Muslim and Jewish messianic pretenders who attracted followers from both the Islamic and Jewish community

Later Muslim and Jewish messianic pretenders who attracted followers from both the Islamic and Jewish community appeared in Yemen (partly Ottoman), around the time when the Bab appeared as the Mahdi and Baha'u'llah claimed to be the Messiah. Two of the Yemenites claimants, Faqih Sa'id (1840) and Sharif Isma'il (1846), were Muslims and proclaimed that they were 'mahdis' who would restore Islam, drive out the 'infidel' British from Aden and hasten the decline of the Ottoman Empire in an apocalyptic process. In the middle of the nineteenth century Yemen was tense with messianic anticipations that included the Jews. It culminated in the appearance of two claimants to a Jewish messiahship, Shukr Kuhayl I (Shukr ben Salim Kuhayl, 1861-1865), the 'resurrected' Shukr Kuhayl II (Yehuda bar Shalom, 1868 - 1875), and the messianic herald Yosef 'Abdallah (1888 - 1895). The first two appeared in 'one of the most politically unstable periods in the history of Yemen, one in which chaos and insecurity prevailed and the central government was unable to function' and the third was active under a more stable Ottoman government. All three preached the 'End of Time ' and near redemption from the enemies. Shukr Kuhayl II was the most organised and had the greatest success.

Although not Shi'i, one of the best known among the Muslim 'mahdis' is the Sudanese popular religious leader Muhammad Ahmad (1844 - 1885). Having travelled in areas neighbouring Sudan, he realised that people were discontent with the rule of the Ottoman-Egyptians and the British. He also sensed a messianic expectation among the masses demonstrated by the wish that the awaited Mahdi would save them. In 1881 Muhammad Ahmad proclaimed himself as the Mahdi and defied the usurpers. He died in 1885 after the fall of Khartoum in that same year but his Mahdist regime ruled Sudan until the Anglo-Egyptian rule was re-established in 1898. This was a national revolution and an Islamic revivalist movement that challenged not only the West but at the same time the authority of the Ottoman Sultan and probably had the potential to unify the Arab Muslims under the Ottomans against the established order.

(Dissent and Heterodoxy in the Late Ottoman Empire - Reformers, Babis and Baha'is by Necati Alkan, Page 39)