The First Jihad

A “well-researched” account of the nineteenth-century Sudanese cleric who led a bloody holy war, from a New York Times -bestselling author ( Publishers Weekly ). Before bin Laden, al-Zarqawi, or Ayatollah Khomeini, there was the Mahdi—the “Expected One”—who raised the Arabs in pan-tribal revolt against infidels and apostates in Sudan. Born on the Nile in 1844, Muhammed Ahmed grew into a devout, charismatic young man, whose visage was said to have always featured the placid hint of a smile. He de