130. Brown, L. Carl. "The Sudanese Mahdiya." In Protest and Power in Black Africa edited by R.I. Rotberg and A. A. Mazrui. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1970: 145-68.
On Muhammad Ahmad's partly
successful war against the British. The Mahdi
("guided one") in Sunni Islam will restore the faith
at its lowest ebb and bring justice to the world. This is not
an orthodox idea. Instead Jesus
is to return to destroy al
Dajjal ("the deceiver," Antichrist), but belief
in the Mahdi is popular and strong. The paradigm of the semitic
(Jewish, Christian and Islamic) traditions of the millennium (it
is to be cataclysmic, charismatic, sectarian, revivalist, puritanical
and revelationist) applies to Ahmad's movement.
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