The Nuttall Encyclopedia

1. Mahdi, Mohammed Ahmed

   a Mohammedan fanatic, born in Dongola, and who, at the head of an army of dervishes, raised his standard for the revival of Islam in the Soudan; he was unsuccessfully opposed by the Egyptians, and Khartoum, occupied by them, fell into his hands, to the sacrifice of General Gordon, just as the British relief army under Lord Wolseley approached its walls in 1885, a few months after which he died at Omdurman.