Mahdist manuscripts and lithographs in the Sudan Archive

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Introduction

	Muḥammad Ahmad ibn al-Sayyid `Abd Allāh, al-Mahdī		`Abd Allahi ibn Muḥammad, al-Khalifa (or `Abd Allahi al-Taashi)
	Arrangement
	Bibliography

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Catalogue

• 1. Qur`ān (fragments)
• 2. Proclamations and Admonitions
• Offical collections of Proclamations (manshurāt) and Admonitions (indhārāt)
• 3. Audiences (majālis) of the Mahdī
• 4. The Book of Devotion (al-Ratib) of the Mahdī
• 5. Religious Instructions (fatwā)
• 6. Correspondence
• 7. Letter Books
• 8. Other Publications

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Muḥammad Ahmad ibn al-Sayyid `Abd Allāh, al-Mahdī

(1848-1885)

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`Abd Allahi ibn Muḥammad, al-Khalifa (or `Abd Allahi al-Taashi)

(c.1846-1899)

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This collection contains manuscripts and lithographs produced or collected by the Mahdist administrations under Muḥammad Ahmad ibn al-Sayyid `Abd Allāh, al-Mahdī, and his successor or Khalifa `Abd Allahi ibn Muḥammad, and then captured by Anglo-Egyptian forces during the Nile Campaigns, following the capture of Omdurman and Khartoum in 1898 and after the final defeat of Mahdist forces at Umm Dibaykarāt in 1899. Those documents which were taken into its possession by the new administration in 1898 are today held in the Sudan National Records Office in Khartoum. Many other documents were taken into private possession by individuals directly associated with the military campaigns or obtained by individual government officials later.
Durham University Library's collection of Mahdist manuscripts and lithographs represents the largest collection of Mahdist documentary material held outside of Sudan itself. The bulk of this collection formed part of the personal papers of former Governor-General F.R. Wingate. Additional Mahdist documents included in this catalogue originated from donations of papers collected by R.C. von Slatin (1857-1932), J.B. Christopherson (1868-1955), and C.A. Willis (1881-1975). An additional item was presented by the Trustees of the British Museum, and finally one item formed part of a records exchange with the Sudan National Records Office.
In an attempt to make items' provenance explicit the collection of which it forms a part is stated in each catalogue record. All items described in this catalogue are also separately described in the catalogues of those collections of which they form a part; counterpart catalogue descriptions are identical.
The Sudan Archive also holds some microfilm copies of Mahdist manuscripts held at the Sudan National Records Office and elsewhere.

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Accession details

F.R. Wingate's collection of Mahdist manuscripts were sold at auction after his death. Following a public appeal Durham University purchased two groups of these papers in subsequent auctions in 1960 and 1961. Additional Mahdist documents included in this catalogue originated from donations of papers collected by R.C. von Slatin (1857-1932), J.B. Christopherson (1868-1955), and C.A. Willis (1881-1975). Additionally, in 1960 the Trustees of the British Museum presented an A.H. 1342 [1923/1924] edition of the Ratib (or Book of Devotion) of the Mahdī, and in the following year a letter book was exchanged with one held by the Sudan National Records Office. Both these two items now form part of the Miscellaneous Small Donations in the Sudan Archive collection.
The Sudan Archive formerly published a “Catalogue of Arabic manuscripts and lithographs in the Sudan Archive” and which has been superseded by this current catalogue and withdrawn from publication. This Arabic manuscripts catalogue contained all the items listed in this “Catalogue of Mahdist manuscripts and lithographs in the Sudan Archive”; additionally, it included an increasingly incomplete group of other Arabic manuscripts in the Sudan Archive dating up to the 1940s. Items in the “Catalogue of Arabic manuscripts and lithographs in the Sudan Archive” were each assigned a number prefixed “H.” and “H. Add.” (Additional series), in addition to their “SAD.” references. These “H.” numbers are all noted in this catalogue and in all other Sudan Archive catalogues as former reference numbers. For reference purposes this superseded catalogue is made available here but is suppressed from other means of online research discovery.

Arrangement

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Bibliography

Brockelmann, C. (1937) Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur : supplementband. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Abū Salīm, M.I. (ed. and annot.) (1963-1964), Manshūrāt al-Imām al-Mahdī, 4 vols. Khartoum: Idārat al-Maḥfūẓat al-Markazīyah, Wizārat al-Dākhilīyah [Central Archives Administration, Ministry of the Interior].
Abū Salīm, M.I. (ed. and annot.) (1969), Manshūrāt al-Mahdiyya. Khartoum: Maṭbaʿat Jāmiʿat al-Kharṭūm [Khartoum University Press].
Badrī, B. (1969, 1980), The Memoirs of Babikr Bedri, 2 vols. Translated by Yousef Bedrī and George Scott (vol. 1), and by Yousef Bedrī and Peter Hogg (vol. 2). London: Oxford University Press and Ithaca Press.
Abū Salīm, M.I. (ed.) (1972), Saʿādat al-mustahdī bi-sīrat al-imām al-Mahdī, by Ismāʿīl ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Kurdufānī, Beirut: Dār al-jīl.
Shaked, H. (1978), The Life of the Sudanese Mahdi: a historical study of 'Kitab saʿadat al-mustahdi bi-sirat al-Imam al-Mahdi' (The Book of the Bliss of him who Seeks Guidance by the Life of the Imam the Mahdi) by Ismaʿil b. ʿAbd al-Qadir. New Brunswick: Transaction Books.
Abū Salīm, M.I. and J.L. Spaulding (eds) (1989), Public Documents from Sinnār. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
Abū Salīm, M.I. (ed. and annot.) (1990-1992), al-āthār al-kāmila li-l-imām al-Mahdī, 7 vols. Khartoum: Dār Jāmiʻat al-Kharṭūm lil-Nashr, Jāmiʻat al-Kharṭūm [Khartoum University Press].
Abū Shūk, A.I. and A.J. Bjørkelo (eds) (1996), The Public Treasury of the Muslims: monthly budgets of the Mahdist state in the Sudan, 1897. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Abū Salīm, M.I. (ed.) (1998), Mudhakkirāt ʿUthmān Diqna. Khartoum: Dār al-balad li-l-ṭibāʿa wa-l-nashr wa-l-tawzīʿ.
Abū Salīm, M.I. (ed.) (2004), Muḥarrarāt ʿUthmān Diqna. Khartoum: Markaz Abū Salīm li-l-dirāsāt.
Abū Shūk, A.I. (ed.) (2017), Mudhakkirāt Yūsuf Mīkhāʾīl: al-Turkiyya wa-l-Mahdiyya wa-lḥukm al-thunāʾī fī al-Sūdān. Khartoum: Markaz ʿAbd al-Karīm Mīrghānī al-thaqāfī.

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Catalogue

1. Qur`ān (fragments)
2. Proclamations and Admonitions
3. Audiences (majālis) of the Mahdī As the Caliph Abu Bakr called the young Muslim community to write down the spoken words of the Prophet so the Khalifa `Abd Allahi called the Mahdist community to read the still unwritten public utterances of the Mahdī. Item SAD.97/5/46-207 (H. 266) is the earliest known example of the response. The complier was for some time qadi of al-Qadarif.

4. The Book of Devotion (al-Ratib) of the Mahdī Shaykh `Abdullahi Ahmad Abu Jalaha ( Sudan Notes and Records, Khartoum, xxi, 1938, p. 90) recounted a saying attributed to the Mahdī that the Prophet revealed the Ratib to him immediately after the battle of Shaykan (3-5 November 1883). Others attribute its origin to 1881-1882. In 1302 A.H. [1884/1885] the Mahdī made, or caused to be made, and corrected, a master copy in manuscript which he deposited with his head scribe al-Muddaththir Ibrahim al-Hajjaz. There were three impressions lithographed in Khartoum and Omdurman: the first impression, transcribed by `Abd al-Karim al-Kinani and corrected in lithograph by Mahdī himself, is no. 274a. All copies of the second impression, which was done in Shawwāl 1304 H. [July 1886] are believed to have been lost. The third impression is no. 274b. Items nos. 274a and 274b are said to be the only surviving copies.

5. Religious Instructions (fatwā)
6. Correspondence
7. Letter Books
8. Other Publications