Patrícia Teixeira Santos e Suresh Kumar: “Faith, War and Slavery: a history of colonial conquest of Sudan”

Religion has played an important role in the social awakening in building approach against slavery and other evils in Sudan. Muhammad Ahmad Ibn commonly known as" Mahdi" and had led the religious movement with the purpose of social reform, challenging Turco-Egyptian regime and aware the society about British colonizers.

The book has referred to published texts, missionary newspapers, manuscripts, oral sources, documentation of European military and merchants, documents produced by Muslims in Sudan, reference works, the colonial reports, catholic church documents, memoirs of the missionaries during prison and experiences of Institute for the Missions of Nigrizia in explaining the Mahdist period, catholic missionaries activities and establishment of Christianity in southern Sudan.

These sources explain the establishment of Christian associations from 1840s onwards in Sudan and received a unique status. The European trade activities had interacted with different institutions of Mahdi ya that helped in building infrastructure in the Mahdi state. The British trade and missionaries' activities connected the local people socially and culturally that produced social congeniality in Mehdi state. This congeniality in the society engage the Christian activities with local people that persuaded them to adopt Christianity as religious fabric in society.

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Professor Suresh Kumar
Department of African Studies
University of Delhi, India