Notes & Queries.

Freethought Review, Volume I, Issue 9, 1 June 1884, Page 12

Notes & Queries.

ANSWERS. THE MADHI. In answer to a query in the April number, I send you the following from the pen of an Englishman resident in Egypt:Mohammed Achmet, the Mahdi, is a Dongolawi, or native of the province of Dongola. His grandfather was called Fahil, and lived on the island of Nait Arti (ArtiDongolawi or island). The island lies east of and opposite to Oridi, the native name for the capital of Dongola. .His father was Abdulin, by trade a carpenter. In 1852 this man left and went to Shindi, a town on the Nile, south of Berber. At that time his family consisted of three sons and one daughter, called respectively Mohammed, Hamid, Mohammed Achmet (the Mahdi), and Nurelsham (Light of Syria). At Shindi another son was born, called Abdullah. As a boy Mohammed Achmet was apprenticed to Sherifeddeem, his uncle, a boatman, residing at Shakabeh, an island opposite Sennaar. ving one day received a beating from his uncle, he ran away to Khartoum, and joined the free school or “Medressu” of a faki (learned man, head of a sect of dervishes), who resided at Hogahli, a village east of and close to Khartoum. The school is attached to the tomb of Sheikh Hogahli, the patron saint of Khartoum, and who is greatly revered by the inhabitants of that town and district. The sheikh of this tomb or shrine, although he keeps a free school and feeds the poor, derives a very handsome revenue from the gifts of the pious. He claims to be a descendant of the original Hoghali, and through him of Mahomet. Here he remained some time studying religion, the tenets of the sheikh, &c., but did not make much progress in the more wordly accomplishments of reading and writing. After a time he left and went to Berber, when he joined another free school kept by a Sheikh Ghubush, at a village of that name nearly opposite to Mekerref (Berber). This school is also attached to a shrine greatly venerated by the natives. Here Mohammed Achmet remained six months completing his religious education. Thence he went to Aradupp (Tamarind Tree), a village south of Cana. Here in 1870 he became a disciple of another faki— Sheikh Nur-el-Daitn (Continuous Light). Nur-el-Daim subsequently ordained him a sheikh or faki, and he then left to take up his home in the island of Abba, near Kana, on the White Nile. Here he began by making a subterranean excavation (khaliva retreat), into which he made a practice of retiring to repeat for hours the names of the Deity, and this accompanied by fasting, incense burning, and prayers. His fame and sanctity by degrees spread far and wide, and Mohammed Achmet became wealthy, collected disciples and married several wives, all of whom he was careful to select from among the daughters of the most influential Baggara Sheikhs (Baggara—tribes owning cattle and horses and notables). To keep within the legalised number (four), he was in the habit of divorcing the surplus, and taking them on again according to his fancy. About the end of May, 1881, he began to write to his brother fakis (religious chiefs), and to teach that he was the Mahdi foretold by Mahomet, and that he had a divine mission to reform Islam, to establish universal equality, a universal law, a universal religion, and a community of goods (“ beyt-ul-mal”) ; also, that all who did not believe in him- should be destroyed, be they Christian, Mohammedan or pagan. Among others, he wrote to Mohammed Saleh, a very learned and influential faki of Dongola, directing him to collect his dervishes (followers) and friends and join him at Abba. This Sheikh, instead of complying with his request, informed the Government, declaring the man must be mad. This information, and with that collected from other quarters, alarmed his Excellency Beouf Pasha, and the result was the expedition on 3rd August 1881. In person the Mahdi is tall, slim, with a black beard and light brown complexion. Like most Dongowalis he reads and writes with difficulty. He is loral head of flic Ghee!an or Kadridge order cf dervishes, a school originated by Abul-Kader-el-Ghutami whose tomb is I believe at Bagdag. Judging from his conduct in affairs and policy, I should say he had considerable natural ability. The manner in which he had managed to merge the usually discordant tribes together denotes great tact. He had probably been preparing the movement some time past.

DARWINISM. In reply to “ Fiat Lux,” in No. 7, there lias been little clone in the way of supplying missing links since Darwin’s death. Huxley is the greatest expositor of the theory of Evolution. The most important discovery has been that of a low type of skull found in France — as low as the Neanderthal, which approached that of the anthropoids. The continuity of life from the monera to man has been pretty conclusively established. Darwin’s death is so recent, the discoveries since made cannot be many. —A . NEMESIS. The character of Nemesis as the goddess of vengeance is well known, but, as with most of the heathen divinities, was subject to the law of evolution, passing through three distinct stages in her mythological career. She was called the daughter of Night, and was in her earliest period a personification of the reverence for law and conscience. In this character Nemesis is morally the greatest of all gods and goddesses. In the second stage, she is pictured by Herodotus as measuring out happiness and unhappiness to mortals, teaching humility to the proud and raising the meek and lowly. The third stage represents her in her popular character as the avenging fate that sooner or later overtakes the hardened sinner. She was represented as a virgin.—C. QUERIES. Can you or any of your readers inform me who is the author of the following lines, and about the time they were written. — J.P. " I sent my soul through the Invisible, some letter of the afterlife to spell : And by-and-bye my soul returned to me and answered : * I myself am heaven and hell.’ “ Heaven, but the vision of fulfilled desire, And hell the shadow of a soul on fire ; Last on the darkness into which ourselves, So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.”