From Sufism to Fundamentalism: TheMahdiyya and the Wahhabiyya

GABRIEL R. WARBURG

The tolerant attitude of the Mahdiyya to Sufism, which later changed to one ofsuspicion and even hostility, contrasts with the hostile attitude of the Wahhabiyyatowards it. The Wahhabiyya, unlike the Mahdiyya, has succeeded in promoting itsmessage in a wide variety of forms in other parts of the Muslim world both in Asiaand Africa. I plan to discuss the Mahdiyya in the Sudan and partly deal with theWahhabiyya too.

Sufi was the term defining all Muslim mystics as early as the ninth century in whattoday is called Iraq. Two centuries later it was already applied to the body of Muslimmystics worldwide, although the wearing of suf (a cloak of white wool) from whichthe term was derived, was initially – around 100h/719 CE – regarded by Muslims as a‘reprehensible fashion of Christian origin’.1 There were, and still are, both radicaland moderate trends within the Sufi brotherhoods (tariqa/turuq), and whereas so-called orthodox Islam condemned Sufi radicalism, ‘moderate Sufism has never beenrejected by Sunni Islam’.2 It should be noted that unlike the Mahdiyya,‘Wahhabism . . . was anti-mystical and had no source in Sufism . . . It consideredanything like the worship of saints to be polytheistic’.3

As for the term ‘fundamentalism’ (usuliyyah in Arabic), ‘Fundamentalistmovements in Islam are a relatively new phenomenon, the result of a contemporaryhistorical situation’,4 and are derived from earlier Christian fundamentalistmovements. The late Fritz Steppat in his 1991 paper on this topic mentions thefollowing reasons leading to fundamentalism: first, insufficient socio-economicdevelopment to enable entrance into the world market. The required change is inmany cases both painful and time-consuming. If this is added to the uncontrollablepopulation growth, the reasons leading to despair are obvious. Second, generaldissatisfaction with governments since independence. Under colonialism alien rulewas despised but tolerated as a temporary evil, and was in many cases more efficientthan what emerged later. Also, the population sees no way to influence itsgovernments, except temporarily during elections. In many cases democracy doesnot survive and even the limited impact of the people over their rulers, practisedunder traditional Muslim rule, is no longer available. Third, frustration resultingfrom the prevailing world order in which colonial dependence continues to exist inall but name and the status quo prevails in order to serve western interests. And,fourth, continued attempts to adopt western models such as democracy, socialismand liberalism have ended in failure and led to despair. The causes for this failure

Middle Eastern Studies,Vol. 45, No. 4, 661–672, July 2009

ISSN 0026-3206 Print/1743-7881 Online/09/040661-12 ª 2009 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/00263200903009775

seem irrelevant in the present context. What matters is that they have led to an ever-growing belief in a purist Islamic path.5

As for fundamentalist Islam, Steppat divided it into three groupings. First is theextremist trend, best presented in the ideology of Sayyid Qutb. His followers believethat the world is on the verge of an abyss and that only Islam, which acknowledgesthe complete, unchallengeable superiority of God, can save it. This will be achievedthrough takfir, namely leaving the Jahili society in which they live, and undertakingactive jihad against the unbelievers, in the first instance the present rulers of Muslimcountries. To achieve this, all measures are permissible. Second, are those who can begrouped under the banner of the implementation of the shari‘a, who represent themajority of fundamentalists. They all oppose secularism and the separation ofreligion and state but propagate its achievement through peaceful measures,including parliamentary debates. They do not advocate jihad against the legitimaterulers but believe in fighting the enemies of Islam consisting of Christians and Jews,despite their being the people of the book (ahl al-kitab). And thirdly, are those whoadvocate an Islamic identity as heading the list of urgent needs. In a worlddominated by western industrialized powers, the search for a national identity of theoppressed is a real need. To achieve this is for them of such priority that they arewilling to cooperate with secularists and even to postpone the implementation of theshari‘a.6

When Steppat wrote his piece on fundamentalism in 1991 he noted that:

present trends in Jordan and Algeria suggest that Islam may gain power as aresult of democratic majorities. But in order to co-exist with Islam we have tostop regarding it as an enemy. Islam feels threatened by the West and is on thedefensive. By viewing it as an enemy we fail to understand it and postpone itsappeasement.7

John Voll also published an article, ‘Wahhabism and Mahdism: Alternative Stylesof Islamic Renewal’, on this topic as early as 1982.8 In it he stated that these twomovements were based on different styles of tajdid (renewal). The Mahdiyya wasbased on the charisma of its leader and was a leader-oriented tajdid movement. Themujadid, Muhammad Ahmad b. ‘Abdallah, claimed after June 1881 to be theSudanese Mahdi. In contrast the Wahhabiyya was a message-oriented movementand its tawhid message was modelled on the Hanbali tradition, which treatedcharisma with certain reservations. When Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab madehis alliance with al-Amir Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Sa‘ud, he did so on the basis of hisunitarian message rather than his charismatic leadership qualities. Therefore, incontrast to the Sufi traditions which embraced al-Mahdi al-Muntazar, who claimedthat he was khalifat rasul allah and was consequently blessed by baraka, ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab embraced tawhid as his guiding message, rather than calling on his followersto rely on his personal qualities. He urged them to follow tawhid, his unitarianmessage.

The difference between these alternative forms of tajdid re-appear in the twentiethcentury when the two movements affirm their roles in the emerging nation-states.After statehood, Saudi Arabia is led by the clan of ibn Sa‘ud, whereas thedescendants of ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab retained their position only as religious guides.

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In the Sudan, on the other hand, neo-Mahdism re-emerged after the First WorldWar initially as a religious Islamic movement, al-Ansar, but later it founded apolitical party called Hizb al-Ummah, always under the leadership of a directdescendant of its founding Imam ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi. In consequence, themessage-oriented tajdid as formulated by the Wahhabiyya was more likely to spreadbeyond the territorial boundaries of the Arabian Peninsula than the one preached bythe Mahdiyya, the latter remaining a local Sudanese phenomenon which neverspread beyond its borders.

These two manifestations developed long before the advent of the Taliban inAfghanistan, Hamas in Palestine (Gaza) or Hizbullah in Lebanon, not to mentionsuch worldwide movements as al-Qa‘ida. In other words, democratic electionsseemingly helped such so-called Islamic renewal movements to achieve power, to thedismay of some Western politicians.

Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of the Wahhabi movement in 1744, was born inNejd in 1702 or 1703. He named his new ideology ‘ad-da’wa li’l-tawhid’ and thoseadhering to it were thus ‘al-Muwahhidun’9 or Unitarians, rather than Wahhabis asthey were named in the western world. Consequently any deviation from what theWahhabis viewed as ‘pure’ Islam was denounced as bid‘a (innovation) and hencerejected. This extremist interpretation soon brought the Wahhabis into armedconflict with their Shi’i neighbours in what is at present Iraq (destroying the Holycities of the Shi‘a), as well as in Syria, and the Arabian Peninsula itself where theysucceeded in conquering both Mecca and Medina, the holy cities of Islam. Although,ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab’s main targets were the Sufis and the Shi’is, many of the mostpopular practices of Sunni Islam were also condemned as innovations or reversionsto paganism.10

Hassan Ahmed Ibrahim, in his recent article on Shaykh Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab and the Indian spiritual leader Shah Wali Allah views them as ‘the two keyMujaddids in the entire eighteenth century Muslim world’.11 These two contempor-ary Muslim scholars are best known for dissociating Islam from al-bida‘ (heresies),rejecting al-taqlid (blind imitation), and advocating ijtihad (creative reasoning).However, ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, who lived all his life in the isolated ArabianPeninsula, received an orthodox Hanbali Muslim education, in accordance with theultra-salafi philosophy of ibn Taymiyyah, who rejected all other Muslim disciplines,including Sufism, as un-Islamic. Consequently Wahhabism rejected Sufism and all itssaint-worship cults from the outset and its fundamentalist tendencies were totallyanti-sufi. Conversely, the contemporary Muslim school of thought, which evolvedout of Wali Allah and his followers in the Indian sub-continent, accepted Sufism,and the four main Sufi tariqas prevalent in India continued to flourish. Indeed, ShahWali Allah himself was profoundly influenced by Sufism and many of his followerswere practising Sufis. ‘[U]nlike ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, the Shah was very careful not todismiss outright any of the Sufis as apostate.’12

Wahhabism, though in a diluted form, has provided the ideology of present daySaudi Arabia, and, in its more extreme manifestations, has provided the Islamistideology of al-Qa‘ida and many other Jihad movements throughout the Muslimworld.13 The number of Saudis involved in the present wave of Islamic

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fundamentalism and in worldwide terrorism is therefore hardly a surprise, just as it isobvious why the pro-western regime in the Saudi Kingdom is vehemently opposed tothese radical deviationists, from the standpoint of what it views as pure Islam aspreached by the Wahhabiyya (al-Muwahhidun).

In a more recent article on the Salafi–Sufi conflict, Alexander Knysh examinesexponents of the Wahhabi–Salafi ideology as far apart as the Northern Caucasusand Hadramawt.14 He stated that the ideology of the ‘Salafi/Wahhabi creed found inDaghestan sounds very familiar. Drawing its inspiration from the writings of ibn‘Abd al-Wahhab . . . it could as well have been taught at any mosque or religiousschool in Saudi Arabia or the Gulf’. Though the concept of takfir (excommunica-tion) of Muslims who refuse to accept the pure Islam of al-Muwahhidun, is missingfrom the Daghestani ideology, other elements retain their original vehemence, suchas the rejection of all bid‘a and consequently of Sufism and Saint Worship in all itsforms.15 In his videotaped sermons, the leader of the Daghestani Salafis/Wahhabis,Baha’ al-Din (Bagauddin) Muhammad (Magomed) Kebedov, accused Sufis ofviolating 100 rulings of the Shari‘a.16 However, Knysh concludes that ‘the riftbetween the Salafis/Wahhabis and the Sufis is not unique to the Caucasus. It is foundin practically every Muslim country today (as well as the Muslim diasporiccommunities of the West)’.17

The Sudan, first Islamized with what may be defined as Islamic fundamentalism inthe shape of the Mahdist movement which evolved out of Sufism in the 1880s, is, tothe best of my knowledge, the leading historical example through which themovement from Sufism to fundamentalism can be explored. Spencer Trimingham, inhis book Islam in the Sudan, observed that, during the period of the Funj Sultanate inthe fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, Islam was introduced in the Sudan primarilyfrom the Arabian Peninsula:

The main result of this connexion . . . was the bringing of a living religion to theSudanese in the form of that double aspect of one process – saint-worship andreligious [sufi] orders . . . But since Sufism was at this time at a very lowebb . . . it was materialized in the form of the cult of mysterious powers, nowIslamized in the form of baraka, therefore personal allegiance and abjectreverence for the shaikh was the thing that mattered.18

Under Turco-Egyptian rule during the nineteenth century, an abortive attempt wasmade by the Egyptian rulers to introduce a so-called brand of Orthodox Islam, onthe al-Azhar model, into the Sudan. However, Sudanese-style Sufism prevailed andthe cult of Holy Families and Holy Men (fikihs) retained their powers throughout thecentury. They played a predominant role in kindling anti-colonial feelings, aimed atEgypt, and in ultimately leading Sudanese Muslims to a proto-nationalist revoltunder the banner of the Mahdiyya against their northern Muslim neighbours andcolonizers. Sudan’s Islamization by Sufi Sheikhs, Holy Men and Holy Families wasdue to a number of reasons. First, although the process of Islamization by Muslimjurists (fuqaha’) had started earlier, Sufism was more popular and easier tocomprehend than its ‘orthodox’ counterpart. Secondly, by the sixteenth centurySufism was tainted with many superstitions, as Trimingham points out. Para-doxically, this paved the way for its absorption into a superficially Islamized

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population, such as that of the Funj Sultanate of Sinnar, and made it much easier aslocal customs and superstitions were simply assimilated by the sufi orders. Thirdly,saint cult and baraka (Godly blessing) were both inheritable and appealed to Sudan’stribes since they offered the population popular intermediaries with God.Consequently, the fuqara’ (dervishes), or fikis (a corruption of faqih), as they werelocally known, were better understood and more popular than the learned fuqaha’ or‘ulama’.

In his article on the role of the ‘ulama’ in spreading Islam in the Sudan,Muhammad Ibrahim Abu Salim states that in the Sudan, unlike some other Muslimstates, there was no indigenous class of ‘ulama’ to fulfil special religious, cultural orsocial functions. The Sudanese ‘alim was consequently first and foremost a loyalmember of a Holy Family or sufi order, since Sufism was regarded in the Sudan asthe confirmed path to Muslim piety. As far as Sudanese men of religion wereconcerned, they preferred tasawwuf (mysticism) over ‘ilm (science; learning).19 TheSudanese ‘alim was in most cases a sufi who, having memorized the Qur’an, decidedto devote himself to further religious studies while maintaining his sufi beliefs andloyalties. To quote Professor Nikki R. Keddie’s definition of Sufi orders:

The rise of large-scale religious orders or brotherhood, often but not alwayswith a mystical belief system, began only in the twelfth or thirteenth centuriesA.D. . . . The brotherhood fulfilled a variety of functions for their members:social, ‘entertainment,’ charitable, intellectual, psychological, and sometimespolitical, as well as those that we might consider religious or mystical.20

Among those who introduced Islam into the Funj Sultanate were Holy Families,many of whom had migrated from the Arabian Peninsula. They settled among thetribes, established their own Qur’an schools, and gained influence and wealth. TheAwlad Jabir was one of these holy families who played an active role in theIslamization of Sudan from the beginning of the Funj Sultanate. They establishedschools in the Nilotic Sudan as well as in Darfur and Wadai and accumulatedconsiderable wealth and social standing. The graduates of their schools became‘ulama’ in various parts of the Sudan. The Awlad Jabir also provide a good exampleof the accumulation of wealth and economic power in the hands of some of the holyfamilies. Like many riverain tribesmen stemming primarily from the Ja‘aliyyin andthe Danaqla who were driven from the Nile Valley to seek their fortunes in westernSudan, the Awlad Jabir too established branches of their family in Darfur and Wadaiprobably as part of this migration. But unlike the riverain tribal migrants whosought occupation primarily in trading, the Awlad Jabir, apart from their Islamicteaching, enhanced their position as major landowners and administrators. Theirestates differed in size and value and in some cases included whole villages, as well asnumerous slaves.21

An additional input into Sudanese Islam came from Sokoto, the Hausaland, inpresent-day Nigeria, where Shehu Uthman Dan Fodio emerged as a major mujadidin the eighteenth century and founded his own jihad movement.22 Through Wadaiand Darfur many of his Fulani disciples escaped from French assaults andmigrated into the Funj Sultanate of Sinnar (present day Sudan). Dan Fodio’s jihadhelped the Sudanese Mahdi gain support, especially in the Western regions of the

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Turco-Egyptian Sudan. Another Holy Family which illustrates the religious, social,economic and political impact of these holy men was the Majdhubiyya. They were afamily of fuqara’, residents of al-Damir on the Nile north of Omdurman, which wasthe centre of the Ja‘aliyyin tribe. As part of the Ja‘aliyyin, the Majadhib claimeddescent from ‘Abbas, the Prophet’s uncle. The founder of the Majdhubiyya was aJa‘ali faqih, Hamad ibn Muhammad al-Majdhub (b.1693/94), who studied theMaliki legal system in Sudan and later made the pilgrimage to Mecca, where hestudied and joined the Shadhiliyya sufi order. Upon his return he reorganized thecommunity of al-Damir in which he and his descendants predominated. Al-Damir,under the influence of the Majdhubiyya, became a flourishing religious centre. WhenJames Bruce visited it in 1774, he described it as ‘a town belonging to Fakir WedMadge Doub’ [sic. wad Majdhub], who is worshipped by the Ja‘aliyyin. In 1814, some40 years later, Johann Burckhardt visited the town. He wrote that all power was stillvested in al-Faqih al-Kabir, while baraka was no longer confined only to the head ofthe Majadhib but had spread to other members of the Holy Family and even to somewho were not directly related to it. Many of these fuqaha’ had their own chapels nextto their houses. But, according to Burckhardt, ‘Friday prayers were alwaysperformed in the great mosque’ of the Majadhib which also included a madrasa (aschool of Islamic studies). The emphasis was on training students from as far West asKordofan and Darfur in Islamic law. The teachers were mostly Majadhib ‘ulama’who had studied in Cairo or Mecca.

Al-Damir thus became a centre known for the administration of justice inaccordance with Islamic law. The office of al-faqih al-kabir (the great jurist) remainedhereditary within the Majdhubiyya and his powers were considerable. Opposition tothe Majadhib, even among the nomads in al-Damir’s vicinity seems to have beennegligible and their power, though derived from their religious standing, soonembraced all aspects of al-Damir’s political, social and economic life.23 This all cameto an end as a result of the Ja‘aliyyin uprising against Turco-Egyptian rule in 1822following which the Majadhib, who played a significant part in the revolt, had toescape from that region together with other members of the Ja‘aliyyin.

In order to comprehend the Islamic background of the Mahdiyya and theWeltanschauung of Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi, its founder and first leader, acloser examination of Sudan’s Sufi brotherhoods is required. The intellectualinnovations of the eighteenth and nineteenth century sufi orders, primarily attributedto Shaykh Ahmad ibn Idris, are relevant since the appearance of so-called neo-Sufism had a considerable impact on Sufism in the Sudan.24 It is also relevant thatsome of these orders, notably the Sammaniyya and the Khatmiyya in the case ofSudan, introduced new organizational structures which paved the way for gainingcross-tribal support within wider territories. This pattern of expansion entailed theincorporation of pre-existing religious centres into this new tariqa network. TheSammaniyya was the first of these new ‘supra-national’ Sufi brotherhoods.Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Karim al-Samman (1718–75), the founder of the new order,was initiated into the Khalwatiyya, while on a visit to Cairo in 1760. Both he and hissuccessors continued to live in al-Medina and it was through their khulafa’ that theirmessage was propagated in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Sudan. One of their khulafa’was Ahmad al-Tayyib wad al-Bashir, who had been initiated into the order while ona pilgrimage to Medina, in about 1764. On his return to Sudan he succeeded in

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recruiting Sudanese followers especially in the Gezira, south of Omdurman, wherethe Hamaj Regent, Nasir b. Muhammad Abi Likaylik, joined the newly foundedSammaniyya order and granted Ahmad al-Tayyib an estate. Several of the religiousshaykhs of the earlier Sufi orders such as the Halawiyyun, the Ya‘qubab, and theQadiriyya, also joined the Sammaniyya. The importance of this development lay inthe fact that the prevailing trend in Sudanese Sufism had been one of small andrather diffuse orders which wielded little influence outside their limited circle of tribalfollowers.25

The arrival of the more centralized and better organized supra-tribal orders, ofwhich the Sammaniyya was a forerunner, helped to create an Islamic network whoseimpact exceeded tribal or regional boundaries and hence had wider politicalimplications. However, the Sammaniyya lost much of its political impact soon afterits founder’s death in 1824. Instead of assuming the stature of a centralized orderwith branches in several regions, it split into numerous autonomous sub-ordersbecause personal ambitions, in addition to diverse ethnic and regional loyalties, ledto clashes, and it lost its leading role.26 In 1860 Muhammad Ahmad b. ‘Abdallahjoined the Sammaniyya and soon became a Khalifa of Shaykh Muhammad SharifNur al-Da’im, his Sammani teacher, and though he was later expelled from thisfaction of the order he maintained his Sammani alliance under another SammaniShaykh, al-Qurashi wad al-Zayn, his new mentor.

The belief in the coming of a mahdi, which prevailed in the Sudan and also in theSammaniyya, later enabled Muhammad Ahmad b. ‘Abdallah, who was then aSammani Sheikh, to declare himself the forthcoming Mahdi, in June 1881. Accordingto Dr. al-Tahir Muhammad ‘Ali al-Bashir, ‘there is no doubt that this [Sammaniassociation] later led to what became the Mahdist revolt, for he had his associates [inthe Sammaniyya] and its organization to lean upon’.27 The Khatmiyya (orMirghaniyya) was another such supra-national order but its subsequent historydiffered from that of the Sammaniyya. It was first introduced into Sudan byMuhammad ‘Uthman al-Mirghani (1793–1852), a member of a Sharifian family,who had studied under Ahmad ibn Idris. He toured the Funj Sultanate of Sinnar onal-Idrisi’s behalf from 1815–19 on the eve of its conquest by Muhammad ‘Ali’sEgyptian army. In 1816 he entered Sinnar the capital of the Funj Sultanate andinitiated students into his embryonic Khatmiyya order.28

Following the death of Ibn Idris, in October 1837, Muhammad ‘Uthman sent hisson Muhammad al-Hasan to found a Khatmiyya branch in the Sudan and for avariety of reasons gained immediate government support from the newly establishedTurco-Egyptian administration. Al-Sayyid al-Hasan al-Mirghani was of Sudaneseorigin. Born in Bara in Kordofan in 1819, he was later sent to Mecca where hememorized the Qur’an and studied a wide range of Islamic topics with his father.Following his graduation his father ordered him to return to the Sudan, which wasalready ruled by Muhammad ‘Ali’s agents, and act as his Khalifa there. Sayyid al-Hasan started an intensive missionary campaign in the riverain and eastern regionsof northern Sudan. He appointed agents from among Khatmiyya supporters,including several contemporary holy men as well as followers of the Shadhiliyyaorder, who transferred their allegiance to him. The Khatmiyya’s great success inSudan probably resulted from the following factors: first, due to its superiororganization it could face challenges to its influence and did not suffer from internal

From Sufism to Fundamentalism 667

splits like those which had inflicted the Sammaniyya; secondly, the Khatmiyya wasone of the first among the new Sufi orders of the Idrisi tradition to arrive in Sudanand hence its message was more coherent and less tainted by local superstitions;thirdly, and probably most important, Sayyid al-Hasan exploited the fact that theolder, smaller Sufi orders had been largely discredited and partly destroyed bySudan’s Egyptian rulers. He thus came to the riverain tribes, such as the Sha‘iqiyya,as the charismatic ‘Holy Man’ in whose tariqa they could find a substitute for theirtraditional institutions and superstitious fikis, and which was more akin to so-calledOrthodox Islam as propagated by al-Azhar; lastly, the Khatmiyya benefited from itsassociation with Sudan’s new Turco-Egyptian rulers, whose conquest of Sudancoincided with the expansion of their tariqa. In this respect it is important to notethat al-Sayyid al-Hasan associated with the Turco-Egyptian rulers at the explicitwish of his father who probably realized the political advantages that could bederived from such an association.29 Thus on the eve of the Turco-Egyptian conquest,the political, economic and social power of the new Sufi orders and the well-established Holy Families was superior to that of central government in thedisintegrating Funj sultanate which was conquered by Egypt in 1820–21.

The question to examine now is how Islamic fundamentalism evolves in a societylargely based on Sufi beliefs and divided into a multitude of tribes and Sufibrotherhoods. As noted by Professor P.M. Holt, the idea of a mahdi ‘among theShi‘a is equated with the Hidden Imam, whose infallibility and his return are articlesof faith’.30 While belief in the Shi‘i Imam is fundamentalist, often leading toradicalism and violence, this does not apply to the Sudan where Shi‘i Islam had littleimpact. The focus, therefore, should be on Sunni beliefs in the Mahdiyya.

Among the Sunnis, Mahdism is a popular belief, particularly at times ofcrisis, but it has never fully been integrated into the orthodox faith . . . The termal-mahdi means ‘the guided one’ the Mahdi is al-imam, the head of the Islamiccommunity. His function is to restore right governance . . . ‘to fill the earth withequity and justice even as it has been filled with tyranny and oppression’.31

The Sunni Mahdi has prevailed in various parts of African Islam in which theSunni brand of Sufism was strongly represented. It is associated with theapproaching end of the world and with the ‘second coming’ of Jesus (al-nabi ‘Isa).These beliefs can be identified as fundamentalist, as can the fact that during theMahdiyya, Jihad (holy war) was added to the five central principles of Islam (arkanal-Islam).

The childhood of Muhammad Ahmad b. ‘Abdallah, the Sudanese Mahdi, showsthe central role played by Sufi shaykhs in his education and early life. Following hisstudy of the Qur’an, Hadith and other sources of orthodox Islam, MuhammadAhmad turned to Sufism, prevalent in Sudan, following ibn Taymiyya, who in thethirteenth century had denounced the Muslim (Shi‘a) rulers of Baghdad as apostatesand called upon all Muslims to form a truly Islamic state, in the image of the originalcommunity surrounding the Prophet. Ibn ‘Arabi, Ahmad wad Idris, andMuhammad ‘Ali al-Sanusi were to have a great influence on his future learning,while his Sufi teacher in the Sudan was Shaykh Muhammad al-Sharif Nur al-Da’im,of the Sammaniyya order. He studied with his shaykh until he graduated in 1868 and

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became a shaykh of a Sammaniyya sub-order in his own right, establishing his ownKhalwa.

Instead of pursuing higher studies in al-riwaq al-Sinnariyya at Cairo’s al-Azhar, asmany learned Sudanese Muslims did, he decided instead to stay on Aba Island inSudan. Had he gone to Cairo he might have encountered a variety of new ideas andnew personalities such as Jamal al-Din al-Afghani or Muhammad ‘Abduh, and hisideas about the future of Islam might have taken a different turn. But he preferred tostay in the Sudan which was rather isolated and he retained a narrow and somewhatlimited worldview.32

Khartoum at the time of his childhood and early studies was a ‘ramshackle mazeof zigzagging lanes’.33 Egypt deported its undesirable elements and criminals there.Some were later appointed provincial governors of the colonial regime. Thus it wasthat throughout Muhammad Ahmad’s childhood, the Turco-Egyptian administra-tion in Khartoum tirelessly pursued the original and brutally commercial mandate ofthe occupation, the procurement of ‘negroes’ for its army and continued slave tradeon a large scale both within the Sudan and via Egypt to other neighbouringcountries. Slaves were part of the future Mahdi’s childhood, and the 1877 Anti-Slavery Treaty between Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire played a significantrole in his future revolt since it hit Sudanese society which was largely dependent onslavery and the slave trade both for export and home and agricultural labour.34

The Sudan in which Muhammad Ahmad matured was one in which the‘suppression of slavery proved a chimera; and the trade flourished more than ever’.35

By the end of 1879 when Charles Gordon Pasha, who as governor-general of theSudan had led the struggle against slavery with missionary zeal, ‘was a beatenman . . . Muhammad Ahmad, by contrast, was approaching the peak of his powers.His sermons took on a new urgency, a new stridency’.36 He had become a Holy Man,recognized by both local people and foreign missions travelling southwards on theNile. These halted on Aba Island ‘to seek his blessings for a safe journey . . . forwhich blessings nice presents were handed to him . . . Muhammad Ahmad’s spiritualmission was not yet overtly political but his drive had begun to establish an Islamicrenaissance’. He was recruiting supporters throughout the northern Sudan, writingletters (manshurat) to both Sufi sheikhs and tribal leaders. He received the blessingsof Sheikh Muhammad al-Tayyib al-Basir, grandson of the founder of theSammaniyya order and leader of a third branch of the order.

In western Sudan Muhammad Ahmad sought support from al-Makki Isma‘il al-Wali, head of the Isma‘iliyya order in Kordofan. He gave an oath of loyalty andalliance (bay‘a) to Muhammad Ahmad, promising the support of his Sufi adherentsin the western Sudan. He became an important ally in the Mahdi’s later conquest ofEl-Obeid. In Kordofan he also received the support of the Tijaniyya order, whichwere keen on joining the Jihad. ‘Building lasting support could wait for a secondtour. But this first tour of Kordofan stirred up great interest’. Muhammad Ahmadheld a Sufi ritual in al-Obeid and gossip soon passed that ‘A darwish had arrivedfrom the river . . . He had been seen visiting all the famous local mashayikh andfuqara’.37 He was thus preparing the western Sudan for his forthcoming Zuhur(manifestation) as al-mahdi al-muntazar.

In the Arabian Peninsula the Wahhabis, who revolted against the OttomanEmpire’s deviation from the ‘True Path’, flourished in eighteenth century Hijaz. As

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‘True fundamentalists, they insisted that traditional Islamic law [under theOttomans] was not being adhered to with sufficient rigour’. Thus, Mahdistexpectations and beliefs reached a new peak in the thirteenth hijri century. Themost compelling precedent for Muhammad Ahmad, however, came from a territorywest of the Sudan, ‘where Usman [sic] dan Fodio had led a revivalist jihad againstthe corrupt and decadent rulers of what is now northern Nigeria’.38 LikeMuhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi, ‘Uthman Dan Fodio was an ardent Sufi of theQadiriyya who did not claim to be a mahdi but called on all the Hausa to go on ajihad against the corrupt rulers, as mandated by the Prophet.

The Sudanese Mahdiyya was closely associated with Sufism both before the Zuhurand in the early years of the revolution. However, once the movement had beenfirmly established throughout the Sudan, both the Mahdi and the Khalifa,‘Abdullahi al-Ta‘aishi, who followed him in 1885–98, rejected the Sufi sheikhs’claim to leadership and baraka, since in the Mahdist state there was only one leaderimbued with holiness who received direct communications and orders from theProphet in his frequent visions. Thus the alliance between the Mahdiyya and the Sufiorders was over and most of them became instead submissive adherents of themovement. When baffled members of the Tijaniyya brotherhood wrote to the Mahdito ask whether their tariqa had really been banned, they received a terse reply fromthe Khalifa ‘Abdullahi: ‘What you have been told is correct’, he wrote on behalf ofhis master, ‘it is the true position and must be followed. So adopt it and end youradherence to that sect’.39

Of the major orders only the Khatmiyya did not recognize the Mahdi. Some of itsmain leaders escaped into exile in Egypt from where they returned only after theAnglo-Egyptian conquest in 1898. But on the whole none of the other Sufibrotherhoods seemed to be concerned with the superiority of the Mahdiyya and didnot challenge the Mahdi’s superior Baraka. Later the Ansar (neo-Mahdists) becamea docile Islamic movement ready to compromise, not unlike the Khatmiyya, since itrealized that radicalism and conflict would not achieve its goals. However, theAnsar, who flourished during the twentieth century, retained many of the attributesof a Sufi order which they had absorbed during the Mahdiyya. Succession has passedfrom father to son within the Mahdi’s family since 1899 when the Khalifa ‘Abdullahidied in the battle of Umm Diwaykarat. Sayyid ‘Abd al-Rahman, the Mahdi’sposthumous son, became the imam of the resurrected Mahdiyya and the Mahdi’sBaraka has been passed on within his family ever since, with Sayyid al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, its present holder.

The flag of radicalism and violence has been carried in the Sudan since the 1980sby Hassan al-Turabi and the Muslim Brothers, later the National Islamic Front(NIF), who in June 1989 engineered the radical Islamist revolution in the Sudanhelped by their supporters in the army. However, they did not seek to establish afundamentalist Islamist state: al-Turabi proposed many reforms, including far-reaching reforms for women in Islam, which did not conform to fundamentalism.However, the Sudan and other Muslim states based on Sufism are by and large notas vehemently missionary in their Islamic world view as the neo-Wahhabis of theal-Qa’ida or Taliban mould. The latter are a major threat not only to the West, asexemplified by the United States, but also to the majority of Muslims who seek co-existence with other monotheistic religions.

670 G. R. Warburg

Notes

This article is a revised version of a paper I submitted to an international workshop on ‘Islamic

Fundamentalism and Sufism, held at the University of Haifa, 1–4 July 2007, by Dr. Itzchak Weismann in

cooperatioin with the Jewish Arab Center.

1. Encyclopaedia of Islam (short edition, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1961), p.580.

2. Ibid., p.581.

3. N. Daniel, Islam Europe and Empire (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1966), pp.113, 114.

4. F. Steppat, ‘Fundamentalismus im Islam: Islamisten auf der Suche nach Hoffnung, Orientierung,

Identitat’, in D. Schirmer (ed.), Religioser Fundamentalismus im Judentum, Christentum und Islam

(Berlin: Evangelisches Bildungswerk Berlin, 1991), p.18.

5. Ibid., pp.19–23.

6. Ibid., pp.23–9.

7. Ibid., pp.29–32.

8. J. Voll, ‘Wahhabism and Mahdism: Alternative Styles of Islamic Renewal’, Arab Studies Quarterly,

Vol.4, Nos.1–2 (Spring 1982), pp.110–26.

9. C. Allen, God’s Terrorists, The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad (London: Abacus,

2007), p.50.

10. Ibid., p.56.

11. H.A. Ibrahim, ‘Shaykh Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab and Shah Wali Allah: A Preliminary

Comparison of Some Aspects of their Lives and Careers’, Asian Journal of Social Science, Vol.34,

No.1 (2006), p.103.

12. Ibid., pp.105–8 (citation from p.108).

13. Ibid., p.116.

14. A. Knysh, ‘Contextualizing the Salafi–Sufi Conflict (from the Northern Caucasus to Hadramawt)’,

Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.43, No.4 (2007), pp.503–30.

15. Ibid., pp.505–6.

16. Ibid., p.507.

17. Ibid., p.507.

18. J.S. Trimingham, Islam in the Sudan, 2nd impression (London: Frank Cass, 1965), p.195.

19. For details see the contemporary chronicle written by katib al-shuna known as ‘The Funj Chronicle’,

in P.M. Holt, The Sudan of the Three Niles, the Funj Chronicle (Leiden: Brill, 1999); also P.M. Holt,

‘Holy Families and Islam in the Sudan’, in P.M. Holt, Studies in the History of the Near East (London:

Frank Cass, 1973), pp.121–34.

20. N.R. Keddie (ed.), Scholars, Saints and Sufis: Muslim Institutions in the Middle East since 1500

(Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1972), pp.4–5.

21. For details of their history and their religious teachings, see P.M. Holt, ‘The Sons of Jabir and their

Kin: A clan of Sudanese Religious Notables’ in Holt, Studies, pp.88–103; and Holt, ‘Holy Families

and Islam in the Sudan’.

22. A.S. Shagari and J. Boyd, Uthman Dan Fodio, The Theory and Practice of His Leadership (Lagos:

Islamic Publications Bureau, 1978).

23. J. Spaulding, The Heroic Age in Sinnar (East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1985), pp.173–4,

quoted from J. Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh, 1805), p.451; and

J.L. Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, 2nd ed. (London, 1822), p.236.

24. For details see A.S. Karrar, The Sufi Brotherhoods in the Sudan (London: C. Hurst, 1992), especially

pp.42–72 in which the Sammaniyya and the Khatmiyya are discussed; see also R.S. O’Fahey, The

Enigmatic Saint: Ahmad Ibn Idris and the Idrisi Tradition (London: Hurst & Co., 1990), especially Ch.I

1–26 which deals with ‘Neo-Sufism and Ibn Idris’.

25. Karrar, Sufi Brotherhoods, pp.43–8.

26. For details see O’Fahey, Enigmatic Saint, pp.142–9.

27. Dr. al-Tahir Muhammad ‘Ali al-Bashir, Al-Adab al-Sufi al-Sudani (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr, 1970), p.65.

28. Karrar, Sufi Brotherhoods, pp.75–6; according to Karrar neither Ibn Idris nor Muhammad

‘Uthman al-Mirghani had previous relations with the Turkish rulers but his orders to al-Hasan

stated explicitly that he should establish close relations with the ‘Turks’ and not follow in his footsteps

in this respect.

From Sufism to Fundamentalism 671

29. Karrar, Sufi Brotherhoods, pp.75–6; according to Karrar neither Ibn Idris nor Muhammad ‘Uthman

al-Mirghani had previous relations with the rulers but his orders to al-Hasan stated explicitly that he

should establish close relations with the Turks and not follow in his footsteps in this respect.

30. P.M. Holt, The Mahdist State in the Sudan 1881–1898 (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), p.21.

31. Ibid., p.22.

32. F. Nicoll, The Sword of the Prophet (Gloucester: Sutton Publishing, 2004), pp.36–7.

33. Ibid., p.23.

34. Ibid., pp.26–7.

35. Ibid., p.45.

36. Ibid., p.49.

37. Ibid., pp.56–7.

38. Ibid., p.61.

39. Ibid., p.131.

672 G. R. Warburg