Chapter 5 examines Ottoman ideological reactions to Sudanese Mahdism, discussing how the movement differed from other Mahdi proclamations that the Ottomans only saw as uprisings and responded to them merely as political challenges. I argue that the printing press, which fell into the hands of Mahdists who looted it from the Ottoman–Egyptian government in Khartoum, saved the Mahdi rebellion from just being an uprising and allowed it to survive through the ideas of the self-proclaimed Mahdi after his death. The letters, sermons and creeds of the Mahdi were printed and disseminated quickly to distant lands. Also, the Ottoman ideological reaction was voiced through the printing press in the form of pamphlets declaring the illegitimacy of the Mahdi’s claims. Regarding the globalization of the Mahdi movement, I examine telegraphed reports that spread Mahdist ideas as far abroad as America and India. Also, I claim that the telegraph made it possible for Ottoman rulers to learn about Mahdi claims in every corner of the empire, and they were recorded in the capital city. This created an “age of the Mahdis”, which is a reference to the numerous Mahdi proclamations in this period.

This chapter explores the influence of public opinion on official policy towards detention, by looking at the cases of two leaders removed in the 1880s from Egypt, which was neither a colony nor a protectorate, but was under de facto British control after the invasion of 1882. The first case involves Ahmed Urabi Pasha, the Egyptian nationalist leader whose removal from power was the aim of the invasion. Given that the invasion itself represented a political volte-face for Gladstone, and in view of the support Urabi had attracted from influential Britons, the British wanted to ensure that Urabi was seen to have a fair trial in an Egyptian court. They consequently used their influence to broker a settlement under which Urabi was expelled from Egypt, and lived in voluntary exile in Ceylon. By contrast, in the second case, that of the Sudanese leader and notorious slave trader Al-Zubayr Rahma Mansur, the Foreign Office and Colonial Office were content to hold him in detention under an ad hominem ordinance at Gibraltar, at the behest of the military. With no political supporters to defend his case in London, the British authorities had no qualms about detaining him without trial.