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قديم 07-12-2008, 11:33 PM   #[46]
Suad Badri
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افتراضي فليتقبل الله وقوف جميع المسلمين بعرفة اليوم، ويوعدنا

سلام
والله الاسكان صعب، والأصعب موافقة المحتوى مع مواصفات البوست.. بس مشكلتى هى الأصرار مع عدم الأتقان... وعليه حأعرض ليكم تجربتى فى الفصل الأول، اذا وافقتو نواصل... وللتوضيح فقد اضطررت أن اجمع كل الحواشى واعرضها فى الأخر..
الأخ حسين عبد الجليل، مشكور حاول فى الب د ف فورمات.. لكنى برضو ما قدرت أعالجها لتكست..
بس طبعا فى النهاية المحتوى بيعوض كتير...
رأيكم ومساعدتكم مهمة...
وكل سنة وانتو طيبين



Suad Badri غير متصل   رد مع اقتباس
قديم 07-12-2008, 11:44 PM   #[47]
Suad Badri
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افتراضي الفصل الأول

.

[align=left]Translators' Note
THE divisions into chapters, and the chapter headings, have been made by us, and not by the author. Together with Peter Holt we 1 have also added all the footnotes, mainly with the intention of making certain passages more comprehensible to those readers who have no special knowledge of the Sudan or of Islam.
Nearly all the dates mentioned by the author are according to the Muslim calendar; we have added the corresponding Gregorian dates in brackets. Since the Muslim calendar is a lunar one, each of its months and years usually overlaps two months or years of the Gregorian calen-dar, so that if the author mentions only the year without the month, the translator must usually give two Gregorian years; and if he mentions only the month and year without the day of the month, two Gregorian months must be given. Moreover, the first day of the Muslim month used to be reckoned not from the day of the astronomical new moon but from the evening when the new moon was actually seen, so that a lag of from one to three days is possible. The reader may notice that some of the dates given differ somewhat from those usually accepted by historians.
We have used the English word `customs' (customs-house, customs-duty, etc.) where it best gives the meaning, although the author never uses the corresponding Arabic word jumruk. In the time of which he writes the collection of customs-duty was one of the functions of the Treasury (Bayt a]-Mil), and the various customs-duties were referred to as the tenth, third, etc.
The Mahdist administrative terms are not always used with precision by the author. In the early days of the Mahdia, the term amir (com-mander) was used for persons commissioned by the Mahdi to recruit and command troops, hence for the military governors of areas under Mahdist control. In 18 84, on the Mahdi's orders, this term was dis-continued and `dmil (agent) was used instead in official correspondence, although amir continued in popular usage, as it has done to this day. Certain officials with bureaucratic rather than military functions (especi-ally the head of the treasury) had the title of amin (commissioner), which was also used for members of ad hoc investigating commissions. A sub-ordinate official, especially one exercising fiscal functions, was entitled
mandub, also signifying a deputy, is wakil (deputy), while the term translated 'tax-collector'.
The author refers to a number of weights and measures. Of these, the rod (ratl) and the waqiya (uqiyya) are approximately equal to a pound and an ounce respectively, while the kantar (qintdr) is equivalent to i oo rods. The kayla is one-twelfth of an ardeb (ardabb), a measure of approximately five bushels. The feddan ( fadddn) is nearly equivalent to an acre.
Arabic proper names and technical terms have been strictly trans-literated with a few exceptions, which include the name of the author, the anglicized terms `Mahdia', `Mahdi', and `Khalifa' (where the latter two signify the Mahdist leaders), some principal place-names and some conventional spellings for weights and measures, as in the preceding paragraph.
George Scott apologizes for the poor quality of the verse translations of the poetry and rhymes; but we hope that they may nevertheless con-vey a better sense of the originals than prose translations could do, without giving readers the idea that Babikr and the others were indifferent poets.

CHAPTER 1
M Y parents told me that I was born on Thursday the first day of War 12 7 8 (8 August 186 x). It may be asked how that illiterate •
Pair could know the date to the day, the month, and the year; but the answer is that every woman is likely to know the day and the month of events so important to her; and as for the year, my father worked it out from the visit of the Khedive Sa'id Pasha 1 to the Sudan, who, it is known, entered Khartoum on the z 3rd of Rabi` al-Thani I 2 7 2 ( I January I856).
At my birth my parents were poor both in money and in learning; but they were always rich in goodness, whether in poverty or in prosperity, for which I thank God.
Among my early memories is my mother's milk, although I was not breast-fed for more than two years. 2 I remember the taste of it as it came to me through the many tiny holes of the nipples, thin and sweetish. Then I remember the house where we lived beside the River Atbara, though I could not have been more than three years old. And I remember that towards the end of the year I z 83 (spring 18 67) my father left home, and there was a famine (it was general in the Sudan), and my half-brother Sa`id used to bring us gum-arabic in his tob,3 for my mother to mix with the millet flour. I remember biting at the crumbs of it which had stuck to the tob. I remember, too, my uncle Muhammad 'All Hamad al-Sid taking us to Rufa`a, and how while he was carrying me on his shoulder into the town some dogs rushed out at us, and how he put me down on the ground so that he might beat them off. I could not have been more than four years old at this time, and we lived in Rufa'a till I married there.
Let me tell you a story here which is not really part of my life. I men-tiovd that while we were at Atbara my father left home. He went with a'party of six other men to Khartoum and beyond, in search of a living. They were all of our tribe, the Rubatab, and one of them was called al-Mahi. It happened by coincidence that another party of seven Rubatab, one of whom was also called al-Mahdi, set fire at that time to the government forest at Qarrasa, south of Khartoum, and the Government 1 told all the shaykhs of that area to search for a party of seven Rubatab, one of whom was called al-Mahi. The shaykh of Khartoum market in the course of a night search found my father and his party sleeping in a guest-house at a village near the city. The shaykh's men counted them as they slept, then woke one of them and asked him his name; and by chance it was al-Mahi. They asked him what his tribe was, and he told them, `We are Rubatab.' Then they shouted, `It's them! It's them, by God!' and arrested them and took them to Khartoum, thinking they were the men who had burnt the Qarrasa forest. There they kept them in prison for a whole month, and left off searching for the real culprits.
At that time the governor of Khartoum was Ahmad Bey Abu Sinn,B and the prisoners used to be brought before him every Friday, group by group according to their offences. As he asked about each group, the prison officer would tell him what they were accused of, whereupon he would order their return to the prison. When he reached the group of my father and his companions, he used to be told that they were the Rubatab who had burnt Qarrasa forest, and so they would be ordered back to prison. This went on until Ahmad Bey Abu Sinn left on a tour of inspection, and the prisoners were brought before Mu'anni Bey, the Syrian deputy-governor, who as each group was brought before him asked the prison officer for their papers. When he came to my father and his companions and asked for their papers, he was told that no investiga-tion had yet been made. He was surprised, and asked them whether it was true that they had burnt Qarrasa forest.
`What is "Qarrasa" ? they said. `It is the village on the White Nile south of Khartoum.' But they replied, `We have never even been to Khartoum, except to be brought here to prison, for we come from the Rubatab country to the north.' When he asked them for a proof of this, one of them produced a receipt which had been given him for paying a tax in the Rubatab area, and Mu'anni Bey found that its date was later than that of the burning of the forest. So he said he would allow them bail until he could make certain of their innocence, and the prison officer suggested that the shaykh of one of the city districts, who was a Rubatabi, should be sent for. When he came and questioned them, my father replied that he was the son of Hajj al-Sadiq the son of al-Tayyib. ,
`Are you of the Bedri family? asked the shaykh. `Yes.'
`Do you know these other men?? 'Yes.'
So he stood them bail, and took them to his house, and on the third day he told them they could go off wherever they liked. So my father came to Rufa`a, where we were.
That same year my father journeyed to Karkuj, and came back with plenty of money. He went to Khartoum and saw the shaykh. Giving him (so he told us) thirty riyals,i he said, `I hope it has been God's will that the Government has not made too much trouble for you about our absence??
'Son of Bedri,' said the shaykh, `do you know that you have been dead for a long time??
'What do you mean? said my father. `After you had gone away,' was the reply, `whenever a man died in my district I reported to the Government that it was one of you, until I had worked through all the seven, and you were all dead. The reasons given were, of course, the hardships of prison life and the unfamiliar climate.'
My father thanked him, marveling at his daring and at the stupidity of the Government. Does not a government such as this deserve to be abolished, so that a sensible and vigilant one may be set up in its place?
I was sent first to a Koran-school which was near our house; but I learnt nothing there, owing to the negligence of the f'aki Z-or perhaps i A rlydl (dollar) was ten piastres-about two shillings-worth much more then than now.
Because of my tender age, which was only just six. (The woman singer ati*my circumcision referred in the last verse to `the boy who shed his milk-teeth in the Koran-school'.) But then I was transferred to the Koran-school of that good, vigilant, and dedicated man Faki Ahmad Y,Iamid, known familiarly as al-Karrds. i This was in i z 8 8 (187 1-2), and I remained with him until his death in iz95 (c87 8). He required me to nurse him during his last illness, which I think was blackwater fever for his urine was all bloody, and he used to tell me to dig a deep hole far away from the houses and dump the urine in it.
Let me tell you about this man, in gratitude for what he did for me, may God's mercy be with him.a He was more than seventy years of age, but still strong in body. He used to remain at the school until eleven o'clock at night, completing for his pupils their.stint from the Koran; then he would go to the house of one of his two wives, and return to school at four o'clock in the morning, or earlier. He would wake us, and we would make and light the fire (at which we took turns), and start practising the verses which we had to recite to him. He would enter the school store-room for his daily bath, while two pupils would recite to him by heart what they had written on their slatess the pre-vious day, so that this, once correctly recited, could be washed off their slates and new verses written. This recitation by heart would go on, two pupils at a time, until he had finished his bath, when he would come out and sit on his bedstead while the recitations went on until dawn broke. Then he would tell us to perform our ablutions, and we would pray the morning prayer. After that the two-by-two recitations would go on, until they were all completed. Those pupils who had been heard cleaned their slates and wrote on them from memory the new verses which they had learned in the afternoon of the day before, and went two by two to the faki for him to check what they had written. This was the procedure for the older pupils; but for those of middling age he would sit in front of them and dictate to them from memory what they should write. And for the little ones he would write on their slates with a date-stone, so that they could follow his letters and write over them to improve their handwriting. All this would be carried out every day, nothing distracting the falu from his work, which was always performed with the same procedure and the same zeal.
I remember that one evening 1 neglected to memorize my verses, which were those from the chapter about Joseph and his brethren beginning `And when they opened their sacks . . .'. When the faki came in the small hours of the next morning I was trying hard to memorize but failed, and as my turn to recite was approaching I washed the words off the slate and wrote the next passage, beginning `And when they entered in unto Joseph . . .', thinking that the faki would not notice. When I read this over to him for correction he said nothing until I got to the end, which was `. . . And God is all-knowing and wise'.
`Come here, all-knowing and wise boy,' he said, `to whom did you recite the previous piece?'
`To you, master.' `When?'
`While you were in your bath in the store-room.'
`But when I went to my bath, so-and-so and so-and-so recited to me; and after them so-and-so and so-and-so, and then so-and-so and so-and-so; and while the last two were reciting I came out. Between which of these pairs did you recite the passage, and who was with you?'
`Master,' I said, `may you die and may my father die if I did not recite it to you!'
`It is you who will die,' he said. `Go and wash your slate, and then come and write what you washed off before.'
I did so, but could only write two lines of it, so that my cheat was exposed. He beat me for lying, then dictated to me again the passage `And when they opened their sacks . . .', and told me not to leave the school until 1 had recited it to him correctly by heart.
Although there were more than ^oo pupils in the school he appointed none of them to help him in his work, nor anyone else. He was a man (may God's mercy be with him) who cared not for the rich or powerful, accepted presents from no one, allowed no one to employ his pupils either in the fields or in the house, as other fakis did, and never put them to work for himself.
One day I saw Shaykh `Awad al-Karim Abu Sinn,l the supreme shaykh of the Shukriyya, come to visit him. He was riding a horse and reined up by the gate of the low thorn fence which surrounded the school, where a faki named Ibrahim Waqi`allah welcomed him. Shaykh `Awad al-Karim told him that he had come to visit Fakii Ahmad Awad al-Karim Pasha Ahmad Abu Sinn (d. 1886), son of Ahmad Bey Abu Sinn. In 18 7 2 and again in i882 he was chief of the Shukriyya. He died in captivity in Omdurman during the Mahdia, which in its early stages he had opposed, because of my tender age, which was only just six. (The woman singer at my circumcision referred in the last verse to `the boy who shed his milk-teeth in the Koran-school'.) But then I was transferred to the Koran-school of that good, vigilant, and dedicated man Faki Ahmad I Iamid, known familiarly as al-Karrds. i This was in 12 88 (1871-2), and I remained with him until his death in i295 (i87 8). He required me to nurse him during his last illness, which I think was blackwater fever for his urine was all bloody, and he used to tell me to dig a deep hole far away from the houses and dump the urine in it.
Let me tell you about this man, in gratitude for what he did for me, may God's mercy be with him.s He was more than seventy years of age, but still strong in body. He used to remain at the school until eleven o'clock at night, completing for his pupils their.stint from the Koran; then he would go to the house of one of his two wives, and return to school at four o'clock in the morning, or earlier. He would wake us, and we would make and light the fire (at which we took turns), and start practising the verses which we had to recite to him. He would enter the school store-room for his daily bath, while two pupils would recite to him by heart what they had written on their slatess the pre-vious day, so that this, once correctly recited, could be washed off their slates and new verses written. This recitation by heart would go on, two pupils at a time, until he had finished his bath, when he would come out and sit on his bedstead while the recitations went on until dawn broke. Then he would tell us to perform our ablutions, and we would pray the morning prayer. After that the two-by-two recitations would go on, until they were all completed. Those pupils who had been heard cleaned their slates and wrote on them from memory the new verses which they had learned in the afternoon of the day before, and went two by two to the f'aki for him to check what they had written. This was the procedure for the older pupils; but for those of middling age he would sit in front of them and dictate to them from memory what they should write. And for the little ones he would write on their slates with a date-stone, so that they could follow his letters and write over them to improve their handwriting. All this would be carried out every day, nothing distracting the faki from his work, which was always performed with the same procedure and the same zeal.
1 The name means 'The Devoted'.
A conventional expression used when speaking of the dead.
They were wooden 'slates', painted white and written on with ink and a pen cut from
Muhammad Sa'id Pasha ( 1822-63), son of Muhammad 'All Pasha, viceroy of Egypt from 18 34 until his death. The title of `khedive' was formally conferred by the Ottoman sultan on his successor, Isma'il (i86;-79). For Sa`id's visit to the Sudan, see Richard Hill, Egypt in the Sudan 1820-1881, London t 9S9. 94-5•
It was usual for a baby to be breast-fed for at least two years. A tobe is a cotton sheet, worn as an outer garment, something like a toga. Sa'id would, of course, have picked the gum from trees that grew wild.
The Sudanese term for a Koran-school is khalwa, which in normal Arabic usage means the place of retreat of a Muslim mystic (Sufi). Its idiomatic use in the Sudan indicates the important role played by Sufi teachers in the spreading of literacy and Islam in the region. Faki is a dialect form of faqih, meaning in standard Arabic a jurist in Islamic law. In Sudanese usage, it means (as here) the teacher of a Koran-school or any member of the indigenous Muslim religious leadership--- as distinct from the alien hierarchy first set up after the Turco-Egyptian conquest.

Boyhood and Youth
I remember that one evening I neglected to memorize my verses, which were those from the chapter about Joseph and his brethren beginning `And when they opened their sacks . . .'. When the,'aki came in the small hours of the next morning I was trying hard to memorize but failed, and as my turn to recite was approaching I washed the words off the slate and wrote the next passage, beginning `And when they entered in unto Joseph . . .', thinking that the fakF would not notice. When I read this over to him for correction he said nothing until I got to the end, which was `. . . And God is all-knowing and wise'.
`Come here, all-knowing and wise boy,' he said, `to whom did you recite the previous piece?'
`To you, master.' `When?'
`While you were in your bath in the store-room.'
`But when I went to my bath, so-and-so and so-and-so recited to me; and after them so-and-so and so-and-so, and then so-and-so and so-and-so; and while the last two were reciting I came out. Between which of these pairs did you recite the passage, and who was with you?'
`Master,' I said, `may you die and may my father die if I did not recite it to you!'
`It is you who will die,' he said. `Go and wash your slate, and then come and write what you washed off before.'
I did so, but could only write two lines of it, so that my cheat was exposed. He beat me for lying, then dictated to me again the passage `And when they opened their sacks . . .', and told me not to leave the school until 1 had recited it to him correctly by heart.
Although there were more than q.oo pupils in the school he appointed none of them to help him in his work, nor anyone else. He was a man (may God's mercy be with him) who cared not for the rich or powerful, accepted presents from no one, allowed no one to employ his pupils either in the fields or in the house, as other fakis did, and never put them to work for himself.
One day I saw Shaykh `Awad al-Karim Abu Sinn,l the supreme shaykh of the Shukriyya, come to visit him. He was riding a horse and reined up by the gate of the low thorn fence which surrounded the school, where a f'aki named Ibrahim Waqi`allah welcomed him. Shaykh `Awad al-Karim told him that he had come to visit Faki Ahmad al-Karras, and the learned Faki Ibrahim came to our teacher where he was supervising the recitations and writing of his pupils, and told him ' that the great Shaykh `Awad al-Karim had come to visit him. But Faki Ahmad paid him no attention. When Shaykh `Awad al-Karim saw that .he did not get up from the bedstead on which he was sitting, he dis-mounted, and entering the school on foot came up to him and shook hands. Our teacher then sat down again and went on with his work, and Shaykh `Awad al-Karim sat beside him, and after a long while asked him for the Fdtiha.l Ourfaki clapped his hands for silence, and told all the pupils to recite the Fdtiha; then he accompanied Shaykh `Awad al-Karim to his horse, and returned to his work. Faki Ibrahim re-proached him for not having given Shaykh `Awad al-Karim the reception that was his due; but Faki Ahmad reproved him, saying, `My friend, for which of my duties will the Lord God hold me the more responsible-courtesy to Shaykh `Awad al-Karim, or the correction of my pupils' slates?
It was the custom of the f'akis of Koran-schools to send their pupils to the woods two days in every week to collect large quantities of firewood, some of which the fakis would sell for profit, while they kept some for use in their own houses. But our teacher arranged for an annual collec-tion of firewood from the river, at the season of its flooding. When he heard that the river was bringing down wood he would tell us to go there, the older ones to enter the river and catch the wood as it floated down, the middling ones to collect it from the bank, and the little ones to carry it to the school. To make sure that this safety measure was carried out, he would sign his name on the arm of each of the middling ones and on the leg of each of the little ones, and when we returned he would look for his signature; and if he found anyone with the writing washed off he beat him, or forbade him to go again to the river, which was even more vexing to the boy.
He used, too, to forbid us those Koran-school customs which led to lack of self-respect, such as begging with illuminated texts in the market or at people's houses, or going to mourning gatherings for the sake of getting a share of the cooked meats that were there provided for the poor. During all the seven years I was in the school we went to only two such gatherings-those for Shaykh 'All Abu Sinn Z and for Faki Walad
`Awnallah, a relative of our teacher. I never saw him do anything approaching the unseemly, except when a pupil's family used to send a feast to the school on the occasion of his passing one of the tests; then he would deal out to each of us his share of the meat in his hands, because we were too many to eat from the dishes.
He never used the bastinado, as other fokis did, whereby the boy was beaten on the soles of his feet. He had two whips, one called the jidwa, very short and made of hippopotamus hide, and the other longer and made of camel hide fixed to a handle, called the fartuq. Whipping was a quick business. He would hold the boy by the collar of his shirt and beat. him with the jidwa, but if the boy pulled and struggled he would release him suddenly so that he fell to the ground, and with the slickness of a conjurer he would put down the jidwa, pick up the fartuq, and go on with the beating, while the boy slid away from him on all fours until he got out of range. But he (may God's mercy be with him) inclined to forms of punishment other than beating. You remember the rhyme:
The jidwa was eager for honour and praise, Said `I am the best of all whips in my ways'. Better to die than be whipped by the master, Down rain the strokes on you, faster and faster.
In spite of the intensity of his work, Faki Ahmad used to read the Koran every night, and he was a searcher after religious knowledge until the day of his death. May God have boundless mercy upon him, and reward him tenfold for all the good which he did. I mastered the memorization of the Koran in the year 12 97 (18 80), after the death of Faki Ahmad al-Karras, and passed the final test under Faki al-Jabiri. This man used to go into an ecstatic trance every day, in which state he would neither eat nor drink, and sometimes remained open-eyed. I also studied religious knowledge under Faki Yusuf Muham-mad Ni'ma, one of the learned men of Rufa'a, and in my spare time taught the Koran to small boys in the Koran-school of one of our neigh-bours.
One day a Turkish officer called `Ali Kashif came to Rufa`a, and for some reason that I do not know flogged our revered Faki Ahmad Tor Yasin, who was believed to be a saint. I was very angry and imitated the ecstasies of my teacher al-Jabiri, pretending to fall into a trance, open-eyed and motionless. They carried me from the Koran-school to the house and laid me on a bed, where I (though really I knew all that were about me) pretended still to be in a trance, and spoke `with tongues' as I had heard my teacher do. The strange thing is that in the course of my babbling I declared that `Ali Kashif would be killed in the village of , Abu Shoka; and he was in fact killed there a year later, in a riot.
Another time I had a fight with a man named Muhammad al-Shatir, and Faki al-Jabiri sentenced me to a hundred strokes of the bastinado with a kvrbaj.l Soon I was shrieking, and went on doing so until my voice utterly failed; and when anyone tried to intercede for me with al-Jabiri he would say, `By the glory of God in His Kingdom, I will not let him go until the hundred is completed.' When it was over I could not move, and my people came and took me away on a donkey. My wounds went bad and suppurated, but they treated them with boiling butter until they healed, and I returned to the Koran-school. I think that al-Jabiri must have been in a trance when he inflicted this punishment upon me. He often was.
Another of my memories is that one day I lost my tob in the river; so I made a plan and stole a big one from some slaves who were filling the earthen water-troughs by a well near our house. When I went to the Koran-school a friend noticed the size of the tob and said to me, `Better cut it down to the size of your own tob, and throw the extra bit away!'
Once a piece of embroidered cloth was stolen from my sister LImm Tabul. We searched for it but could not find it, and somebody suggested that we should go and consult the witch `Ata Minnuh about it, because perhaps she might reveal how the cloth was stolen and who the thief was. I was against this.
`If the witch says that Babikr stole it,' I said, `will that be true?? 'We will put her to the test first,' said our cousin Mirghani Shakkak, `by asking her about things known only to us, and if she answers rightly we shall know we can believe her. So let us ask her the name of my mother, who was a stranger to these parts and died long ago. No one knows her name except a few of our family.'
We agreed to this, and went to the witch's house, and on entering found her eating bread and curdled milk from a calabash. We greeted her, but all she said was, `Amuna is not here.' We sat down by her, and after a little she suddenly paled, and cried out with a loud voice, `Amuna has come!' Then Mirghani called out, `Hallo! Amuna,' and there answered him a voice from deep within `Ata Minnuh, saying, `Welcome, Mirghani, son of Kasba.' Now Kasba was his mother's name.
Then we 1 A long, heavy whip of hippopotamus hide were glad, and began to ask her about the stolen cloth, and she told us that so-and-so the son of so-and-so had taken it, and sold it to such-and-such a woman. We went to this woman, and when we had paid her what she had bought the cloth for, she returned it to us.
When God wills that an event shall occur, He sets the causes that will lead to it. So He did for me. One day I drew out a straw from the thatched roof of our guest-room, intending to make a pen out of it, and some dust must have fallen on my father's cousin Muhammad Ahmad Shakkak (whom I always called `uncle'). He rushed out and gave me a severe and merciless beating, which angered my mother, who was not prone to anger. She put my books in a cloth satchel and said, `Go to Madani, and study under the wise Faki al-Izayriq.'
I started off at once on foot, and reached the town of al-Masallamiyya just as the weekly market there was breaking up, and by good luck finding two men on donkeys who were going to Madani, I went with them, holding on to the donkey that one of them was riding.
After. a little he said to me, `Where are you going??
'To Madani,' I said, `to study theology under Faki al-Izayriq.' `Have you memorized the Koran??
'Yes.'
`Then recite to me the passage beginning "And God repulsed the unbelievers in their wrath".'
So I recited it to them, and he let me ride behind him on the donkey. `My boy,' he remarked, `a wise man said to his son, "Memorize the Koran, and it will not let you down; and if it does let you down it will be upon a carpet. And study religion, and it will not let you down; arid if it does let you down it will be upon a bed."'
I liked that man, and I wished them both well.
So I arrived in Madani, and became one of the students of religion there; and studied theology in the commentaries of Walad Baqadi and Walad `Isa, and correct declamation of the Koran in the commentary of Zakariyya', and Arabic grammar in that of `Abd al-Baqi, which my old teacher had given me, and which was in his own hand, God bless him.
Let me tell you a story of something that occurred in Madani. There had followed me there Ibrahim Mustafa, the assistant of Faki Muhammad al-Jabiri, under whom I had learnt the Koran after the death of our teacher Faki Ahmad al-Karras. Ibrahim was much respected by us, and so was Ahmad `Llthman, who had come with him. Both were my relations on my mother's side, and both were very poor. Now my brother
Sa'id used to send me three or four piastres every Sunday and Wednesday . (avhich were market-days); so whenever we bought fruit (it might be dried dates or water-melon) ,or books or anytliing else, it was I who paid for them. One day Ibrahim made a joke against me which hurt my pride, -and I got angry with him, which I never used to do when we were in Rufa`a. Afterwards I asked myself the reason for this change in myself, and found none except that I had boasted to him of the favour I did him and Ahmad `Uthman by buying things for them. So I took the rest of my money, which was fourteen piastres and a millieme, and went to our teacher the faki and told him that I feared I was becoming supercilious to my comrades, and asked him to take the money. He did so, and kept it until my father called in on us on his way back from Karkuj, when he summoned me to his and my father's presence.
`What food do you have', he asked me, `on Sundays and Wednes-days?'
`We have meat or fish,' I told him; `and on other days dried vegetable stew.'
`Do you eat better than that in Rufa'a?' he asked my father. `No, indeed,' said he.
Then our teacher recounted to my father the story of my money, which he handed over to him; and my father said I had done well.
It was with this incident in mind that when many years later I opened my school in Rufa`a I made inquiries about the money in the hands of the pupils whose homes were not in Rufa`a, and made them hand it over to a teacher whom I appointed for the purpose. I gave each pupil a note-book in which he was to keep an account of his money throughout the year, and allowed him to draw on it only after I had asked him the reasons and had approved. What remained over we handed back to him at the end of term, for him to buy presents for his people with.
While we were at Madani we used to prepare a lesson every day before submitting it to the faki, one of us acting as teacher and the others as students; and if we disagreed on any point we would submit it to the faki later. On one of the occasions when I was acting as teacher we were considering a passage from Ibn `Ashir, and I explained the word wabar as meaning the wabar that is the soft wool on a camel's hump; and nobody disagreed. But when later our master read the passage he made it clear that the word was wa-barr,i meaning `and He [God] is bountiful'. We all laughed, which angered him until we told him of the way I had
explained it, when he laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks; 1 In Arabic script wabar and wa-barr are written in the same way and after that whenever he met me alone he would remind me of wabar.
It was at Madany that I composed my first verse of poetry, when we were smoking cigarettes made of shih (a medicinal herb). I said to one of the students:
You supply the cigarette And I supply the light. You supply the shih and I Supply the keen delight.
This was a parody of the well-known rhyme:
You supply the flour, and I Supply the fire to cook it. You supply the milk and honey, I the water bucket.
Our teacher Muhammad al-Izayriq had studied the Koran and other subjects in al-Damir, and had moved to Madani at the invitation of `Abdallah Agha who in I275 (I858-9) built for him a mosque with a number of rooms, and a house beside it. In I282 (I865-6) Ja'far Pasha Mazhar 1 was appointed governor-general of the Sudan. He was a cultured man who loved learning and the learned, and instituted a system of subventions to mosques and religious schools in the bigger towns, to be qualified for by examination. He came to Madani, where there was a Board of `Ulamd',Z many of whom applied to him for a subvention, as did Faki al-Izayriq, who gave us an account of what happened. Among the questions which the Pasha asked him was one about the amount of travel exempting one from fasting or permitting shorter prayers, and he gave his answer.
`You are wrong in that, Your Reverence,' said the Pasha.
`If I am wrong,' replied the faki, `then Shaykh Khalil3 was wrong.' `Have you a commentary on Khalil?' asked the Pasha.
`I have al-Dasuqi's and al-Zurqani's and al-Kharashi's.'
The Pasha asked him to produce the relevant texts from the three commentaries, which he did, each one in a,separate book; and the Pasha noticed that all three were written in the same hand.
`I see you are right,' he said. `But I notice that all these three are in the same handwriting.'
`Yes,' said the faki; `it is mine.'
`When and in what circumstances did you copy these books?' asked the Pasha.
`When I was a student,' was the reply, `I used to ask any rich man who wanted a book copied to send it to me with enough paper to make two copies, and I made one for myself and one for him.'
`May I see these books?' said the Pasha.
`Will Your Excellency honour me by coming to my house them, or shall I bring them here??
'How many have you, written in your own hand?' `Eighty-two,' was the reply.
Then the Pasha and all those with him got up and went to the faki's mosque, and were shown the books.
`This is a really practical examination,' said Ja`far Pasha when he saw them, and approved that the faki's mosque should receive the subven-tion. This he continued to draw until it was brought to an end by the Mahdia, of which he did not approve.
One day we bought a water-melon, and found that on every seed in it there were lines of writing. On the one side of the seed was written `There is no god but God', but the writing on the other side was indecipherable except for the one word `Muhammad'. I took some of these melon-seeds and showed them to our teacher, who read the writ-ing on the one side and then turned the seed over and said, `And what have we here?'
`That is "Muhammad",' I said.
`And what about the rest of the line?? 'Naturally,' I replied, `it will be "the Mahdi''.' `And why won't it be "the Prophet of God"?
'The Prophet of God', said I, `has no need of miracles in this Muslim land.'
He said to me, `Throw it away.' Then, lying back, he remarked, quoting a local saying, `Ah! son of Naktut, you gave the people death to eatl'-meaning that many people would die because of the Mahdi.
I was very angry, but owing to my reverence for the faki I said nothing, although I believed in the Mahdi, whom I had got to know through his frequent visits to Rufa`a to see his relatives
Once I had a dream in which I dreamt that I found a slate on which was written in the primitive verse-form of ancient times:
Salym the fils is in deepest hell, Being roasted well. Al-Izayriq, must die, But glad will lie
In the heavens high.
When I told him this he was reclining, leaning on his elbow. He sat up, and said three times, `God curse you, Salim. Why will you kill me? and leant back again. And before the year was out his slave Salim did in fact murder him, cutting his throat. The crime was proved against him and he was executed for it; may God have mercy on his victim.
Muhammad al-Izayriq wrote a poem against the Mahdi (with whom be God's peace), and I remember the following lines:
Praise be to God, mighty in power alone, Of all Creator, glorious on His throne, Who rolls the darkling nights upon the days, And needs no helper in His holy ways.
May He bring suffering, curse on curses piled, On the fierce army of the Arabs wild,
The man of Aba I led them all astray;
Is this the Mahdi? God hath answered `Nay!'
When the Mahdi (God's peace be with him) heard this poem, he said, `God pardon our brother al-Izayriq for knowing me only as "the man of Aba".'
Later, when the amirs of the Mahdi reached the Jazira,2 Nasr the brother of the Amir Abu Qarja, who had just killed the learned man Walad al-Qubba at al-Masallamiyya, summoned al-Izayriq and threatened him with death.
`I tell you truly, my son,' said Faki al-Izayriq, `I am more than seventy years of age, and if you kill me my sins as well as yours will return upon your head. I should not complain of that.'
1 The island of Ab-a in the White Nile, where Muhammad Ahmad announced that he was the Mahdi.
$ The area south of Khartoum between the Blue and White Niles, in which Madani is situated.
[align=left]BIBLIOGRAPHY
The general history of the Turco-Egyptian period in the Sudan is covered by Richard Hill, Egypt in the Sudan, 1820-1881, London, iy59; and that of the Mahdia by P. M. Holt, The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1881-1898, Oxford, i9S8. The religious background is surveyed in J. Spencer Trimingham, Islam in the Sudan, London, i yq.y. , The best account of Gordon's career in the Sudan is still Bernard M. Allen, Gordon and the Sudan, London, 193 i . A useful work of reference is Richard Hill, A Bio-graphical Dictionary of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Oxford, IgSI (2nd edn, A Biographical Dictionary of the Sudan, London, ig67). For fuller biblio-graphical information, consult R. L. Hill, A Bibliography of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from the Earliest Times to 1937, London, 1939; and Abdel Rahman el Nasri, A Bibliography of the Sudan, 1938-19S8, London, 1962.

ABBREVIATIONS USED 1N THE NOTES
DNB: Dictionary of National Biography.
E12: Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edn), Leiden and London, i96o-.
Hill, Biographical Dictionary: Richard Hill, A Biographical Dictionary of the [Anglo-Egyptian] Sudan, Oxford, i9y; London, 1967. The pagination is the same in both editions.
Holt, Mahdist State: P. M. Holt, The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1881-1898, Oxford, iy58.
Lane, Modern Egyptians: E. W. Lane, [An account of the manners and customs of] the Modern Egyptians, Everyman edn, London, various dates
1. Awad al-Karim Pasha Ahmad Abu Sinn (d. 1886), son of Ahmad Bey Abu Sinn (p. z, n. 2). In 1872 and again in 1882 he was chief of the Shukriyya. He died in captivity in Omdurman during the Mahdia, which in its early stages he had opposed. See Hill, Bio-graphical Dictionary,
2. The short opening chapter of the Koran, commonly used on ceremonial occasions of many types to entreat God's blessing and guidance.
3. Ali Abu Sinn, the younger brother of `Awad al-Karim Pasha (p. s), succeeded him as chief of the Shukriyya from 1872 to 1874.
4. Walad or Wad means `the son of'.
5. Ja`far Pahsha lazhar (d. x878), governor-general of the Sudan from 1866 to 1871. See Hill, Biographical Dictionary, i89-9o, and Egypt in the Sudan 1820-1881, t:3-i8.
6. `Ulamd' (sing. `dlim'), Islamic jurists and theologians, who have undergone a recog-nized training, and who, in the Ottoman Empire and its dependencies, formed part of an official hierarchy. The `ulamd' in the Sudan were thus a distinct element from the indigenous faki leadership (see above, p. 3, n. z).
7. Khalil ibn Ishaq (d, i365), an Egyptian jurist, whose al-Mukhtasar, a textbook of Islamic law according to the M-alilti school of interpretation is authoritative. Its extremely concise phraseology has given rise to numerous commentaries, among which are the three mentioned, by al-Dasuqi (d. i 8 iS), al-Zurqani (d. z688), and a1-Kharashi (d. x689).
8. 1 The name means 'The Devoted'.
9. A conventional expression used when speaking of the dead.
10. They were wooden 'slates', painted white and written on with ink and a pen cut from
11. Muhammad Sa'id Pasha ( 1822-63), son of Muhammad 'All Pasha, viceroy of Egypt from 18 34 until his death. The title of `khedive' was formally conferred by the Ottoman sultan on his successor, Isma'il (i86;-79). For Sa`id's visit to the Sudan, see Richard Hill, Egypt in the Sudan 1820-1881, London t 9S9. 94-5•
12. It was usual for a baby to be breast-fed for at least two years. A tobe is a cotton sheet, worn as an outer garment, something like a toga. Sa'id would, of course, have picked the gum from trees that grew wild.
13. The Sudanese term for a Koran-school is khalwa, which in normal Arabic usage means the place of retreat of a Muslim mystic (Sufi). Its idiomatic use in the Sudan indicates the important role played by Sufi teachers in the spreading of literacy and Islam in the region. Faki is a dialect form of faqih, meaning in standard Arabic a jurist in Islamic law. In Sudanese usage, it means (as here) the teacher of a Koran-school or any member of the indigenous Muslim religious leadership--- as distinct from the alien hierarchy first set up after the Turco-Egyptian conquest.
14. The name means `The Devoted'.
15. 2 A conventional expression used when speaking of the dead.
16. 3 They were wooden `slates', painted white and written on with ink and a pen cut from a millet-straw.[/align][/align]



Suad Badri غير متصل   رد مع اقتباس
قديم 12-12-2008, 06:37 PM   #[48]
حسين عبدالجليل
:: كــاتب نشــط::
 
افتراضي

دكتورة سعاد

طريقتك في تحميل الصفحات اوضح بكثيرمن طريقتي بتاعة الب د ف فورمات .

مستمتعين - فبالله عليك واصلي تحميل الصفحات الاخري بنفس الطريقة .



حسين عبدالجليل غير متصل   رد مع اقتباس
قديم 13-12-2008, 06:37 AM   #[49]
Suad Badri
:: كــاتب جديـــد ::
 
افتراضي نواصل، لكل صفحة حاشية منفصلة

[align=left]The Memoirs of Babikr Bedri-cntd
But then he travelled to the Mahdi, taking with him another poem, among whose lines were:
In Aba he appeared at God's behest,
For with the Mahdi God hath Aba blessed.
and at the end:
Izayriq prays forgiveness for his part
From him who knows the secrets of the heart
Hoping for pardon in the Prophet's name
And those who from the Prophet's loins came
My foul denial was a grievous sin
But now no evil thought can enter in
He went with this to the Mahdi at al-Rahad. My father was with him and told me later that when they were watching the Mahdi on his camel acknowledging the allegiance of the people, he said to al-Izayriq, `Reverend sir, I am ignorant and you are learned. Tell me, shall I believe that this man is the Expected Mahdi?
'I know not what to say concerning him,' he replied. `But, son of Bedri'-and here he fingered his beard to give force to his words-'at the end the English will rule you all.' When al-Izayriq returned from this journey he was murdered by Salim, as I have said; and may God have ample mercy on his soul.

CHAPTER 2
The Mahdia. The Siege of Khartoum
I
HAD left MadanY, not intending to return, at a time when our teacher's mosque was full of students, because al-SharSf Ahmad Taha, l whose village was near by, had risen against the Government in the name of the Mahdia. My people had been anxious about me, and had told me to come back and live in Rufa'a, against my wish and that of our teacher. Al-Sharif Ahmad Taha fought the government troops twice, and killed many of them; but at the third time Shaykh `Awad alKarim Abu Sinn and Shaykh Hamad al-Nil al-`Araki Z sided with. the Government. They advised al-Sharif to surrender, but he refused, and in the event was killed. Because of this the Mahdi wrote to Shaykh `Awad al-Karim and Shaykh Hamad al-Nil saying, `You have killed the son of Taha-a setback to the faith and a triumph for the unbelievers. Know well that you shall hear of this later.' 3
Well, I returned to Rufa`a. While I was there my brother Sa`id married Amina the daughter of al-Hajj al-Hasan, and one day when I was going to visit him I went by way of the house of our neighbour Zahra', who had asked me to look in on her. She was lying down, and said to me, `My stomach hurts me. Give me a charm for it, Faki Babikr'; but when I sat down on the bed and laid my finger on her she rolled over and sat on my knee, and began to make love to me. I pushed her off and went on my way, and when I reached home I prayed the evening prayer as prayer-leader. But when I had gone to bed I felt an urge to go to Zahra'. Desire vanquished me, and 1 went to her
i Ahmad Taha. an important faki in the territory east of the Blue Nile, and a leader of the Sammaniyya religious order (Fariqa), to which the Mahdi originally belonged. His title, al-Sharif, implying a claim to descent from the Prophet, was not uncommon in established holy families.
2 Hamad al-Nil al-Rayyah al-`Araki (d. 1894). Another of the leading fakis of the Blue Nile and a member of an old holy family. He subsequently became a follower of the Mahdi. See Hill, Biographical Dictionary.
3 And indeed they did, as both died in the prison of the Khalifa'Abdallahi, the successor of the Mahdi.
*****

and found her alone. She was glad to see me, and made me free of her body.
Then she said, `Who told you I went in for this sort of thing?? 'You told me yourself,' I said; and she laughed. At that moment my uncle Muhammad `Ali Hamad al-Sid knocked at the door; and she went out to him, and when I gathered that it was he I coughed, so that he should know I was there.
`Who is with you?' he asked her. `My brother al-Tamim,' she said.
I dressed ready for the street and waited for her `Where are you going? she said.
`That was my uncle,' I replied. `Perhaps other men will be coming too.' And off I went.
In the morning I told my mother all that had happened between me and Zahra' and my uncle Muhammad `Ali, and she cried, `Alas, alas, alas! By the life of my son Sa'id, that woman is doing the upside-down trick that the hippopotamus does with her young son!' 1 and she spat on the ground. T did not see Zahra' again until after I returned with my mother from swearing allegiance to the Mahdi, with whom be God's peace. Then she visited us, and held out her hand to me, but I refused to take it. She was surprised, and said reprovingly, `May God remember this against you!' After that-I tell you truly-I tasted no woman out of wedlock.
to come back.
During this time I was studying again under Faki Yusuf Muhammad Ni'ma, and continued to do so until the Halawin joined the Mahdia, when their shaykh Muhammad al-Basir 2 responded to the call of the Mahdi, with whom be God's peace, and broke with the Government when his men killed the soldier in the Halawiyyun market, and cut the telegraph. Shaykh `Abdallah `Awad al-Karim3 at Rufa'a also rebelled openly, in despite of his father, Shaykh `Awad al-Karim Abu Sinn, who

1 The female hippopotamus was supposed to copulate with her foal. The author's mother is referring to the disparity of age.
2 Muhammad al-Tayyib al-Basir (d, i9o8). One of the Mahdi's principal followers in the early stages of the Mahdia, and his agent in the Jazira. See Hill, Biographical Dictionary, 275.
3 `Abdallah `Awad al-Karim Abu Sinn (d. igz3). Son of `Awad al-Karim Pasha (p. S). A schism in chiefly families between supporters and opponents of the Mahdi, of which the different attitudes adopted by `Abdallah and his father are an example, was not an uncommon phenomenon during the Mahdia. Subsequently, under the Condominium, `Abdallah was chief of the Shukriyya from 1902 until his death. See Hill, Biographical Dictionary,
*****
was supporting the Government in the Butana.l Then I put on the jubba2 and devoted myself both outwardly and inwardly to the Mahdist cause, as did my mother also, though my father, and my teachers merely made a show of doing so. And I exposed myself in the attacks on the government steamers without precautions, longing for martyrdom. Indeed, when our commander Shaykh `Abdallah `Awad al-Karim heard of it he put a guard on me until the steamers had passed.
Now Shaykh Muhammad al-Basir told Shaykh `Abdallah `Awad alKarim to take his men and besiege Salih's3 fortified camp from the east. I think Shaykh `Abdallah was not entirely whole-hearted at first, because he ordered us to march, and came with us for a bit, but then said, `Look here, go on to the village of al-`Aribab and then return to me, so that the men may not be exposed to rifle-fire.' But the distance between al-`Aribab and Fadasi, where Salih was, is twice the distance between Rufa'a and a1-`ArYbab. So when I saw that he was half-hearted I left him and went to the camp of Ahmad al-Basir (who had seen the Mahdi) and joined in the attack from the west. I took part in two engagements, in the first of which we reached the thorn fence surrounding Salih's camp, and pulled up some of it; but then the steamer opened fire on us from the river, and we had to retire, leaving many of our dead, and the enemy's.
Then Muhammad al-Basir heard that Shaykh `Awad al-Karim Abu Sinn had mustered the Shukriyya and was advancing to occupy the east bank of the river opposite Salih's camp, and he sent urgently to `Abdallah, who got there before his father and occupied it himself. When Salih saw what had happened he sent to Shaykh al-`Ubayd4 to come and intervene to persuade the Halawiyyun to accept the terms of truce which Salih was offering. But really he wanted to keep him as a hostage in the camp, so that just as he could insure himself through Shaykh Hamad al-Nil against attack by the `Arakiyyun, and against that of the Shukriyya through Shaykh `Abd al-llah and Abu `Aqla, he could gain immunity from the men of al-Masallamiyya through Shaykh al-`Ubayd, and thus make both banks of the Nile safe for his return to Khartoum.

1 The area between the Blue Nile and the River Atbara.
2 This was the long, patched shirt adopted by the Mahdists as a uniform. The patches were to indicate disregard for the things of this world.
3 Salih Pasha al-IVIakk (c. i 8z8-9o). An officer of the irregular cavalry recruited among the Ghaydiyya, who served the Turco-Egyptian administration as a kind of gendarmerie and tax-collectors. He played an important part in operations against the Mahdi's followers in the Jazira. In 18 84 he surrendered to Muhammad al-Tayyib al-Basir, and was imprisoned until after the fall of Khartoum. See Hill, Biographical Dictionary, 3 z 8-9.
4`Libayd walad Badr was one of the leading fakis of the Blue Nile region. He subsequently played an important part in the siege of Khartoum. See Hill, Biographical Dictionary, zs3, under Muhammad Badr al-'Ubaid.
******
When Shaykh al-`Ubayd reached the river, Salih sent him his steamer to bring him to the camp, but al-`Ubayd made his famous reply: `Prickety prank, I stop on the bank. i No mouse am I, to a hole to hie. I'm Rayyah's son, and know what's good to be done. I'm not like Tiray$'s son (Hamad al-Nil), who thought he had wit, but his tent-pegs split. Save yourself by surrender, and if you don't surrender, .Abu Qarja's 2 on his way now, to put an end to the row.'
Shaykh al-`Ubayd returned to Rufa'a, and when Abu Qarja arrived with artillery Salih was sorry, and sent for Shaykh al-`Ubayd again; but he had already left Rufa'a and returned home. (Later, it was to him that Salih surrendered.) But now Salih returned by steamer to Khartoum and Halfaya 3 with his troops. Then Abu Qarja marched with his army to besiege Khartoum, and the whole of the Jazira except Khartoum and Sinnar submitted to the Mahdia.
At this time I and my mother (I took her at her urgent request) journeyed to the Mahdi, full of single-hearted devotion and eager desire. I had known him, as I said, and believed in him when he used to visit Rufa'a to see his relatives, accompanied by his disciples and deacons, with their shining faces and spotless clothes. Often when we were students we would attend the sunset prayer with him and listen to him reciting the Koran in his reverent, humble voice. Once when he was reciting the Chapter of the Calamity during the first part of the service, and when he came to the verse `A day will come when mankind will be as a cloud of scattered moths', he fell down unconscious in a trance, and one of his disciples came forward in his place to finish the prayer. I was among the worshippers, and when we left he was still unconscious.


1 Part of an old Sudanese riddle, referring to the shadow of the trees.
2 Mulianiniad `Uthman Abn Qarja (d. i 9 i 6). A Dunqulawi who served under al-Zubayr Ralima Mansur (see below, p. ioi, n. 3). He early became a follower of the Mahdi and one of his leading generals. In March 18 8¢ he was sent by the Mahdi to organize the siege of Khartoum, where operations had previously been conducted by local notables, such as Shaykh al-`Libayd. Ab6 Qarja remained a prominent figure throughout the Mahdia until 1892, when he was sent as commander to al-Rajjaf (see below, p. i9o, n. . This was virtually exile, and he was soon displaced from his command. He was liberated by the Belgians in :897. See Hill, Biographical Dictionary, 279.
3 Halfaya (Halfayat al-Muluk, i.e. Hallaya of the Kings) was formerly the residence of the `Abdallab viceroys, who represented the Funj kings to the Arab and arabized tribes of the north. When the viceroyalty was extinguished, after the Turco-Egyptian conquest, Sh-ayqiyya, loyal to the new regime, were settled on the tribal lands of the `Abdallab.
******
Well, my mother and I made our pilgrimage to him, accompanied by my relative Pasha, whose name the Mahdi (with whom be God's peace) changed to Muhammad Yusuf.l We found him in a1Hinayk camp, or in the village of that name just south of it.
While I was away, at the time when the Blue Nile came down in flood, the army of Khartoum made a sortie against Abu Qarja in the suburb of Bum, 2 and the steamers attacked from the river. Abu Qarja was defeated, and his two brothers were killed-Mustafa, and Nasr, who urged his horse (or perhaps his horse ran away with him) into the fortress well in front of the people, and was the first to be killed. Abu Qarja retired up the river to a position opposite Walad jar al-Nabi's village, about a day and a half by camel south of Khartoum, and while there he received a letter from the Mahdi saying, `Do not grieve at what has happened, when God wishes to single out the bad from the good, He places the bad upon the bad and piles it up together, and thrusts it all at last within our grasp.'
Abu Qarja remained there until Walad al-Nujumi s and `Abdallah alNur4 joined him, and they built quarters for the women and children halfway between Mahi Bey's Tree and Jiray£ 5 Then they resumed the siege of Khartoum, Walad al-Nujumi on the White Nile, `Abdallah alNur on the Blue Nile, and `Abdallah Jubara and Hajj Khalid al-`Llmarabi s in Khartoum North.
When I returned to RuFa'a from visiting the Mahdi, I found that my father had been among those summoned to the siege of Khartoum, and had directed me to look after the harvesting of our crops, and to deal with a large quantity of sesame which he had brought from Karkuj. But passion for the Holy War had mastered my mind, and I embarked my mother and my wife8 and my father's second wife and all the sesame in a boat which I had hired, and sailed to Jirayf, leaving my brother Musa Bedri and the slaves that were with him to work the farm. At Jirayf I disembarked and went to the camp by myself, and when my father saw me he was astonished.
`Why on earth have you come here? he said. `In whose care did you leave the farm??
'In God's care,' I replied. `The Holy War is more important than farming.'
Sensing the strength of my faith in the Mahdia and knowing the weakness of his own he said nothing, in case those sitting around should overhear what passed between us and suspect us of recreancy.
After a bit he asked, `Who has come with you??
'I left no one at home except Musa and the slaves.' `But what about the sesame??
'I've brought it with me.'
And he shook his head, whether in astonishment or admiration I do not know. But he lost no time in buying three store-rooms for the sesame, and wood and palm-leaf mats to build huts for us.
Next morning my father went to the boat with some boys of his acquaintance, but T went to the camp at al-Ghurqan, and did not return to my wife or father or brothers for two weeks. I was in the most advanced of the positions surrounding Khartoum, so that at night we could see the glow of the enemy's cigarettes and hear their conversation; nor could we leave our trenches in daylight to get water, but only at night.
Every Friday the army would be called out for review, and when it was over they would halt near the mosque area by `Abdallah al-Nur's house, which I wrongly thought was that of Walad al-Nujumi. Now one day there came a man called Muhammad al-Hajj Khalid the Rubatabi with a proclamation about those who had failed to come to the siege, saying that we should not intermarry with them or have any dealings with them, and that when one of them died we should not join in the funeral prayers for him, and finishing with the Koranic verse: `God the

1 The reason why the Mahdi changed the name would be that `Pasha', being a Turkish title, was unsuitable for a pious Muslim.
2 Outside the fortifications of Khartoum to the east.
3 'Abd al-Rahman al-Nujumi (d. i889). Of Ja'ali origin, he was an early adherent of the Mahdi, and became one of his most trusted generals. He commanded the vanguard of the Mahdist forces in the advance on Khartoum, which he reached in September t884. For a time he held the apparently unique title of amir al-umard', i.e. commander-in-chief. Like other Mahdist notables who originated from the riverain tribes (awldd al-balad), his career suffered a check after the accession of the Khalifa `Abdallalu in June 18 85. His last great exploit was the expedition against Egypt, ending in his death at the battle of Tushki (see below, pp. 6t-7S). See Hill, Biographical Dictionary, 17.
4 `Abdallah al-N& (d. c88s). Originating like Hamad al-Nil (see above, p. is, n. z) from the `Arakiyyfm tribe of the Jazira, he was the Mahdi's agent in co-ordinating risings against the Turco-Egyptian administration in Kordofan during 18
5 He was killed during the siege of Khartoum. See Hill, Biographical Dictionary, 7.
6 Both near Khartoum to the south, Mahi Bey's Tree (Gordon's Tree) on the White Nile, and Jirayf on the Blue Nile.
7 Khalid Ahmad al-`IImar-abi (18i8-i9oi). A prosperous and pious Ja'ali merchant, who made the pilgrimage to Mecca (hence his title, al-Hdjj) and was in touch with Muhammad Al,unad when the latter visited El Obeid before the announcement of the Mahdi. He retained his prestige throughout the Mahdia. See Hill, Biographical Dictionary,
8 It is significant that the author has not previously mentioned his marriage. His wife was older than he, and he had married her for family reasons.[/align]



Suad Badri غير متصل   رد مع اقتباس
قديم 21-12-2008, 09:36 PM   #[50]
Suad Badri
:: كــاتب جديـــد ::
 
افتراضي CHAPTERs 4-5

[align=left]and my uncle went on reading. And he repeated `this on other days.
Another strange thing-I had a dream in which I•dreamt that I and the Mahdi, with whom be Gcjd's peace, and a third man called Muhammad Ahmad al-Shamabi all }t1md fetters on our ankles. The Mahdi was walking ahead in his irons, I Was following a little way behind, but our companion could not even stdttd upright. Then the Mahdi drew away a little from me, and while I H•As looking at him he suddenly disappeared from my sight, though not}tjng came between us, and there was no darkness or mist. He just vanlrhed, in an open plain, from quite near, in full daylight.
I told this dream to solttle people, among whom was `Abdallah Hajj al-Hasan Qidaylawi; and lie told it to an Egyptian friend of his who was telegraph-master in Khai`boum after its fall, and who asked him to bring the man who had had tjte dream.
When we met, he asked rrtC~ `Did the Mahdi walk in his fetters?? 'Yes,' I said.
`And it was he who disap'*ared from your sight without anything coming between you??
'Yes.'
`If this dream comes true~` he said, `a tremendous and unexpected event will happen.
After the Mahdi had died, 1 met this Egyptian again, and he asked me, `If I had told you that day thAt the Mahdi would soon die, what would you have done to me?
`I would have sent you to death before him,' I said.

CHAPTER 4
Sinnar. Sickness. To the North
AFTER the Mahdi's death the Sinnar garrison increased its pressure on the besiegers, and there was a battle at al-Buqra in which the commander al-SayYid Muhammad `Abd alKarim 1 had his leg broken, and Shaykh `Abd al-Qadir Abu'1-Husna the commander and religious leader of the Ya'qubab 2 was killed, and also the Sharif `Ali al-Hind-i.3 After that the camp was moved, and the Khalifa of the Mahdi ordered Walad al-Nujumi to return with his army from al-Matamma (to which he had returned), and sent him and his troops to take Sinnar.
When on our way there we reached al-Masallamiyya, my uncle `AlY Shakkak was chosen as commissioner of the treasury there, and borrowed my horse and my slave Sabah al-Khayr. More of this later.
Then we got to al-Bariyab, north of Sennar, and found al-Sayyid Muhammad `Abd al-Karim there with his broken leg. He was in a straw hut by which was a shelter under which we sat while Walad al-Nujumi went in to greet and cheer him. At that very moment a messenger arrived from the Sinnar garrison offering to surrender to Walad alNujumi; but we heard him say to al-Sayyid Muhammad, `The victory is yours, and it is your name which has forced the enemy to this. That I will never conceal, and will do nothing towards sharing the victory with you.' He went on insisting, and swore that neither he nor his army would enter Sinnar as victors until after its surrender, and the handing over of the arms and booty to al-Sayyid Muhammad, or to his nominated
1 Muhammad `Abd al-Karim (d. I89 z). A paternal cousin of the Mahdi. After the death of the Mahdi, he was viewed with suspicion by the Khalifa `Abdallahi. He was implicated in the revolt of the Ashrdf of 18 9 i (see above, p. 3 z, n. 2), and was sent to Fashoda, where he was put to death. See Hill, Biographical Dictionary, z44.
2 The Ya'qubab are an ancient holy clan, living to the north of Sinnar. They have enjoyed considerable religious prestige since the time of the Funj dynasty, with which they were closely associated.
3 The Hindi family, who claim to be Ashrdf (i.e. descendants of the Prophet) are the heads of a branch of the Sammaniyya order.
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deputy. In the end al-Sayyid Muhammad replied, `So that you may save your oath, I nominate al-Sayyid Muhammad Ahmad Idris 1 and Shaykh Muddawi `Abd al-Rahman.' 2 So Walad al-Nujumi saiil good-bye, and I saw and, heard al-Sayyid Muhammad `Abd al-Karim heap his thanks and blessings upon him.
We went on to Sinnar, but stopped with Wad al-Nujumi in alBuqra, on the site which al-Sayyid Muhammad `Abd al-Karim and his army had evacuated. Sayyid Muhammad Ahmad Idris and Shaykh Muddawi `Abd al-Rahman the Mahasi `alim accepted the surrender, and none of us entered Sennar except severally.
During the stay of our army at Sinnar and before its return to Omdurman 1 went to visit my father in Karkuj, and when I returned I found that the army had already moved back to Omdurman. So I continued on foot till I reached Khartoum, where we were then living.
I had another attack of malaria then, which became so severe that the slave-girl Bakhita had to carry me like a small child to the latrine and back. The worst of the pain inflicted by the fever was that 1 was prevented from attending the Friday service; and one day I heard people coming back from the mosque, chanting loudly the creed, `There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Apostle of God,' and I wept until I lost consciousness. Then in my swoon I saw three figures with white faces and white beards, one carrying a large knife, the second a pair of scales, and the third a thong of leather. The one with the knife sat at my waist, the one with the thong at my feet, and the one with the scales by my head, and I expected death and said to myself, `These are the angels of death who have come to take my soul.' When I was a small boy I had read in a book that a man at the point of death would be overcome by thirst, and the Devil would bring him a cup of water, saying, `If you will worship other than God, I will let you drink;' or `If you will say to me, "You are my Lord," I will let you drink.' And the book also said that whoever recited the Koranic verse `Verily there hath come to you an apostle from among yourselves; grievous to him is your falling into
1 Muhammad Ahmad walad al-Shaykh Idris was a relative of the Mahdi, and had taken part in the siege of Sinnar.
a Al-Muddawi `Abd al-Rahman (c8s7-99), a descendant of Idris al-Arbab, a leading Sufi teacher of the early Funj period. After studying at al-Azhar and teaching in a village on the Blue Nile, he joined the Mahdi in 1883, and served him as an agent and propagandist in the Jazira. Becoming dissatisfied with conditions after the death of the Mahdi, he fled to Cairo in i 890. Threatened with trial for sedition, he was saved by the intercession of al-Zubayr Rahma Mansur, who appears prominently later in this book.


distress . . .' would be saved from the Devil. So I began to repeat `Verily there hath come to you . . .' under my breath. But after a little talk between the three angels which I did not understand, the one who had the knife in his hand leant forward and cut off my right leg at the thigh. I shrank back with a terrible shudder, which was seen by those who were gathered round and were reciting the creed over me, though I heard nothing of it. Then he turned to my left leg, and as he turned, my eyes turned to follow him. He cut it off, and the man with the scales came and weighed the legs one against the other; and one of them-I think it was the right leg-much outweighed the other. He threw down the scales, and I heard the loud clang of them as they fell. I looked at my horribly twitching stumps and said, `Good heavens! Now I understand why people say that the soul of a dying man goes out at his legs, because they are first cut off!' After that the man with the knife cut off my right hand, then turned and cut off my left hand; and at his every movement my eyes followed him with a fixed stare, at which those around me wondered. The man with the scales then weighed my hands too, the one against the other, and again the one outweighed the other; and he threw them down as before. And now my soul, after my hands were cut off, rose into my throat, and the three men began to talk to each other. While they were doing so I raised my eyes and saw two white maidens up in the roof, the one with a white kerchief in her hand, and the other holding a dazzlingly white cup; and the tresses of each of them hung down towards me, wonderfully beautiful. I said to myself, `These are two houris of Paradise waiting to receive my soul; the one with the cup will give me to drink, and the one with the kerchief will lead me to the everlasting bliss.' So I was overcome with joy, and surrendered myself to the passing of my soul; but then I heard the man with the scales say to his companions, snapping his fingers in contempt, `He has long to wait,' and they rose in the air, and as I followed them with my eyes I saw no vestige of the two maidens; but the roof of the house opened for the three men, and as they were lost to sight 1 saw my people and my sisters weeping around me, al-Husna with her head on my breast, and my mother telling her beads in sad submission.
All at once I felt a sudden vigour in my body, and called out loudly, `What's the matter with you? Give me room!' Gladly, joyfully, and wonderingly they made way for me, and I leapt up, went out of the room, and came back again; and from then on my sickness mended. Later that morning I took a strong draught of salt and water, and after a little I felt that something that I had been aware of in my stomach was
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coming towards my throat. I began hawking violently until I felt the thing was near my mouth, then put in my finger, got hold of it, and threw it down, and saw it was a little wriggling worm.'- My cure was completed; but ever since, whenever I recall the incident of the houris, I have wished that I had died that day.
I remember that after my recovery I and a relation of mine called Ahmad al-QuwaydY but better known by his nickname of Jabbnd (glutton') went to the Khalifa SharYf to ask him to give us a slave-girl to sell, because we were very hard up. He asked us which official he should write to for us, and 1 asked him to write to 'Ali Shakkak E at alMasallamiyya. So we travelled there, and when we arrived I had caught a fever from having to go all the way on foot (since my horse, and also my slaves, were with `Ali). He paid little attention to me, and I went in and lay down on a mat in a dark room, from where I could hear the conversation and laughter while I lay tossing with fever and hunger (for malaria does not spoil the appetite but only makes movement difficultas my father once said when 'Ali and I returned from al Matamma with fever, `Babikr and 'Ali Shakkak have healthy bellies and sick legs').
They kept up their chat very late, and when it was over one `IImar Hijazi came to lie down, and stepped on me in the dark. `Who's that? he said; `Babikr Bedri,' said I; and he went back to my uncle 'Ali and told him how ill I was. But he showed no concern at all. Luckily in the morning 1 found that my brother Musa, whom 'Ali had adopted, was there; he had not known that I had come, because we had arrived in the evening when he was away. After Musa and I had met, my uncle 'Ali sent him to the butcher's to bring five and a half pounds of liver and eight pounds of mutton, which Zaynab bint Khayrallah s my uncle's wife (he had got her as part of the booty taken at Sinnar) cooked for them. When Musa came in he found my uncle 'Ali and his guests busy eating-all except me who was not with them, but lying in 'Ali walad Shammu's mosque next door. Musa was very angry, and calling for Sabah al-Khayr and Salim, our slaves, told them to saddle the horse and bring it round. When my uncle 'Ali heard that, he tried to propitiate M&-d, who, however, would not listen to him. Then 'Ali tried to use his authority to compel him to leave the horse and the slaves, but this was no good either, because Musa had stirred Sabah al-Khayr to anger by telling him what had happened to me. But I knew nothing of this, because I was lying in the mosque. If Musa had asked my opinion, I would have said he was wrong, because we were of those who had renounced the world and all that is in it, whom praise should not move nor evil words anger; and. no thought of revenge should be in our hearts, since the Mahdi, with whom be God's peace, says, `Who requites the wrong done him, destroys himself.'
So Sabah al-Khayr took the horse and driving Salim before him came to me in the mosque. 1 mounted the horse, and Musa his donkey, and we set out straight away. I told Mus'a I was hungry, and he bought some provisions for us, leaving himself enough money to get us to Khartoum. During this journey I realized that my brother Musa (with whom be God's mercy) was more generous than I. This was when we reached the village of al-Jadid, and found millet-bread for sale in the market. We were very hungry, and Musa spent the whole of what he had left on a little of it, and gave the two slaves a share of it equal to the share he left for us, while I thought that we should have had more than the slaves. `Then a beggar came along, and I thought that we might give him only a little of the food, and make up the rest with kind words, but what must Musa do but invite him to sit and share the meal with us. Then I felt mean, and admired my brother greatly.
We reached Khartoum, and a month later my uncle 'Ali Shakkak was dismissed from his post in al-Masallamiyya, and came also to Khartoum, with his trollop of a wife. Some days later Walad al-Nujumi's army took the road to Berber on its way to Dongola for the second time; and we went after it by boat with all our family, except for my father who was still in Karkuj. We reached Berber, where we stopped for the months of Sha'ban and Ramadan. The heat was the severest I have ever known, so much so that in Ramadan 1 we were compelled to stay soaking ourselves in the water of the Nile for an hour or two hours every day, till in the yellow of evening you would see crowds of people returning to their houses, as if they had been coming back from work or from the market.
After that the army moved by way of the west bank to Abu Haraz, where we were joined by Musa`id Qaydum2 the commander of the
1 A doctor comments that this sounds like a hook-worm. 2 Bint means `the daughter of'.
1 The month during which Muslims go without food or drink from dawn till dusk.
2 Musa'id Qaydfun (c. 1861-1.934) was one of the leading military commanders under the Khalifa 'Abdallahi. He was o£ Baqqari origin, and had been taught by the Khalifa's father. His appointment to the expeditionary force against Egypt, nominally as the deputy of al-Nujumi, was an indication of the Khalifa's mistrust of the riverain notables: By the `Msnr of the west', Babikr Bedri means the Baqqara tribal forces.
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of the west, who was practically independent of Walad al-Nujumi. This was towards the end of the year 1303 (summer 18 86), and was the first of the changes in policy that occurred after the death of the Mahdi (Go(Vs peace be with him).
Among the incidents which occurred at Abu Haraz was the execution of Muhammad al-Fahl, the chief man of the Fahlab tribe. It happened this way. One of his relatives called Muhammad `Abd al-Majid, a fanatical believer in the Mahdia, was visiting him in his house, and the talk turned " on the Mahdi. In the course of an argument Muhammad al-Fahl, certain of the discretion of his guest and relative, said to him, `Don't talk like that. The Mahdi cheated us, and the Khalifa does nothing but lie to us.' And what must Muhammad `Abd al-Majid do but get up and go at once to Walad al-Nujumi and tell him of what had passed. They sent for Muhammad al-Fahl from his house, and he confessed, and Walad alNujumi thereupon wrote to the Khalifa, who ordered that Muhammad al-Fahl should be beheaded; and this was done, in the presence of a large crowd.
One day Walad al-Nujumi sent for me and told me to accompany one of his officials who was to collect taxes from the Manasir tribe. I was aghast at having to leave the army, and said, weeping, `Master, can't you find someone else to cut off from God? I beg you, I beg you by God and His Apostle and the Mahdi, to excuse me.' And I wept again. He said, `Of such are the companions of the Mahdi;' and he sent another instead of me.
Walad al-Nujumi then sent men to collect camels from the nomads of the Hassaniyya and the Qiray'at and the Hawawir on the west bank, and the Jimi`ab and the `Ababda and the Bishariyyun on the east. When the camels were first brought most of them were not yet broken in, and difficult to manage; but after working for a bit they soon became amenable.
Then we were sent to patrol the country of the Shayqiyya, which it took us more than ten days to reach. At Sanam (now Marawi) we met ._ Muhammad al-Khayr,l who was returning from Karma in obedience to an order from the Khalifa of the Mahdi. He ordered a special parade of his army for us, and I saw him on his horse looking just the same as his
1 Muhammad al-Khayr `Abdallah Kh3jali (d. 18 88). A Ja'ali faki of Berber, under whom the Mahdi studied. In x884 he was appointed Mahdist governor of Berber, and subsequently of Dongola. The Khalifa's suspicion of the riverain notables, as well as the strains resulting from the stationing of the expeditionary force against Egypt in Berber province, led to the removal of Mu}~ammad al-Khayr from office in July-August 18 See Hill, Biographical Dictionaiy, 26o-i.
42

Sinndr. Sickness. To the North
son al-Tij-ani looks today. We continued our journey both by the bank and by river and reached al-`Urdi 1 (now New Dongola), where we found that the commander Mustafa walad Jubara had pitched his camp, on the Nile bank near the old ~ province headquarters; but Walad alNujumi on his arrival moved him out of it. The ruins of the camp, and of the huts where some of the nomad Arabs settled, are visible to this day. There too is the tomb of the commander Muhammad al-Khayr, whom the Khalifa had ordered to return to Omdurman, but he died here.
As was the custom, Walad al-Nujumi and his army encamped to the north of the mosque area, and Musa`id Qaydum and his army to the south; and from that time Musa`id's power began gradually to increase, and Walad al-Nujumi's to weaken.
As soon as he arrived, Walad al-NujumY sent al-Nur al-Kanzi with about 3 00 to Saras, where they made a permanent camp, and Muhammad Ahmad Hashim, with whom I was, to Sawarda, where we stopped for about four months living almost entirely on dates, for millet was only issued to the sick. An amusing incident happened here. We told a cousin of mine called al-Bahari to sham sick so that we could draw a bowl of millet in his name, to mix with the everlasting stewed dates of which we were all so heartily tired. Well, we drew the millet in his name, but when we came and told him to get up he actually tried to persuade even us that he was sick so as to get out of doing his share of the fatigues. We shook him, but he wouldn't move and he wouldn't laugh, but lay like the dead. But when we had cooked the porridge and brought it to eat, he jumped up soon enough.
It was in Sawarda that nine of us agreed together and took an oath that we would go to Halfa and conquer it, or achieve martyrdom in the attempt. All the other eight were foot-soldiers; I had a horse, but I left it at grass, fearing that otherwise its absence would be noticed, and so our plan would be discovered and we should be pursued. But we failed to take into account the fact that it was I who used to recite the Rdtib every morning after prayers, and when I did not turn up they thought at first that I was sick, but when they could not find me they started inquiries; and a man from a village called Murshid, north of Saras, came and told them that he had seen nine of the Ansar all on foot hastening along the road to the north. So they sent mounted men after us, among
1 AI-`[Irdi grew up on the site of the encampment of the Mamluks who fled from the proscription of Muhammad 'All Pasha in Egypt in 18 i t . The Sudanese name is a corruption of the Turkish orda, `camp' or 'army'-whence the English word `horde'.
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whom.was my friend Shaykh `Abd al-Jalil al-Sadiq, and brought us back crestfallen.
Then `Abd al-Halim Mus'a`id1 was appointed to command all the troops in both Sawarda and Saras, and he moved the camp at Sawarda to Farka, so that it should be midway between al-`iIrdi and Saras. We had not been there long when news came to `Abd al-Halim that the Qararish Arabs at Llmm Bakul were carrying information about us to the Turks s in Halfa; so he sent a detachment under the command of his cousin `Abdallah Muhammad Shankula to force them to move. I was in this detachment, and we marched by the east bank till we were opposite the island on which the village lay, near the other bank. We waited in hiding behind the hills until the last third of the night, and then plunged into the river. We did not know that the Nile was very broad at that point, and if there had not been a shoal in the middle on which we rested we would all have been drowned. I confess that while at first I grasped my horse's bridle and led him bravely, after a bit I found myself behind him, at times holding on to the cantle of the saddle, and at times sprawling on his rump, with my undaunted slave Sab'ah al-Khayr swimming in front and leading him. At last we landed on the island, all scattered; and if its people had been ready to fight us they would have forced us to plunge back into the river, or would have slaughtered us by ones and twos. But God saved us. When we arrived at dawn most of them were still asleep, and were awakened only by our war-cry; so they surrendered.
The commander ordered the rounding up of all the domestic beasts, and collected all the men in a space outside the village. Then choosing from among us those whom he could trust he detailed each two of us to go with one of the men to his house to collect his women and children, and to bring them, carrying nothing of their belongings, to the same place. In four hours we had collected all the chattels and grain and domestic beasts that were in the village, and the women had handed over all their jewellery. I was the clerk of the expedition, and wrote down exactly what money or jewellery each person had handed over. Then we took them with us and descended to the small branch of the river which divided the island from the west bank. We waded across it, and even the goats waded, so that we thought regretfully of the trouble we had had the previous night, crossing over from the east. We brought all the
people and the animals to the west bank opposite Farka, and crossed the Nile in boats which Shaykh `Abd al-Halim had got ready for us. He asked for the list which I had made, and gave back to each man what was recorded against his name. He allotted them a site to the north of our camp, west of Juha hill, and told their men that they must attend all the five prayers of each day in the mosque area, or else be considered spies and executed.
Then `Abd al-Halim decided to find out the condition of the country beyond the Banat rocks, that is to say Akma and Kalb Island, where we had not previously gone owing to the rough and jagged nature of the Ban'at rocks on shore, and the swirling rapids in the river. So he appointed Shaykh Hajj 'All to collect tithes from the palm-groves and water-wheel cultivations there, and appointed me to go with him as his clerk. The people tendered their submission to us through their `umda 1 Adam Sulayman, and we listed the date-palms on both banks until we reached Kalb Island, where we found Faki Muhammad Salih Hilal al
y Azhari, the distinguished `dlim. I spent most of my time sitting with him, and found among his books al-Hurayfshi's 2 treatise on Sufism, which he gave me as a present-I will tell you something about that later.
One day our commander Shaykh Hajj `Ali summoned Muhammad Salih Hilal to the `amda's house, which was near the tomb of `Akasha, and made him lie on the ground and had him flogged with stripped palm-fronds, although the faki was a far greater man than he. When I heard his cries I hurried to him and stood over him as he lay on the ground, his body between my legs. The commander came up, alone, and spoke to me roughly, but I noticed that his breath smelt of dakdy, an intoxicating drink, s so I took him aside and whispered in his ear, `You have been drinking dakay! You had better look out!' and he went into the house looking ashamed.
The people did not accept the faki's flogging passively, but made such a commotion that serious consequences were to be feared. So I wrote to Shaykh `Abd al-Halim telling him the whole story, and sent the letter by the hand of my slave Sabah al-Khayr. Shaykh `Abd al-Halim sent to Hajj `Ali to return to Farka with his troops and the tithes he had collected, but to leave me in Akma, and told Sabah al-Khayr to wait in Farka until he gave him an answer to me. But he forgot to do so, owing
1 `Umda is the term used in Egypt and the Sudan for the headman of a village.
1Abd al-Halim Musa`id (d. 18 89) had taken part in the operations in Kordofan against Hicks Pasha in 18 83, and was a friend of al-Nujumi, with whom he died in the battle of Tushki. See Hill, Biographical Dictionary, 9-to.
= By 'the Turks' Babikr Bedri means the Anglo-Egyptian forces. See above, p. 2¢, n. t .
By al-Hurayfshi the author means Abu Madyan Shu'ayb al-Iiurayfish, who died in I398. He was a Sufi, and one of his writings, presumably that read by Babikr Bedri, was several times printed in Egypt in the nineteenth century.
I It was made from dates. The Mahdists were, of course, forbidden all alcohol.
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to his many and multifarious cares; and when I found myself alone, and the people seething with discontent, I moved to a small stone fort on a hillock east of `Akasha's tomb, alone except for ilny horse; and the `umda brought me daily what I needed for myself and the horse. I was there for twenty-one days, until `Abdallah Shankula arrived as Hajj `Ali's successor, and the people began to regain confidence and to be more friendly to us, till it seemed almost as though we were locals.
After a time I returned to Farka, and from there I went again to al-`Urdi. I don't remember why I went, but I remember very well how one night the great drum rolled, and the army assembled horse and foot in the mosque-square, waiting as we thought for Walad al-Nujumi to come out to us from his house. But then we saw that it was he himself who had beaten the drum, and there he was, standing on the drumplatform; and he cried with a loud voice:
God Most High has said,l `The people said to them, "Your enemies have assembled against you; be afraid! " But they feared not; only their faith increased, and they said, "We depend on God, who is the best Defender." And they stood firm, and by the goodness and grace of God no evil touched then. They sought to do only the will of God, and God is mighty in His grace. So you also must know that the devil affrighteth only those who are his followers. Fear not your enemies, but fear only Me, if you will be faithful.'
I wish that the reader of this book could have been with us and have heard his voice, so full of courage in the time of fear, and of confidence in the time of trial.
He went on:
There has come a dispatch from `Abd al-Halim Musa'id which tells of the martyrdom s of al-Nur al-KanzY and all those with him at Saras. None has escaped, only Hasan walad al-Quz, the fingers of whose left hand are severed, and his face wounded. Now I wish to send an army of willing volunteers, their commander to be chosen from among them, who will go to Saras to bury these martyrs, and then to penetrate far and deep beyond it and there set up signs which will show the enemy that we have come there, then to return to Farka and await my orders.
I was among the volunteers, and Walad al-NujumY appointed to command us Muhammad `Abd al-Majid, who had been the cause of the execution of his cousin Muhammad al-Fahl.$ But when we reached
Farka, `Abd al-F,lalim appointed his cousin Muhammad A},unad Hashim to go with us and take over as commander at Saras. The army at Farka was accordingly reinforced from al-`Urdi.
We went on and reached Samna on the east bank, from where we saw camels grazing on the west bank, their loads stacked on the ground. Muhammad Ahmad Hashim detailed my uncle Muhammad Ahmad Shakkak (the brother of 'All Shakkak), with me as his clerk, to investigate; and when we got to the loads we found that they consisted of sugar and cloth and flour for sale. We took tithes from them; and brought their owners to the east bank, where Muhammad Ahmad Hashim gave them receipts, so that tithes should not be demanded from them elsewhere; and this was the reason for the establishment of the public treasury at Saras, of which I was put in charge.
When we reached Saras we buried the martyrs, and then went on and between Jimmi and Amka set up the signs which Walad al-Nujumi had ordered. These were small flags on which was written, `There is no god but God, Muhammad is the Apostle of God, Muhammad the Mahdi is the Successor of the Apostle of God.' I was one of those who set up these signs.
Muhammad A},unad Hashim was very strict in his dealings, and gave preference to no one, not even himself; and when a small consignment of millet arrived he had it put in a store of which he himself kept the key, and issued to each man two small bowlsful of it a week. The officers of the force asked him to allow them a special extra ration, but he refused absolutely. I made up this rhyme, which had a certain circulation:
The hunger at Saras
Bit deeply, nor ceased; The boss wouldn't spare us, And wouldn't be greased, But meanly would harass Both soldier and beast.
Since there were no women with us to grind the millet, we ate it unground and boiled with dates; but when after a long time we got sick of this, we searched the hills and found a stone which with a little shaping could be made into a grindstone. So we did the necessary shaping, and turned cooks, like women. We took turns at it, one to do the grinding, one to make the dough, one to bake it, and one to make the sauce. We got the salt from salty earth, and one day when it was my turn I made a
1 A quotation from the Koran.
2 i.e., the death in battle.
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sauce of beans and put in the salt without separating it from the earth by dissolving and straining, so that the sauce turned to mud. Everybody laughed at me, and afterwards, since I was good at grinding and doughmaking, ( specialized in that.
I had determined to get married again in Farka, and so asked permission of the Saras commander, who after some consideration gave it me, and handed over the treasury to Muhammad Humudi al-Hadari, a merchant. I went to Farka and built a small bridal room, only two and a half metres in length, breadth, and height, or perhaps a trifle more. I was at Farka with my new wife for two months, but then heard that my brother Sa'id (who was to travel to Karkuj on duty) and my father and his other wife and his children were at al-`Ilrdi. So I went there to bring my father and his family to Farka, and when I got there I asked Ilyas Ahmad al-Zayn, who was in charge of Walad al-Nujumi's treasury, to give me an order to all the agents on the road to help me with transport animals and food on the journey, which he did.
We set out, and when we reached a village in the Mahas country west of Dalqu we dismounted in a date-grove near the house of a merchant named Fadl Shanbu, and Sabah al-Khayr went in to get a few dates to quieten the two babies. But Fadl was furious, and began to curse and swear at him. So my father went in, and when he saw that the spacious yard of the house was crowded with sacks full of millet and wheat and all kinds of dates and beans, he said, `Fadl, you were angry when the slave came in to take a few dates to quieten two babies. But listen; when Walad al-Nujumi comes here with his army they will seize everything which you possess.'
`Oh no, they won't,' said Fadl. `They won't be able to, because I shall bolt the gate and take my gun in my hand.'
`But they won't come in by the gate,' said my father. `They will break down your wall in many places and come in that way; and when they see you they will tie your hands together and place your knees between your arms and put a stick under your knees and over your elbows, and will swing you to and fro as much as ever you like. Then they will come party by party and take your goods, and the last party will take even the dust that is mixed with the dregs of the corn at the bottom of the sacks. And all this time you will be lying bound where they threw you, till your people come and free you after the last of the enemy has gone away.'
Fadl denied scornfully that this would happen, but when Walad al
48
Sinnar. Sickness. To the North
Nujumi's army did come, they did to him exactly what my father had described to him; and when his people came at last and released him from his bonds he said to them, `Al-Khidr i the prophet of God came to me and told me of everything that would happen, but I didn't listen to his warning: If I had, I would have buried all my possessions in the ground, far from my house.'
We went on, and whenever we came to the village of an `umda we requested him to carry out the treasury's order. Most of them made difficulties, and had it not been for the formidable strength of Sabah alKhayr we would have been in trouble. When we reached the Qarqur cultivations I found a donkey tethered near a water-wheel to graze. My father and the family had gone on ahead and reached the village, where they had dismounted at the shaykh's house; so when I found the donkey I mounted it in order to catch them up. But a tall, burly man came up and told me to dismount, and when I demur-: ed gave me a blow that knocked me out. When some time had passed and I did not reach the village, Sabah al-Khayr came back to find out what had happened to me and found me there lying on the ground. As soon as I had recovered I told him what the man had done to me, and said, `Look! here is his track!' So we followed it, and found the man at his water-wheel, with the donkey grazing not far off. We took the donkey, but the man saw us and caught us up at the very place where he had hit me. He snatched at the donkey, but Sabah al-Khayr gave him a blow that felled him to the ground. Then he tied his hands behind his back and drove him along with us, I riding the donkey, until we reached the house, where he tied him up with a stick under his knees, and put him out in the sun.
We inquired for Ahmad `Abd al-Wahhab the Rubatabi, who was the Mahdist agent of the place, and were told that he was on the east bank transporting a detachment of western tribesmen; `And this house,' they added, `in which you are stopping, is his father-in-law's.' After a while Ahmad `Abd al-Wahhab came, and saw his wife's father sitting tied up, and learnt from him that the people who had tied him up were inside the house. He came in to us, and after greeting us told us that the bound
1 Al-Khidr is a prominent figure in Sufi mythology. A mention in the Koran of an anonymous servant of God, who was endowed with esoteric knowledge and instructed Moses, has formed a nucleus around which have gathered legendary accretions, including traces of a vegetation cult. Al-Khidr is regarded as an ever-living prophet and a source of mystical illumination. He figures in the mystical colloquies described in the proclamations of both the Mahdi and the Khalifa `Abdallahi. For an account of popular beliefs about al-Khidr, see Lane, Modern Egyptians, 238.
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man was his father-in-law. So we untied him, and apologized to him, making the excuse that we had not known who he was. And he too apologized to us. We stopped the night with them, and in the morning left riding their beasts, and reached Farka. From there we went on with `Abd al-Halim Musa'id and his army, and all our women and

CHAPTER 5
we were in Saras my uncle `Ali Shakkak thought it best that we should transfer from the flags 1 of MakSn al-Nur and `Ali Hamad al-Nil to the personal flag of `Abd al-Halim. This we did for economic reasons, as you will see. My uncle `Ali Shaklcak became second-in-command of the flag-unit, and I became deputy-clerk in the store. Because of the number of my dependants and the scarcity of grain, I began to filch a little grain every day of issue, by increasing the amounts given to certain people whom I could trust, until I had collected more than an ardeb (30o pounds) of grain, with which I filled two large containers, and put them in the room private to myself and my wife, alBaqi` the daughter of `Llthman. The storekeeper, however, suspected me and told the commander, `Abd al-Halim, who ordered my dismissal. I had an idea that my uncle `Ali Shakkak was behind this, and I told my father so; but he judged `Ali's character by his own, and forbade me to believe such a thing.
A little later `Abd al-Halim Musa'id decided to send boats to Sukkut and al-Mahas to bring grain and dates and fodder, and I was among those detailed for the expedition. The list was submitted to `Abd al-Halim, who at first approved it; but a day later my uncle `Ali Shakkak went to him, and my name was cut out of the list, and so was that of my relative `Ata al-Mannan al-Quwaydi, who was married to `Ali Shakkak's wife's sister, but was on bad terms with him. When `Ata al-Mannan had protested in vain, he said to `Abd al-Halim, `You are unjust. You let your nephew Hasan go every year to Sukkut and al-Mahas, and he returns rich.' I said nothing, but I convinced my father that it was my uncle 'All
1 The word translated `flag' is rdya, which had during the Mahdia the technical meaning of a body of troops under a commander. In its most extended sense, a rdya was a whole division of the Mahdist army under one of the three Khalifas. AI-Raya al-Zarqd', the Black Flag, was the great division comprising the Baqq-ara nomads of the west, which was commanded by the Khalifa `Abdallahi during the Mahdi's lifetime, and subsequently by his brother Ya'qub.
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who had worked my rejection; and before the boats left, when `Abd 'al-Halim entered his headquarters I went in with him, and spoke frankly.
`Sir,' I said, `we left the flag of Makin al-Nur, and abandoned our people the Rubatab who are still with it, only so that we might live the more easily under your power; for we, like you, know that religion is the same under all the flags. But you, sir, dismissed me from the store, and now you have cut out my name from the list after you had at first approved it. This harms my reputation in addition to worsening my livelihood, and you know how many my dependants are. If you are determined on this treatment I warn you that I will leave your flag, and that everyone else in `Ali Shakkak's unit will leave with me, even Muhammad Ahmad Shakkak his brother. Ask `Ali, if you like.'
He sent for `Ali and asked him in my presence about the truth of what I had said, and my uncle replied, `Babikr's father is here, and he is the head of our family. If he were to tell even me myself to leave your flag, I could not disobey him.'
He went out, and `Abd al-Halim said to me, `You can go with the boats.'
`My dependants are in rags,' I said. `Give me an order to the treasury for clothes for them.'
`Very well,' he replied; `write an order for one piece of each kind of cloth.' So I wrote down ten kinds of cloth, with the figure i opposite each.
Now the custom was that an order to issue would be in the following form: `To the official in charge of Saras treasury: Issue the items shown above to so-and-so, to relieve his need.' So I submitted the paper to `Abd al-Halim, and he signed it with his own hand and gave it to me. I kept it until the day before the night that the boats were due to sail (so that they could reach Samna rapids at daylight); then I put a nought to the right of every figure i on the paper, and took it at sunset, Sabah al-Khayr accompanying me, to Muhammad Humudi the treasurer, whom I asked to make the issue.
`I'm going to the mosque now,' he said. `Come tomorrow.'
`You don't move,' said I, `until you have made the issue.' And when he saw that Sabah al-Khayr was with me and that he himself was alone, he went back to the store and started throwing the pieces of each kind of cloth at us; as soon as he had completed the ten of one kind he would start throwing the next ten, and so on until the whole issue was complete. I made bundles of nine pieces of each kind, and sent off my brother Musa with them to al-`IIrdi, where he sold them, and from the proceeds bought a she-camel for us, loaded her with grain, and returned with the balance of the money, which he used as capital to set up in the market, sometimes as a butcher, and sometimes as a trader in cloth or grain or other things.
But I sailed that night with the boats. The resident officer at Dalqu was Muhammad al-Hajj al-Khidr Qayli, who had been a neighbour of our old teacher Ahmad al-Karras, and later had lived at Rufa'a. When he saw me he gave me the warmest of welcomes, and treated me in such a friendly way that I was able to act as an intermediary for those who came to him with requests. He gave me two ardebs of grain and three ardebs of dates, and sent me in a boat which went up the Kajbar rapids, where the agent was al-Safi walad Hajj `Abdallah (who is still alive, and lives near the Abu Ruf boatyard in Omdurman). And he in his turn gave me an ardeb of dates and a hundred bundles of millet-straw for my horse.
When we got back to Dalqu, people who wanted anything out of Muhammad al-Khidr used to ask me to act as an advocate or intermediary for them. ~ He would ask me, `How many riydls shall I give him? and I would say, `Two or three,' and he would hand them over. But after this had happened more than once he said to me, `Soot for your mother,' meaning that I was losing, and I realized that the money he was giving the people was being deducted from the sum he had reserved for me. So I gave up being an advocate, and found that there were only twenty-one riydls left out of the thirty which he had been keeping as a present for me.
I returned to Farka with the boats, taking everything which had been given me. `Abd al-Halim tried to confiscate all the goods which we had brought, but we got Shaykh al-`Aqib, the expedition's judge, to go to him privately and tell him that if we brought an official complaint against him the judgement would be in our favour. So he dropped the matter, and my companions congratulated me on my idea.
Just after the boats had left Saras for Dalqu, Muhammad Humudi had accused me to `Abd al-Halim of having overborne him and of having threatened him with violence from my slave; and it came out how many pieces of cloth I had received. So after my return `Abd al-Iialim sent for me and said, `You altered the order!' I replied that when he approved the order he was sick with fever, and asked him how a family the size of mine could make do with only ten pieces of cloth. It happened that the judge was present, and he was a Rubatabi and knew each of my dependants by name and relationship. So he .told `Abd al-Halim that it would
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have been impossible to clothe a family the size of mine with less cloth 'than I had received, and the, matter dropped.
A little later the shortage of food became severe, and the authorities made an exact list of all the women and children in the camp. So 1 had need of the grain which I had filched from the store when I was working there; but I found the containers empty, and learnt that the grain had been taken by a certain person 1 who could not return it, for whom I could make excuses and could not accuse, and whom I could not send away in those hard times, when a quarter of an ardeb of grain was fetching four riyals.
At that time the Sharif Sulayman al-`Llbayd used to bring out a sack of grain every Friday, and distribute it to the people in the street outside his house; I saw him do this several Fridays running, and noticing that there was no crowding or struggling which might have caused injuries, I admired both his generosity and the restraint and order of the people.
My brother Musa and Sabah al-Khayr used to take our donkey and she-camel to the villages round, and get fresh dates; or when they heard that the people were going to kill the fish in one of the drying riverchannels they would go there and bring back for us large quantities of fish, some of which we would eat fresh, and dry the remainder for storing.
An expedition was sent to raid the fort at Khur 2 Musa Pasha, under the command of `Abd al-Hafiz Shamat. They got into the fort, but Turkish reinforcements came from `Ankash and drove them out again, killing most of them. After the battle I saw `Abd al-Hafiz suffering from fourteen bayonet wounds, which were being treated with boiling butter, and he was chatting with his visitors just as if it was somebody else who was getting the treatment.
`Abd al-Halim did not submit passively to this reverse, but dispatched another expedition consisting of a raiding party under `Uthman Azraq 3 and a supporting party under Husayn walad Jubara. We got near Khur Mus'a Pasha at night, and one of us suggested that we should pull up the railway, so that if our attack failed the enemy would not be able to cut our line of retreat. So we started to dig at the sleepers, but we could not move them because they were fixed to the rails and so to each other. After some vain efforts `Abd al-Rahim Ahmad the Rubatabi said that he had buried a spanner somewhere with which we could unfasten the rails, and that if a guard of five horsemen would go with him he could perhaps find it. I was one of the five who went, and after a few minutes he found it, and we returned and cast loose two rails, and then went on overturning the rails with ease, until we had destroyed two miles or more of the railway. Then we descended to Khiir Mama Pasha where we prayed the morning prayer at early dawn, and recited extracts from the Rdtib, and went on until the sun rose. They started shelling us, and whenever a shell passed over our heads we would gallop after it, crying to it, `Surrender! Surrender!' Some of the shells did not burst but buried themselves in the ground and we dug them out, and some of us who knew how unscrewed the heads, and we emptied them of powder to be kept for future use. But it turned out to be no good.
Then our foot-soldiers drew up, while the horsemen cantered about near by, ever and anon returning to the ranks, just as if we were on the Friday parade. After about an hour we saw unusual movement around `Ankash, and realized that the enemy was about to come out and attack us. So we withdrew, the main body going by the inland road; but a detachment of horsemen, among whom was I, was detailed to return by the river road along which we had come in case we might find there any sick or exhausted men, or perhaps a deserter who wanted to enter the fort and had accompanied our army for that purpose. In fact we found a few sick, and went on with them until we had passed south of the place where we had pulled up the railway line. Here we became overconfident, and finding a date-palm on which were ripe dates, and an easy approach to the river where we could water our horses, we dismounted. Sabah al-Khayr climbed up the palm, and was throwing down the dates to us, and we were eating and expecting no trouble when suddenly I saw the hindquarters of a white horse in the gap between two of the nearby hills. I cried to Sabah al-Khayr, `Can you see anything to the east?, and he looked and shouted back, `Your comrades with you 1'-a conventional phrase meaning that the enemy was approaching. We quickly bridled our horses and mounted, and when we had advanced a little we saw enemy cavalry and camel-soldiers quite close to us. We turned on them and attacked them, although we were outnumbered; they fled from us up into the hills, and we started to go up after them. The horse on which Abu Yazid IdrYs (one of our Danaqla comrades) was riding was hit, and its leg broken, but it galloped off on three legs, with
. 1 In the margin of his manuscript the author has written `my wife'. $ A khur is a dry watercourse.
e `Uthman Azraq-more formally, `Uthman Muhammad 'Isa (d. i898). Of Dunqulawi origin, he played a prominent part in operations on and near the frontier between Egypt and the Mahdist state, and died in the battle of Omdurman. See Hill, Biographical Dictionay, 367•
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the result that Abu Yazid captured five enemy camels which were kneeling at the foot of the hill, while their riders were a long way off engaged in fighting us. '
When we reached a level place between the hills there was a fight in which I stabbed a man with my long spear, and the blade of it got bent, so I threw it away. Also the tob which I used for a blanket fell off during the fighting, and I noticed that it was lying near the spear. But I left them there as I had more important things to attend to. Before this, while we were still on the plain and had not yet gone up the hill, I had stabbed an Egyptian soldier, who fell on the railway embankment.
When we and the enemy had got up the hill they, although they were twice our numbers, retired whenever we attacked them, but advanced against us whenever we stood off; and this went on till our main body which had gone by the inland road heard the sound of the fighting and advanced towards us. In this to-and-fro fighting an English bimbashi i was killed and a number of enemy camels captured, but they continued to entice us towards their infantry whom we found drawn up at the end of the broken railway. While we stood facing each other, Ahmad Abu Sinn $ the commander of the Lahwiyyun said to `Uthman Azraq who was in general command, `We had better wait behind that hill and let the enemy come on, so that we can attack them on the plain, with fewer losses to our horse and foot.'
But `Abd al-Hafiz Shamat interposed, saying, `The horsemen are the horsemen of the Mahdi, and will die in the cause of the Mahdi.' And A},unad Abu Sinn was silent, and swung his leg over his horse's saddle. When the enemy were ready they fired a volley at us, at which `Abd alHafiz and `Uthman and others fled, and I fled with them. But when we had gone a little way I turned and saw Ahmad Abu Sinn and my cousin al-Madani Mustafa and al-Tahir Ishaq the Zaghawi standing their ground. So I rode back to them and said to Ahmad Abu Sinn, `Why are you staying here?' and he replied, repeating the words of the fugitive `Abd al-Hafiz, `The horsemen of the Mahdi die for the Mahdi.' But I caught his horse's bridle and led it back.
We retreated by the river road, on which we found my uncle Muhammad Ahmad Shakkak and many of our footmen; and when we reached the place where the body of the dead Egyptian soldier lay on the railway embankment my uncle Muhammad Ahmad cut off his head and put it in his horse's nosebag. Then when we came opposite the place from which we had gone up the hill, I went up, in spite of my uncle's objections, to get my tab and spear. I found them all right, and beside them a pith-helmet with the Egyptian crescent badge on it. When we got back to Saras, the captured camels and the soldier's head and the English bimbashi's helmet were sent to Walad al-Nujumi, who sent them on to the Khalifa of the Mahdi in Omdurman. This battle is called the battle of al-Jummayza.
A little later `Uthman Azraq was appointed to command a force of q.oo footmen and horsemen, among whom 1 was, and we went to raid a village called Sarri on the west bank north of Halfa. We entered the village at sunrise, and captured all its cattle and farm produce, including a large quantity of onions. A man called Khalil IbrShim, who I think was a government official, tried to prevent us, and fired on us. We attacked him in the house he used as an office, but before we reached him one of us shot him dead.
After a while a steamer with a company of the enemy on board arrived, and we attacked them at long range but did not engage them closely; and when the heat of the day became severe we returned without providing ourselves with sufficient water. At sunset we were issued with some of the onions, which did much to slake our thirst, and went on for most of the night until we reached Shunat al-Had-id, on the west bank south of Halfa, where some of our men were encamped. There we drank our fill and resumed our way to Saras, where `Abd al-Halim distributed the booty we had brought, dividing it equally among all the flag-units. This did not please Hammuda Idris the Habbani,l Musa`id Qaydum's deputy at Saras, but `Abd al-Halim paid him no attention. So Hammuda wrote to Musa`id at al-`Urdl, and Musa`id sent the letter on to the Khalifa of the Mahdi.
Then the Khalifa `Abdallahi ordered `Abd al-Halim to come to Omdurman, and with him Walad al-Nujumi, whose last visit to Omdurman it was to be; and when they arrived the Khalifa rebuked and reproached them. Later, when `Abd al-Halim returned to Saras, my uncle `Ali Shakkak said to him, `How I wish that you had taken me with you, so that I might have seen the Khalifa of the Mahdi 1' But `Abd

1 Hammuda Idris (d. 1896) was another of the Baqqara notables, to whom the Khalifa 'Abdallahi increasingly committed the military commands. See Hill, Biographical Dictionary,
2 A British lieutenant seconded as a lieutenant-colonel to the Egyptian army. The title is originally Turkish, bin ba,ci, literally `head of a thousand'.
3 Another member of the great chiefly family of Abu Sinn.
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al-Halim replied, `By God! If you had come with us, you would have returned repudiating him, because of what you heard him say, and of what you saw of the deeds of his friends!' For it is said that the Khalifa of the Mahdi rebuked Walad al-Nujumi in these words: `Walad al-Nujumi, you are a thing of scorn. Those who were your companions have all achieved martyrdom; and you, how long will you live in terror of death?
When Walad-al-Nujumi returned to al-`Urdi the Khalifa took to sending men whom he called `commissioners' to report on the disagreements between him and Musa`id Qaydum,l until the matter ended by his sending Yunus al-Dikaym 2 as commander-in-chief over both of them. When Yunus reached al-`Urdi he read the order authorizing his appointment before a great gathering in the mosque-square after the noon prayers, and the order said that both Walad al-Nujumi and Musa`id were to be to Yunus `as a corpse in the hands of him who washes it'. 3 At the end of the reading what could Walad al-Nujumi do but come forward to Yunus, who was sitting by the mihrab,4 and lay before him his sword and spear; and they say that he drew his knife too, and put it with his other arms. Yunus al-Dikaym thanked him, saying, `God's blessings on you, Walad al-Nujumi. You are among the first followers of the Mahdi, and of the greatest of those who have led us to victory.' Then Musa'id Qaydum followed Walad al-Nujumi's example, and did as he had done.
From that time Walad al-Nujumi showed complete submission, and retired altogether from public affairs, and I used to see him leaving his house for prayers and returning to it quite alone. All this made Yunus respect him, but with Musa`id Qaydum it was different. One day during the Friday parade I heard Yunus call to him in his Baqqari brogue, `Hey, you, Musa'id! Get off that horse and give us a show of your own!' meaning that he was to do what only the vulgar do in a parade-dismount and run brandishing a spear, and run back without stopping. When Musa'id had dismounted and run a little way off, Yunus turned to those about him and said mockingly, `By God! I've shown the fellow up as the little slave he is!', and while Musa`id was running back to remount Yunus repeated the same sort of remark two or three times.
In Walad al-Nujumi's days the troops with fire-arms were under the command of his cousin Hasan; but when Yunus took over he dismissed him and put the unit in charge of one of his slaves, and let him do as he liked with it. He also dismissed all those whom Walad al-Nujumi had put in charge of tax-collection, and put his own slaves in their places in the richer districts, while in the others-such as al-Mahas and Sukkuthe appointed those who gave him large presents or did him some notable favour. When any of the old tax-collectors tried to avoid dismissal they were imprisoned or flogged, and some of them were given both punishments. Among these was a man called Muhammad Nur al-Kitayyabi, the tax-collector at al-Khandaq, who was condemned to Soo lashes. First he was flogged on his back and loins until they were raw and swollen, then turned over and flogged on his chest and stomach, and finally he was brought drooped over a donkey for examination as to what part of his body they could complete the flogging on, but none could be found. Then he said to them, `You've forgotten my tongue,' and put it out at them; and they completed the flogging on his head. Shaykh `Awad alKarim ibn `AIY was also flogged. (He used until recently to teach in the Religious College in Omdurman, and to this day he leads worshippers in the sunset prayer in al-Arba'in Street.) He was sentenced to Soo lashes because he wrote an anonymous protest to Yunus. At first the older dismissed tax-collectors were suspected because at that time Shaykh `Awad al-Karim's age was only twenty, or a little more; but when he saw that the others would be punished for his crime (as Yunus considered it), and especially the judge `Uthman `Abd al-Muttalib, who was suspected more than most, he gave himself up to Yunus and received his punishment--a very gallant and noble action.
In the days of Yunus's command famine 1 pressed hard upon us in Saras, so that some of our soldiers were deserting. So the leaders of the Danaqla came all together to `Abd al-Halim and talked of how to put an end to the famine, and said, `Let us attack Halfa, and he who dies, dies, and the living will be saved.' Then I saw Shaykh Idris Ahmad Hashim, mounted on a big, handsome horse, come forward and say, `Companions of the Mahdi, the aitch of hunger is yoked with the aitch of heaven,l the one to the other; and this is so in all parts of the Sudan, but especially here in the front line. If any man wishes to escape from hunger, let him throw away his Mahdist uniform and go to Halfa or the country in its rear, and escape from hunger in surrender.' This speech ended the debate, which had been held on horseback in the paradeground.
In the month of Ramadan i3o5 (May-June i888) Walad al-Nujumi sent us at Saras a large herd of she-camels which had been taken as booty from the tribe of Rufa'a Abu Ruf. They were divided among the flags and slaughtered, and the people ate of the meat for supper. Early next morning, when it was time for the sahurs I was not awake, but my wife and my relations and all our neighbours told me that they had seen a glow coming from the meat, so that you could see each mouthful in the mouth of the eater, as well as if it had been daylight. What was the cause, do you suppose, of this strange phenomenon, and how would science explain it? As for our explanation of it at the time, we were sure it was a sign of grace from Heaven, just as we thought of the glow which shone from our spearheads at night, and the fire which consumed the bodies of those we had slain.

1 This was the great 'famine of the Year Six', i.e. t3o6f t888-9, the effects of which are graphically described in F. R. Wingate, Ten Years' Captivity in the Mahdi's Camp 18821892, London, 1892, z8¢-9z; and R. C. Slatin, Fire and Sword in the Sudan, London, 1896, 4Sz-7•
1 The appointment of commissioners to investigate disputes between provincial commanders was a frequent practice of the Khalifa.
z Yunus al-Dikaym (d. ty36), a cousin of the Khalifa `Abdallahi was one of the leading Baqqara commanders. His appointment to the command of the expedition against Egypt marked a further stage in the demotion of al-Nujumi. He long survived the downfall of the Mahdist state, and died in Omdurtnan in great old age. See Hill, Biographical Dictionary, 385
3 The phrase (a Sofi cliche) is of common occurrence in the correspondence of the Khalifa `Abdallahi.
4 The niche or mark in the mosque wall or boundary, indicating the direction of Mecca, and hence the orientation of prayer.[/align]



Suad Badri غير متصل   رد مع اقتباس
قديم 23-01-2009, 04:53 PM   #[51]
Suad Badri
:: كــاتب جديـــد ::
 
افتراضي Happy New Year

[align=left]Dear All
Happy New Year
I was so lucky to meet Khalid Al7aj at the new year's mini gala at Gasim Badri's home, we had such a good time. He promised to visit me at Ahfad so I'd pass on to him a copy of the Memoirs, but he never showed up, nor called, which I find very odd, coming to know what a nice guy he is.
I guess I'll have to go back to the tedious job of scanning to be fair to those following this post, I have a new laptop with no Arabic and I need o install the scanner program and all, so please execuse the delay[/align]



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