Truth, beauty, and meaning are not something that exists independently of human experiences.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)

Sudan emerged onto the map of the ancient and modern world through a long process of formation. Throughout human history, Sudan bore several names. It was referred to in ancient Egyptian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, as well as Greek and Roman texts and inscriptions by various names. Among the most famous are those found in ancient Egyptian writings, such as Ta-Seti (Land of the Bow) and Ta-Nehesy (Land of the Blacks). This latter designation was translated by the ancient Greeks into their language as Aithiopia, meaning “people of burnt faces.”

The earliest reference to the name Sudan as Kush appears in ancient Egyptian pronunciation as Kash. The Assyrian texts mentioned it as Qus. As for the ancient Sudanese themselves, they called their state Kush, which is the same name and pronunciation adopted by the Old Testament (Torah) to describe the land of Sudan.

Kush was a great state that encompassed northern and eastern Sudan and a large part of Kordofan, extending southward to Jebel Moya in Sinnar State. This marks the southern limit of Kushite archaeological remains, with the last sites of Meroitic pottery discoveries dating from approximately 1500 BCE to the fourth century CE.

After the fall of this kingdom around 350 CE, Sudan entered a period of major political vacuum lasting about 200 years, known as the period of  “Group X”>

(The Heroic Age in Sinnar, by Jay Spaulding, 1984)

The period of “Group X” ended with the emergence of three kingdoms that divided the former lands of Kush in 550 CE. This era is known as the period of the Christian Nubian kingdoms, which included the Kingdom of Maris (Nobatia) with its capital at Faras, the Kingdom of Makuria with its capital at Dongola, and the Kingdom of Alodia with its capital at Soba. This period ended with the fall of the Kingdom of Alodia in 1505 CE.

(The Christian Nubian Kingdoms, by Fr. Giovanni Vantini, 1978)

The Funj (Sinnar) era marked the beginning of a culturally different political system, as Islam ascended the throne of power for the first time, announcing Sudan’s entry into Islamic history as an Islamic state or emirate. Sudan was not the first state south of the Sahara and in East Africa to experience Islamic rule, as it was preceded by the Kingdom of Kanem-Bornu (1380 CE) and the Islamic-style kingdoms in Abyssinia and Somalia, such as the Kingdom of Shewa and the Sultanate of Ifat.

In Darfur, an important Islamic kingdom emerged in 1586 CE: the Keira Kanjara Kingdom (the Darfur Sultanate, 1586–1874). This was followed by the Kingdom of Taqali in southern Kordofan, and several small kingdoms in northern Sudan such as Dafar, Argo, Al-Khandaq, and the Shaigiya, as well as Blue Nile kingdoms like Fazughli, Kili, and the Berta. All of these were considered small kingdoms with limited cultural, social, and political influence.

(Ancient Sudan as Documented by Ancient Texts, by Abdel Qader Mahmoud, 2017)

The period known as the “Qiman” era in the late Funj state closely resembled the political vacuum Sudan experienced during the Period of the “X-Group”. This followed Sheikh Muhammad Abu Likaylik’s coup against King Badi Abu Shulukh around 1762 CE. Although Badi installed his son, Mek Nasser, as king of Sinnar, the position was merely symbolic, with real power transferring to Sheikh Muhammad Abu Likaylik. This led to the state’s deterioration, rebellion in its peripheries, and fragmentation of power centers, until it completely collapsed in 1821 CE following the entry of the Turco-Egyptian forces in what historians of the period referred to as the Turco-Egyptian conquest of Sudan.

With the beginning of the Turco-Egyptian era, Sudan experienced a form of coercive unity, as Khedival Egypt annexed all these kingdoms through a series of military campaigns extending from 1821 to 1874. It annexed what was known as the lands of the Niam-Niam, which later named the Equatoria Province—today’s South Sudan—and subjugated the Keira Kanjara state in 1874. In this way, the Turco-Egyptian Khedivate presented a new map to the world called Eastern Sudan or the Sudan of the Nile Valley.

Toward the Awaited Homeland

For the first time in their history, the Sudanese found themselves a people with a shared destiny. However, they were a captive, shackled people, subjected to an unprecedented level of harsh and brutal occupation. Throughout their history, Sudanese had lived with freedom and cultural and social independence, but the new colonial system held a different view. It did not treat Sudanese as citizens, but as economic resources to be exploited for military service and agriculture, and sometimes as commodities to be bought and sold.

The slave trade became active and flourished during the Turco-Egyptian era, making Sudan one of the worst places on earth for common people and non-Muslims. Their enslavement was justified by their oppressed class status and by their religion, which was not recognized by the colonizers. A person could lose their freedom if they failed to pay taxes or the “diqniya”, a head tax imposed annually on every family member; failure to pay resulted in confiscation like any other commodity.

Thus, popular proverbs emerged among Sudanese at the time expressing resentment, such as: “The grave rather than the tax debt” meaning death is preferable to standing before a tax official; and “The Turk rather than the Turkified,” meaning dealing with an official sent by the Khedivate was preferable to dealing with a Sudanese working under him, described as “mutawarrek” (one who imitates the Turks).

It is worth noting that the term “Turk” did not necessarily mean someone of Turkish origin, but anyone representing the Turco-Egyptian government, regardless of whether they were Egyptian, Circassian, Albanian, Syrian, or even European.

The Father of the Awaited Sudan

During this harsh period, Sayyid Muhammad Ahmad Abdullah was born by the Nile. He was destined to lead a movement of change that astonished the world and demonstrated the will of sub-Saharan African peoples to resurrect. Muhammad Ahmad, known as Imam al-Mahdi, revived the Sudanese people from obscurity to the forefront of global headlines, igniting a liberation movement that resonated across a world groaning under colonial imperialism and European and Ottoman arrogance.

Imam al-Mahdi led the Sudanese—united for the first time in their ancient history—under the flag of a single cause. Despite the religious nature of the Mahdist revolution, non-Muslim Sudanese responded to it. The Nuer prophet Ngundeng brought out his sacred drum, “Dang”, and beat it with the holy staff (Di) granted to him by “Kwoth”, the Great Spirit, to proclaim the Mahdi as a sacred spirit whose call must be followed. Nuer fighters thus marched to join the Mahdi at Qadir. The Dinka also rose and announced their participation in the fight against colonialism, and the Nuba Mountains tribes joined the revolution when Mek Adam Wad Umm Dabbalo descended majestically from his mountains in response to the Mahdi’s call for freedom.

For the first time in history, an army formed where Dongolawi, Furawi, Hadandawi, Dinka, and fighters from all tribes of the four corners of Sudan came under one flag.

This revolution represents the true birth of the Sudanese as a nation. Setting aside issues of governance and the administrative distortions that later affected this great popular political movement in African history, it remains a stunning and near-perfect model of a people uniting against colonial forces—and against time itself. The Mahdi’s victories over three years were so remarkable that the global press struggled to keep pace. Major international newspapers sent correspondents to Egypt and Suakin to cover this astonishing liberation movement.

The Mahdi and the Sudanese people became a major source of inspiration for thinkers and writers seeking reform worldwide. The Mahdist Revolution inspired European socialist and liberation thinkers such as Engels, Ottoman reformists of the Committee of Union and Progress like Orhan Meric and revolutionary leaders such as the Somali rebel Muhammad Abdullah Hassan, leader of the Dervish resistance (1900–1920), whom the British considered influenced by the Mahdi. They dubbed him “the Mad Mullah” and bombed his forces with aircraft after he fought them, as well as the Italians and Ethiopians, with courage and honor for twenty years.

The Mahdi fulfilled his promise to the world and to the Sudanese of the birth of the awaited Sudan. Historian Fergus Nicoll interpreted this in his 2004 book The Sword of the Prophet: The Mahdi of Sudan and the Death of General Gordon, describing the Mahdi as the true father of the Sudanese people.

The Mahdi and his companions presented an eternal tableau expressing the will of peoples when they unite, and a sacred message that civilization and refinement are never more precious than freedom. Occupation, no matter how long it lasts, is merely a transient episode in the history of nations and will inevitably recede into the past, no matter how deeply it sinks its fangs into the present.

Mahdism rejected racism and dissolved ethnic divisions, replacing racial and social ties with faith in a common cause. This, to some extent, constitutes one of the foundations of the modern state, in which the nation becomes the sole focus of loyalty beyond race and religion. Although religious thought was the spirit and essence of the Mahdist Revolution, it provided a model for Sudanese unity in the pursuit of freedom, even for those who did not practice Islam, such as the people of South Sudan who fought alongside the Mahdi and his companions.

Today, amid the war we are living through as Sudanese—a war that has burdened us with wounds, division, and hatred among communities—we draw inspiration from the memory of the liberation of Khartoum and the Mahdi’s victorious entry with his companions, presenting the awaited Sudan to the future and to history: one united Sudan. For the first time, all Sudanese lands in the north, south, east, and west were ruled by a single Sudanese leadership. He truly deserved the title “Father of Sudan.”

Although the Mahdi lived only a few months after liberating Khartoum and establishing his capital in Omdurman, he left a legacy so immense that none of our great predecessors can rival it. Without any doubt, in that hall where our ancestors gather in the other world, the one seated at the center of the assembly is the great revolutionary fighter Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi, together with his companions who fought like noble warriors.

*Walied Abuzaid is an academic and researcher in Sudanese culture and history.