Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah (
Arabic: محمد أحمد ابن عبد الله; August 12, 1844 – June 22, 1885) was a religious leader of the Samaniyya order in
Sudan who, on June 29, 1881, proclaimed himself the
Mahdi (or Madhi), the messianic redeemer of the
Islamic faith. His proclamation came during a period of widespread resentment among the Sudanese population of the oppressive policies of the Turco-Egyptian rulers, and capitalized on the messianic beliefs popular among the various Sudanese religious sects of the time. More broadly, the Mahdiyya, as Muhammad Ahmad's movement was called, was influenced by earlier Mahdist movements in West Africa, as well as
Wahhabism and other puritanical forms of Islamic revivalism that developed in reaction to the growing military and economic dominance of the European powers throughout the 19th century.