

Title:	The Sudanese Mahdi's attitudes on slavery and emancipation
Author:	Searcy, Kim
Year:	2010
Periodical:	Islamic Africa (ISSN 2154-0993)
Volume:	1
Issue:	1
Pages:	63-83
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Sudan
Subjects:	Mahdiyya abolition of slavery slavery
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1163/21540993-90000007
Abstract:	The forces of the Sudanese Mahdi captured Khartoum in 1885 and brought an end to sixty-four years of Turco-Egyptian occupation of the Sudan. The Mahdi's revolt - from the perspective of many scholars of the period, such as P.M. Holt - was launched because of the Egyptian government's attempts to end slavery in the Sudan. This article analyses the extant proclamations, sermons, and rulings of the Mahdi in order to identify his attitudes on slavery and emancipation. It argues that, contrary to what previous scholars have concluded, the Mahdi's revolt against the Turco-Egyptian forces was not motivated primarily by the suppression of the slave trade. Rather, the Mahdi responded to the occupation's imposition of poll taxes as a corrupted form of government divorced from the pure Islamic state he envisioned founding. Bibliogr., ref., sum. [Journal abstract]