Dā’irat al-Mahdī : money, faith and politics in Sudan

Nicoll, Fergus

Abstract

The story of the Dā’irat al-Mahdī – al-Mahdī Inc. – is one of a triangle of power: religion, politics and money. Its evolution during the turbulent early 20th century was affected by what had happened before, not least the Mahdist wars of recent memory, and the impact of its enormous growth and political influence in the period before Sudan’s independence in 1956 is still felt today. The Dā’irat alMahdī was the first agricultural company in Sudan whose management, administrative staff and workforce were exclusively Sudanese – and it grew beyond cotton growing to embrace industrial production, livestock, a substantial property portfolio and newspaper ownership. But above all, the legacy of the Dā’ira was social and political: as al-Ṣiddīq ʿAbd-al-Raḥman Azraq has written, ‘what distinguished the Dā’irat al-Mahdī … was the nature of the circumstances that had led to its establishment’ and its role during the ‘evolution of the first political pluralism in the country … [as] the financier for the activities of the Anṣār and the Umma Party’.

Citation

Nicoll, F. (2013). Dā’irat al-Mahdī : money, faith and politics in Sudan

• Working Paper Type: Discussion Paper
• Publication Date: 2013
• Deposit Date: Aug 16, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 16, 2016
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1699794
• Publisher URL: http://www.dur.ac.uk/sgia/imeis/lucefund/