The intentions of Mohammed Achmet, as set forth in various proclamations, were as follows:
He taught universal law and religion, and community of goods. All who opposed his mission were to be destroyed, whether Christian, Mohammedan, or Pagan.
General Gordon gave his view of the Mahdi to the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, in London, on January 8th, 1884, saying: "I strongly suspect that he (the Mahdi) is a mere puppet put forward by Elyas, Zubair's father-in-law, and the largest slave-owner in Obeid, and that he has assumed a religious title to give color to the defence of the popular rights." Probably the suppression of the slave-trade had much to do with the insurrection, as most of the supporters of the Mahdi, more especially the Baggara tribes, owe all their wealth to the traffic in slaves, which the Egyptian government has for many years been taking measures to suppress or greatly curtail.
The Soudan rebellion was an echo of the revolt of Arabi Pasha in Lower Egypt. Arabi Pasha was the leader of the national party, which protested against the control of Egypt by foreigners, the exemption of foreigners living in Egypt from taxation, the diversion of the revenues of the country to the foreign creditors of Egypt while the officers of the army and other public servants remained unpaid, the employment of foreigners in public places when the same work could be done by Egyptians at one fifth the cost, and the general tyranny and oppression of the Turkish rulers of the country. The movement of the Mahdi began in the same way as that of Arabi, and, though it soon assumed a religious aspect, it was practically political at the start. The misrule of the Egyptians had made an
