328 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



view, if not an empire, at least a sphere of influence among the 

 negroid races between Wadai and Lake Chad, for which reason 

 he was prepared secretly to oppose the French penetration of 

 Nigeria, but, in his withdrawal to Kufara in 1894, is seen his de- 

 termination to avoid any declared hostility. 



Mohammed el Mahdi was the great figure of the confraternity, 

 and under his rule the Senussi attained the zenith of their power. 

 Since the acceptance of his tenets meant the payment of tithes, 

 the leader of the confraternity had by this time considerable 

 wealth at his disposal. Having established a profitable trade in 

 slaves and arms between south and north, he also possessed the 

 nucleus of a negroid army, yet the Mahdi aimed at peaceful pene- 

 tration rather than at mihtary occupation. His zawias were neu- 

 tral meeting-places where difficulties — tribal, commercial, legal or 

 religious — could be settled by an unbiassed authority. His ekh- 

 wan were judges as well as missionaries. They defined tribal areas, 

 settled water and grazing rights, as well as meting out the justice 

 of the Koran to those who infringed the code of Islam. 



In view of the undoubted influence and prestige of such a con- 

 fraternity, it is not to be wondered at that wholly exaggerated 

 ideas of its importance were brought to Europe by rare travellers 

 who, impressed by the dangers they had escaped from, overlooked 

 the fact that the Order must necessarily lack cohesion, dissemin- 

 ated as it was through countries difl"ering in race, tongue, custom 

 and form of government and hemmed in on every side by gradu- 

 ally encroaching European Powers. 



During the 13 years of his role at Jaghabub the Mahdi reso- 

 lutely held aloof from the spirit of revolt which animated the 

 Moslem world. 



When the Sudanese Mahdi sent a deputaticm to ask for his 

 hdp in driving the English from Egypt in 1884, he replied, "Tell 

 your master we have nothing to do with him. He must write to 

 us no more for his way is wrong. We cannot reply to his letter." 



His move to Kufara isolated him in an almost impregnable 

 position where he could command the trade routes of half a con- 

 tinent. His chief counsellors were his old tutor Ahmed er Rifi, 

 his brother Mohammed es Sherif and Mohammed ibn Hassan el 

 Baskari. His nephew Mohammed el Abed was left as wakil at 

 Jaghabub. 



Kufara under the rule of the Zouias had been the most noted 

 centre of brigandage in the Sahara. Sidi el Mahdi substituted a 



