Muhammad Ahmad: what Wikipedia removed
Muhammad Ahmad was the Sudanese leader who declared himself the Mahdi in 1881 and led the war that founded the Mahdist State. Through 2005 the opening said he “declared a jihad and raised an army after declaring himself the Mahdi in 1881, and led a successful war of liberation from the Ottoman-Egyptian military occupation.” Today’s opening calls it “a war against Egyptian rule in Sudan,” though jihad survives twice in the body. A reader arriving now learns he fought a war against Egyptian rule and not that he declared it a jihad, the term his own movement used.
The word “occupation” appeared 1 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2005. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 1. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.
The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot
Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”| word | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| occupation | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| jihad | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| colonial | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.
What was taken out
Section titled “What was taken out”- The statement that he declared a jihad after proclaiming himself the Mahdi is gone, replaced with the description of a war against Egyptian rule.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2005 (revision 16180014):
Muhammad Ahmad ibn as Sayyid Abd Allah ( 1844 - June 22 , 1885 ) was a Muslim religious leader, a faqir , in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan . He declared a jihad and raised an army after declaring himself the Mahdi in 1881, and led a successful war of liberation from the Ottoman-Egyptian military occupation. He died soon after his liberation of Khartoum , and the state he founded fell victim to colonial maneuverings that doomed it to reconquest in 1899.
2025 (revision 1297809926):
Sudanese religious and political leader (1844–1885) For other people named Muhammad Ahmad, see Muhammad Ahmad (disambiguation) . Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah bin Fahal ( Arabic : محمد أحمد بن عبد الله بن فحل ; 12 August 1843 – 21 June 1885) was a Sudanese religious and political leader. In 1881, he claimed to be the Mahdi and led a war against Egyptian rule in Sudan , which culminated in a remarkable victory over them in the Siege of Khartoum . He created a vast Islamic state extending from the Red Sea to Central Africa and founded a movement that remained influential in Sudan a century later. From his announcement of the Mahdist State in June 1881 until its end in 1899, the Mahdi’s supporter…
Related
Section titled “Related”- The drift report: what changed across all 61,944 watched articles
- The case file for this article, with every snapshot and every marked removal
- Who made the cuts: removals grouped by the account that made them
- The live article on Wikipedia
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