About Sudan
The three towns: Khartoum, North Khartoum and Omdurman
Khartoum is the capital of Sudan and the seat of government. The city of Khartoum is composed of three areas: Khartoum proper; North Khartoum, primarily an industrial area; and Omdurman, once the capital of the Mahdist government.
The following is from an article by C. E. J. Walkly: “The word “Khartoum” means ‘elephant’s trunk’ in the dialect which was spoken locally, the name of the town is probably derived from the narrow strip of land extending between the blue and White Niles, which is like the trunk of an elephant. Captain J. A. Grant who reached Khartoum in 1863 with Captain Speke’s expedition, though that the derivation was most probably from the safflower (Carthamus Tinctorius L.) Which is called ‘Gartoon’, and which was cultivated extensively in Egypt for its oil, used in burning. This explanation is ingenious but has no support”.
Excavations have revealed that Khartoum dates back to ancient pre-historic ages. Modern Khartoum is stated to have begun when sheikh Arabab al Agayed inhabited Khartoum in the 17th century. At that time large numbers of his disciples and followers began to gather around him, two of the most prominent being sheikh Hamad Wad Um Marioum and Sheikh Khogali. These two are reputed to have been the founders of Khartoum North.
By 1825, Khartoum has become the capital for the first time under the Turko-Egyptian rule. The Mahdi captured Khartoum in 1885, and moved the capital to Omdurman. When the Mahdi’s rule was brought to an end in 1898, Khartoum was once again made the capital. Lord Kitchener, the Governor General, became actively involved in its planning and besides building large ornate structures, he laid out the streets of Khartoum in the shape of the British flag.
According to writer, H. C. Jackson, the origin of the word ‘Omdurman’ is not known for certain. Some say it was called after two small hills (durman) in the neighborhood, and the village was known as the “mother of the two small hills.” Others prefer the story that the place was named after the mother of a man called ‘Durman’, who came from the west many years ago. He is reputed to have made a fortune, and his mother, an enterprising woman, is said to have started a ferry service between Omdurman, the island of Tutti, the settlements of Halfaya and what was later known as Khartoum. Visitors to these places when asked how they had crossed the river and would reply that they had been brought by “UmmDurman” (the mother of Durman).
When Omdurman was the Capital
The following was written for this booklet by Prof. Ken Perkins, Fulbright Scholar in Khartoum, in 1983.
Since the 1820's, the Sudan has been a part of Egypt, whose rules had extended their way over the region in quest of slaves for their army and a share of the material wealth of Sudan, particularly the ivory trade. Egyptian rule has been oppressive, sapping the human and natural resources of Sudan, but providing no benefits in return. That the Egyptians were like the northern Sudanese, Muslims, made the situation ever more unpalatable to the Sudanese. These were the circumstances which prompted Mohamed Ahmad to launch a rebellion against the Egyptian in 1881.
The uprising was, however, more than a protest against harsh overlordship, for Mohamed Ahmad took for himself the title of “Mahdi”, a word deeply steeped in Islamic religious tradition and signifying “the rightly guided one”, or an individual who was to restore the proper, just tone to the Islamic community. The word also had strong eschatological overtones, in that the Mahdi’s work of purification was to pave the way for the millennium.
That Mahdi’s basic assertion was that the Egyptian government in Sudan was an un-Islamic one. A true Islamic government would not react Muslims with the contempt and injustice the Egyptians showed towards the Sudanese, nor would it send Christian governors to rule over Muslims, as the Egyptians had done by hiring European adventurers to administer the Sudanese provinces. Finally, the Sudanese resented Egypt’s efforts to break the slave trade in the country. While urging good treatment of slaves, Islam did not ban the institution. Thus, this Egyptian policy seemed to have no place in an Islamic context. More to the point, the crack down on slaving hurt many Sudanese who were involved in the trade economically, adding a highly material motive to their opposition to Egypt. All of these conditions had, of course, existed prior to 1881. In that year, however, Egypt was being harried by European creditors who were on the verge of taking control of its government. These difficulties in Cairo prevented the Egyptian government from paying as much attention to the developing crisis in the Sudan as it should have.
To stress the religious nature of his movement, Mohamed Ahmed consciously styled his adherents on the associates of the Prophet Mohamed, calling them “ansar” or helpers, just as Mohamed had. He also undertook a “hijra” from his original base on Aba Island in the White Nile to Kordofan Province, as Mohamed had migrated with his followers from Mecca to Medina.
Several Egyptian garrisons, most notably that of El Obeid in Kordofan, fell to the Mahdi’s forces. Realizing the magnitude of the Sudanese problem at last, an Egyptian army under the command of British General Hicks was dispatched to put an end to the Mahdist uprising, but was virtually annihilated by Mohamed Ahmed’s forces in 1883, at Shaykan, in Kordofan.
The Hicks debacle led Britain, which had by this time assumed de facto control over Egypt, to demand the withdrawal of the Egyptian forces remaining in Sudan. General Charles Gordon, who had earlier been a governor of one of Sudan’s southern regions, was chosen to execute this task. When Gordon arrived in Khartoum, he realized he could not fulfill his mission without sustaining substantial losses. He was also convinced that the Sudanese people should not be left in the hands of the Mahdi. Thus he remained in Khartoum which soon came under siege by the Mahdists. Gordon’s requests for help were neglected by a British government which did not want to involve itself directly in the Sudan question. Finally, however, in the face of mounting popular pressure, a relief expedition was organized to proceed up the Nile from Egypt. The siege of Khartoum was strengthened, however, and the city fell, and Gordon was killed in the Governor’s Palace in January 1885. The relief forces arrived two days later and, realizing that the Mahdists had triumphed, turned back to Egypt.
The Mahdi did not live long to savor his victory, for by the end of 1885, he, too, was dead, of natural causes. Before his demise, he had begun the process of dismantling Khartoum and moving the Sudan’s center of political gravity across the river to Omdurman. This was to be his capital, with none of associations of the hated Egyptian regime, which Khartoum bore. Abdallahi’s accession to leadership was peaceful, and for the next decade he ruled the country from his headquarters in Omdurman adjacent to the tomb erected for the Mahdi. The Khalifa’s rule was, in some ways, as harsh as the Egyptians, but the 1880's and 1890's saw the gradual growth of a centralized government and a functional bureaucracy. There were also efforts, none very successful, to extend the perimeters of the state - something of a requirement for a militant Islamic government such as the Khalifa’s. (Khalifa means “successor”). The downfall of the Khalifa and the collapse of the Mahdiyya (usually called the Reconquest in Western sources), was stimulated more by events outside the Sudan than within it. By the mid-1890's, Italy, beginning her colonial venture in Abyssinia, had suffered a serious defeat at the hands of the Abyssinians at the Battle of Adowa. The British feared the possibility of a linkage between the victorious Abyssinians and the Khalifa’s forces, which would further diminish all European influence in this part of Africa. Moreover, Britain rivals in the exploration and exploitation of Africa, especially France and Belgium, were showing increased interest in the Upper Nile. Britain felt that it had to control the sources of the Nile, because of the river’s enormous importance to Egypt’s developing agriculture, now under British control. This she could not effectively do with the Khalifa between Egypt and the sources of the Nile.
Thus in 1895, the Anglo-Egyptian Army began the slow re-conquest of Sudan. Advancing up the Nile, and laying a railway behind them as they did so, Dongola was taken in 1896. Under the command of the British General Kitchener, the advance continued. A railway was constructed across the desert, cutting the great bend of the Nile and bringing British forces to Berber. In the spring of 1898, a major defeat was inflicted on the Khalifa’s army at the Battle of Atbara. The advance continued relentlessly, culminating in the Battle of Kerari (the Battle of Omdurman) in September 1898. With minimal losses to the Anglo-Egyptian troops, the Khalifa’s army was for all intensive purposes, wiped out and Omdurman captured. The Khalifa and some of his followers managed to escape, eluding the British for almost a year, until the Battle of Umm Diwaykirat, fought near Kosti, which resulted in the Khalifa’s death. After Kerari, however, the Mahdist state had collapsed.
Kitchener restored Khartoum as the capital and, from 1899 until 1956 Sudan was jointly governed by Great Britain and Egypt, at least in theory. In practice, it was Great Britain who ruled Sudan, relegating Egyptians to second positions in the government, despite the Condominium Agreement fixing a shared rule.
