Sudan's Largest City Across the Nile — the Mahdi's capital and tomb, West Africa's biggest camel market, and the Friday evening Sufi whirling dervish ceremony that attracts pilgrims and travellers from across the Islamic world
Omdurman is Sudan's largest city by population — lying directly across the White Nile from Khartoum, the two cities forming the greater Khartoum metropolis. Omdurman was built by the Mahdi (Muhammad Ahmad) as the capital of his Islamic state after his forces captured and destroyed the original Khartoum in 1885. The Mahdi's tomb (Kubba al-Mahdi) and the adjacent mosque remain the central religious site of Sudanese Mahdism — the Islamic revivalist movement that briefly controlled most of modern Sudan. At the Tomb of the Mahdi, every Friday evening, Sufi brotherhoods (particularly the Qadiriyya…
Omdurman was founded in 1884 as the base camp of the Mahdist movement led by Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi, who declared himself the Expected Mahdi (divinely guided redeemer of Islam) in 1881 and launched a successful uprising against Ottoman-Egyptian rule. After the fall of Khartoum and the death of General Gordon in 1885, Omdurman became the Mahdist capital, growing rapidly to a population of 150,000 by 1898. At the Battle of Omdurman on September 2, 1898, General Herbert Kitchener's 25,000-strong Anglo-Egyptian force defeated 50,000 Mahdist fighters in five hours, killing approximately 11,000 Ma…