A FORGOTTEN MAHDI.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4090, 30 August 1884, Page 6 (Supplement)

A FORGOTTEN MAHDI.

There promises before long to be a complete literature on the subject of Mahdis, arid M, ; .Gagniere, the historian-, is • reconstructing for ; his part the history of ia -forgotten; Mahdi from; the town..archives, of

Turin and the pretender's own -family papers. The story of the renegade "Sheikh' Ogari-Oplo is : -hardly more interesting from: the: liglit which it throws »on the credulous enthusiasm of "Mahommedanism Ithan as

illustrating the importance ,of ■ unreasoning, fanaticism as a political .force. In .th c year I_Bs, at the j beginning of; the ; sacred : month Ramadan, an unknown pilgrim .appeared in a remotO f yillage ,of r -Kurdistan,,wearing' the turban of the Propljet?s house, j- From his conimanding stature, his asceticism, and his impenetrable.reservo,. he,, soon (became .the object of superstitious reverence among the* villagers. Not till the,end. of the month

did he break silence, and then ■ho suddonly proclaimed himself in tho bazaar ,to be a Mahdi sent from heaven, and pronounced the doom of unbelievers on all who disobeyed him. He- announced himself to bo the rogenerator of Islam, and tho appointed deposer of a Falso Caliph, while ho formulated his reforms .in twenty-four articlos. The whole district followed him, and the first feeble resistance of a Turkish oificial;was at once suppressed. From Kurdistan, with an army continually swollen with new converts, the Mahdi drew westwards into Asia Minor."' The garrison of Erzeroum at-, tempted a defence, but ,'the populace was already caught with the fever of the new gospol. The walls were stormed and the defenders put to the sword. Other towns threw open their gales or shared the same falo, and befoic two years the Mahdi was almost within sight or Smyrna, Seriously alarmed, the Porte, which had at first attempted halfI .;

hearted measures, now despatched env oyafter envoy to treat. The first was cut down in the Prophot'spresence for questioning bis mission. A fourth was more successful. What were the arguments which prevailed is not on record, but perhaps the; Mahdi's future career sheds some light'on the subject. He turned back from Smyrna, and led the faithful on a new crusade against the Russians in the Caucasus. The Russian General Apraxis who advanced to meet him was overthrown, and the range passed. But the clans, like the Highlanders, had litle stomach for expeditions into strange lands. Four years of fighting told seriously against the Mahdi, the charm of his success was broken, and doubts were whispered about his mission. At last in a supreme effort he was crushed by the united efforts of Apraxis and Potemkin. The Empress Catherine was generous to her captured foe. He was assigned a pension and imprisoned in an Armenian Catholic convent. Once more his mouth became closed, and he gave himself up to asceticism and devotions. But two years before tlie close of the century he was seized with a sudden sickness, and hurriedly demanded writing materials. His papers were examined after his death, and transmitted to his family. The Sheikh OganOola signed himself Fr. Giovanni Battista de Readicatori. The history of the Mahdi, who went far to execute a plan which floated before the imagination of Napoleon himself, is briefly this. The son of a Turin notary, Giovanni was driven from home by the tyranny of a stepmother. He wandered about South Germany for a time as a sort of Cugliostro, and as he successfully combined the| character of Don Juan with that of a charlatan he was bought off by the friends of a fond but foolish widow in Strasburg for a handsome sum. This lie seems to have speedily consumed in riotous living in Italy, and, finding his credit gone, he entered the Dominican College at Ravenna. In a fewyears tlie exemplary conduct of the new brother and his assiduous study of Araba encouraged his superiors to send himout as a missionary to Asia Minor. Before very long, however, he quarrelled with the Bishop of Bagdad, and was expelled the Order. According to his own story, as he wrote it in his last hours, he then spent .several years wandering about Asia Minor learning the language of the different districts, and studying the fortifications of, the different towns. At lust, thinking the time to put his fortunes to the test was ripe, he assumed the greon turban, and appeared in Kurdistan as the Sheikh Ogan-0010, the Mahdi sent from heaven. ■•-.-