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Sayyid Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, KBE ((アラビア語:عبد الرحمن المهدي)) (1885 – 1959) was one of the leading religious and political figures during the colonial era in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1898–1955), and continued to exert great authority as leader of the Neo-Mahdists after Sudan became independent. The British tried to exploit his influence over the Sudanese people while at the same time profoundly distrusting his motives. Throughout most of the colonial era of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan the British saw Sayyid Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi as important as a moderate leader of the Mahdists. However, the British would not support him in his ambition to become King of Sudan when the country gained independence. Abd al-Rahman was the posthumous son of Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, who had proclaimed himself the Mahdi or messianic redeemer of the Islamic faith in 1881, and died in 1885 a few months after his forces had captured Khartoum. A joint British and Egyptian force recaptured Sudan in 1898. At first, the British severely restricted Abd al-Rahman's movement and activity. However, he soon emerged as the ''Sayyid'' (leader) of the Ansar religious sect, supporters of the Mahdist movement. Abd al-Rahman helped the British to retain Sudanese support during the First World War, when they were opposed to the Turkish Empire, despite his being a Muslim leader. He lent his support again during a crisis in 1924 when there were anti-British riots in Egypt and the British Governor-General of the Sudan was assassinated. Meanwhile he grew wealthy from cotton production, for which his supporters provided labor, and influential among the intelligentsia. The British administration distrusted him. When Governor General Sir Geoffrey Archer paid a formal and friendly visit to Abd al-Rahman in March 1926, Archer was dismissed and Abd al-Rahman was placed under travel restriction. In the 1930s Abd al-Rahman spoke out against a treaty between Egypt and Britain that recognized Egyptian claims of sovereignty in Sudan, although no Sudanese had been consulted, travelling to London to make his case. His Ansar followers became an influential faction in the General Congress established in 1938, and in the successor Advisory Council set up in 1944. Abd al-Rahman was patron of the nationalist Ummah (Nation) political Party in the period before and just after Sudan became independent in 1956. In 1958 the Umma party won the most seats in the first parliamentary elections after independence. In November 1958 the army staged a coup, which Abd al-Rahman supported. He died shortly afterwards. ==Background== Since antiquity Egypt has straddled the trade route between the Mediterranean and Arabia, India and countries to the east. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 it gained huge strategic importance. In 1882 the British took effective control of Egypt in the Anglo-Egyptian War. Northern and central Sudan had been nominally under Egyptian suzerainty since an Ottoman force had conquered and occupied the region in 1821. The primary motive was not territorial conquest but to secure a source of slaves to serve in the Egyptian army. The slaves, paid in lieu of taxes, were brought from the formerly inaccessible regions of south Sudan. When the British explorer Samuel Baker visited Khartoum in 1862, he found that everyone in the town was involved in the slave trade, including the Governor-General. The Egyptian and Nubian garrison lived on the land like an army of occupation. Bribery was the only way to get anything done. Torture and floggings were routine in the prisons. Baker said of Khartoum "a more miserable and unhealthy place can hardly be imagined". He described the Governor General Musa Pasha as combining "the worst of Oriental failings with the brutality of a wild animal". In the 1870s, a Muslim cleric named Muhammad Ahmad began to preach renewal of the faith and liberation of Sudan from the Egyptians. In 1881 he proclaimed himself the Mahdi, the promised redeemer of the Islamic world. The Mahdi's followers were named "''Ansar''", or helpers, the name that was given to the citizens of Medina who helped the Prophet Muhammed. The religious and political revolt gathered momentum, with the Egyptians steadily losing ground and the British showing little enthusiasm for a costly engagement in this remote region. By the end of 1883 the Ansar army had wiped out three Egyptian armies. A force under General William Hicks was sent to suppress the revolt but was destroyed. When the governor of Darfur, Slatin Pasha, surrendered to the Mahdi almost all of the west of Sudan had come under his control. Major-General Charles George Gordon was given the job of evacuating the Egyptian garrison from Khartoum. He arrived on 18 February 1884. Gordon was reluctant to abandon the population of Khartoum to the forces of the Mahdi, and also felt that by evacuating the city he would open the way for the Mahdi to threaten Egypt. He bombarded the authorities in Cairo with telegrams suggesting alternative courses, and delayed starting the evacuation. On 13 March 1884 the tribes north of Khartoum declared for the Mahdi, cutting the telegraph and blocking river traffic. Khartoum was besieged, falling on 25 January 1885 after a siege of 313 days. A relief column arrived two days after the city had fallen and Gordon had been killed. Despite a short-lived public outcry in Britain over Gordon's death, Britain took no further action in Sudan for several years. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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