Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi

Muhammad Ahmad ibn as Sayyid Abd Allah (otherwise known as The Mahdi or Muhammad Ahmed Al Mahdi Arabic:محمد أحمد المهدي) (August 12, 1844 – June 22, 1885) was a religious leader in Sudan who proclaimed himself the Mahdi (the prophesied redeemer of Islam who will appear at the end of times) in 1881, and declared a jihad against Egyptian authority in Sudan. He raised an army and led a successful religious war to topple the Egyptian occupation of Sudan.

Under his religious authority the divided clans of the Baggara and their rulers the Fur tribesmen were united into an alliance dedicated to establishing an "Islamic" state as the first step in a universal Islamic state.

In the West, due to the film Khartoum and other historical accounts, he is known for leading a siege against the city to drive the Egyptians and the British from Khartoum or to slaughter them. When Ahmad's armies overran the city, they beheaded British general Charles George Gordon, in the fall of Khartoum. Ahmad himself died soon after.

Without his leadership his movement and state lost much of its momentum. Attempts to expand by invading neighbors were unsuccessful, and famine, disease, persecution and warfare killed off about half Sudan's population. In 1898 an invading British army destroyed the Mahdi's army at the battle of Omdurman.