Abdallahi ibn Muhammad al-Khalifa (1846-25 November 1899) was ruler of the Mahdist State from 1885 to 1899, succeeding Muhammad Ahmad.
Biography[]
Abdallahi ibn Muhammad was born in Darfur, Egypt Eyalet in 1846, and he belonged to the Baggara tribe of Arabs. He became a followed of the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad in 1880 and was named Caliph in 1881, becoming Muhammad Ahmad's second-in-command. Abdullah was given command of a large Mahdist army and led it to a series of victories over the British and Egyptians, and he fought at the Battle of Shaykan and the siege of Khartoum. After the Mahdi's death in 1885, Abdallahi succeeded him as "Khalifat al-Mahdi", or "successor of the Mahdi". He deserted Khartoum and moved the capital to Omdurman, and he invaded Ethiopia in 1887 and sacked Gondar; in 1889, he killed Emperor Yohannes IV at the Battle of Metemma. In 1896, the British general Herbert Kitchener was sent to crush the Mahdists, taking Dongola that September. The Khalifa was decisively defeated at the 1898 Battle of Omdurman and killed at the Battle of Umm Diwaykarat in November.