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    The First Jihad: Khartoum, and the Dawn of Militant Islam
    Unavailable
    The First Jihad: Khartoum, and the Dawn of Militant Islam
    Unavailable
    The First Jihad: Khartoum, and the Dawn of Militant Islam
    Ebook342 pages6 hours

    The First Jihad: Khartoum, and the Dawn of Militant Islam

    By Daniel Allen Butler

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Before there was Osama bin Laden, Abu al-Zarqawi or Ayatollah Khomeini, there was the Mahdi—the “Expected One”—who raised the Arabs in pan-tribal revolt against infidels and apostates in the late 19th-century Sudan.

    Born on the Nile in 1844, Muhammed Ahmed grew into a devout, charismatic young man, whose visage was said to have always featured the placid hint of a smile. He developed a ferocious resentment, however, against the corrupt Ottoman Turks, their Egyptian lackeys, and finally the Europeans who he felt held the Arab people in subjugation. In 1880, he raised the banner of holy war, and thousands of warriors flocked to his side.

    The Egyptians dispatched a punitive expedition to the Sudan, but the Mahdist forces destroyed it. In 1883, Col. William Hicks gathered a larger army of nearly 10,000 men. Trapped by the tribesmen in a defile at El Obeid, it was massacred to a man. Three months later, another British-led force met disaster at El Teb.

    Prime Minister William Gladstone ordered a withdrawal from Sudan, and dispatched one of Victoria’s most celebrated heroes, General Charles “Chinese” Gordon, to effect the evacuation. Instead, Gordon was besieged by the Mahdi at Khartoum. In an epic contest pitting military innovation and discipline against religious fervor, the Mahdi and Gordon dueled throughout 1884, while the British government hesitated to send relief.

    On January 26, 1885 a treacherous native (or patriot, depending on one’s point of view) let the Mahdist forces into the city of Khartoum. Gordon, realizing that the end was at hand, donned a white uniform, took up his sword, and walked out upon his palace steps. He was hacked to death by jihadists and his head was carried around the city on a pole. A British relief column arrived two days later.

    The Mahdi died shortly afterward, yet his revolt had succeeded. The British vacated the territory for almost 15 years until in 1899, led by Herbert Kitchner, they returned to forestall encroachments by other European powers. The Mahdist forces were crushed at the Battle of Omdurman, and the great jihad temporarily dissolved into the desert, not to be renewed for another century.

    In today’s world the Mahdi’s words have been repeated almost verbatim by the Muslim jihadists who have attacked New York, Washington, Madrid and London, and continue to wage war from the Hindu Kush to the Mediterranean. Along with Saladin, who once defeated a holy war, the Mahdi stands as an Islamic icon who once launched his own successful crusade against the West.

    This deeply researched work reminds us that the “clash of civilizations” that supposedly came upon us in September 2001 in fact began much earlier. This book is essential reading for all those who seek to understand the roots of our current relationship with Islam.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCasemate
    Release dateApr 29, 2007
    ISBN9781935149613
    Unavailable
    The First Jihad: Khartoum, and the Dawn of Militant Islam
    Author

    Daniel Allen Butler

    Daniel Allen Butler, a maritime and military historian, is the bestselling author of “Unsinkable”: The Full Story of RMS Titanic, Distant Victory: The Battle of Jutland and the Allied Triumph in the First World War, and The First Jihad: The Battle for Khartoum and the Dawn of Militant Islam. He is an internationally recognized authority on maritime subjects. Butler lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Daniel Allen Butler was educated at Hope College, Grand Valley State University, and the University of Erlangen.

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    Reviews for The First Jihad

    3.5/5

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    • 5/5
      An excellent and engaging narrative of a part of history which is obscure for many Americans but critical for understanding modern struggles. The central figures are three-dimensional and well-researched, presented with all their character and foibles. Well worth the time.
    • 3/5
      A little bit too much speculation on the mental state of the participants, and not quite enough actual data in this book about the Mahdist “uprising” in the Sudan and the siege of Khartoum, Author Daniel Allen Butler, a retired US intelligence officer, notes that he began the book before 9/11, not in response to it, and that while he originally intended to tell the story from General Gordon’s point of view, he quickly became fascinated by the Mahdi. Well and good, but it doesn’t come across quite like that.
      The introductory chapters set the tone for the rest of the book. Butler discuses the founding of Islam by saying
      “In what is now Saudi Arabia, in a cave outside the city of Mecca, a 39-year old trader named Muhammad is said to have had a life-changing religious experience. Just why he was in the cave in the first place, and how long he stayed there, is unknown, but when he emerged he claimed to have had a visitation from the angel Gabriel.”
      Why is it necessary or desirable to have the qualification “is said to have had a life changing religious experience” or ask “why he was in the cave in he first place, and how long he stayed there”? Butler goes on to describe “Allah” as a “Moslem” [sic] word meaning “the one true God”, when it’s actually an Arabic word that just means “God” – if you were a Christian Arab you would use “Allah” in the same contexts an English-speaker would use “God”. After working his way through the history of Islam, the Crusades, and so on, Butler eventually gets to the life of Muhammad Ahmad:
      “Gone was the thoughtful, introspective scholar of the early days on the island of Abba; in his place was the religious dogmatic whose every pronouncement is inspired by Allah and infallible.”
      How does Butler know this? Based on his bibliography, it doesn’t appear that he knows Arabic; all the books are English or English translations of Arabic. This seems to be pretty tenuous material for judging the Mahdi’s philosophical state.
      The descriptions of the Sudan campaigns up to the siege of Khartoum are fairly interesting; but once Gordon comes on scene there is again quite a bit of hypothetical material on Gordon and the Mahdi’s plans and thoughts. The description of the fall of Khartoum, while dramatic, seems completely invented –
      “For a while he [Gordon] was able to hold them [the Mahdi’s troops] off with a Maxim gun mounted there [on the roof of the governor’s palace] but eventually the crowd got so close to the building he couldn’t depress the muzzle sufficiently to fire on them.”
      One wonders exactly how this information on Gordon’s actions turned up, and how a Maxim gun, not publicly demonstrated until several months later, managed to show up in the back end of nowhere in January 1885.
      There’s no shortage of English-language material for the 1899 battle of Omdurman, and Butler provides a vivid description; alas, the battle was quite complicated and it’s difficult to follow. Why couldn’t a military intelligence officer come up with a decent map?
      About the best I can say is Butler knows how to write stirring battle stories, but for a more even handed book I’d look elsewhere.