Jihads and Crusades in Sudan From 1881 to the Present
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mahdi revolt
colonial crusades
British policy
decolonization
fanaticism
European History
Islamic World and Near East History
Near Eastern Languages and Societies
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This chapter grapples with several difficult questions that arise from the history of conquest, revolution, and colonial rule in Sudan. To what extent was the Mahdist jihad anti-Christian at its inception; to what extent did the jihad reflect, instead, a battle among Muslims over the nature of Islamic government and society? How did Muslim religious sensibilities influence popular responses to British colonialism after 1898? To what extent did jihadist discourses persist among Sudanese Muslims, both in the Anglo-Egyptian period and in the decades following decolonization? Reciprocally, to what extent were British policies anti-Muslim? How did British fears of Muslim “fanaticism” influence colonial policies on education, administration, and public health, and did these policies amount to a series of “colonial crusades”?