Addison Rae ⋆˙⟡

I forget this place exists

Who ever scanned this book is trying to kill me

The jihādiyya of ʿAlī Dīnār were trained in a manner identical to that of the Mahdiyya.

ʿAlī ʿAbdallāh Abū Sinn, Mudhakira Abī Sinn ʿan mudīriyya Dār Fūr (1968), 37.

The training received by Mahdist jihādiyya

Making horrendous financial decisions ☺️

Oops, spring locked!

#fnaf #art #fanart

The Anglo-Egyptian army often re-enrolled captured slave soldiers into their own military forces—although technically granted manumission they were “enlisted for life.”

Image source:
“The Avenging of Gordon,” Navy & Army Illustrated vi, no. 77 (July 23, 1898), 431.

The jihādiyya were slaves soldiers recruited regions such as Dār Fūr, the Nūba mountains, and Baḥr al-Ghazāl. Many had previously served the Turco-Egyptian government were the backbone of the Mahdist military. Likewise, they made up a key component of the mulāzimiyya guardsmen of the Mahdist elite.

Fadl El Mula Ali, Said Imami, Said Morgan, Bekhit Nueir, Murgan Idris, &c. […]”

Spellings as per Intelligence Report, Egypt no. 27 (June 1894), 3. Sudan Archive, Durham:

“Kheir Es Sid, Jamus, Mohamed Ajami, Abd Er Rahman, Kambal Beshir, Kheiralla […] Masud Hassan, Mohamed Ghabasha […] Surur Esh Zubair, […] Osman Esh Sheikh, Gohar Ibrahim, Guma Ahmed,

ʿUthmān al-Shaykh, Jawhar Ibrāhīm, Jumaʿa Aḥmad, Faḍl al-Mawlā ʿAlī, Said Imami [?], Saʿīd Marjān, Bakhīt Nuer [Nūiyr], and Marjān Idrīs.

List of (primarily) slave soldiers of the mulāzimiyya and al-Kāra garrisons, Omdurman 1894. All of these men held the rank of raʾs mīʾa (head of a hundred).

Khayr al-Sayyid, Jāmūs, Muḥammad al-ʿAjamī, ʿAbd al- Raḥmān, Kanbāl Bashīr, Khayrallāh, Masʿūd Ḥasan, Muḥammad Ghabasha [?], Surūr al-Zubayr,

While the appearance of Abyssinians among the Khalīfa’s mulāzimīn in Omdurman is not a rare occurrence, it is interesting to note such a man in the army of amīr Maḥmūd (who had spent the majority of his career in the west as governor of Kurdufān and Dār Fūr).

Burleigh, Sirdar and Khalifa, 4th edn (1899), 178–179.

On 29 March, 1898, an Abyssinian “officer attached to Mahmoud’s person” deserted to the Anglo-Egyptian camp. Presumably this was a member of amīr Maḥmūd’s mulāzimiyya.

Auguste Wahlen

Bournouaise (woman of Bornu)
ca. 1844
#ethnographxt

'Sanusi People'
Kano, Nigeria
ca. 1950

#ethnographxt

Qāsim (1985), 1041: “mulāzim (S.) [in] the days of the Mahdiyya the mulāzim belonged to the council of the Mahdī and the Khalīfa”

“mulāzim (S.) ayyām al-Mahdiyya al-mulāzim li-majlis al-Mahdī wa-l-Khalīfa.”

Flag attributed to the Sudanese Mahdī

Image sources:
Johnson and Cox, “Notes on Mahdist Flags“ (2015), 24; Nicoll and Nusairi, “The Origins, Development and Use of Banners During the Mahdīa” (2020), 17. #africa #africanhistory #sudan

The assertion made in Nicoll and Nusairi (2024) that the banner was crying out to the Ottoman Sultan is self evidently flawed and nigh delusion (so much as I like Nicoll).

The text of the flags in question:

“lā ilāh illā Allāh: al-amān al-amān

Muḥammad rasūl Allāh al-sulṭan al-sulṭan”

translated as:

“There is no god but Allah, the Protector, the Protector

Muḥammad is the Prophet of Allah, the Sultan, the Sultan”

It is curious that the flag attributed to the Mahdī should bear the same ending formula as the flag of the Khatmiyya, the text being an extract from a devotional work by al-Ḥasan al-Mīrghanī.

Nicoll and Nusairi (2020), 16–17; Karrar (1992), 136.

A jolly day to all of youse. ❄️✨