These groups blamed the Egyptians for bringing the British into the Sudan and destroying the Mahdïya, and felt strongly that Egyptian nation- alists sought only to reestablish Egyptian authority over the Sudan. For these groups, the British were indeed colonizers and non-Muslims, but their homeland was far away; one day they inevitably would leave. Egyptians had proven themselves harder to evict. So the Mahdists accepted the status quo under the British temporarily, as a “tactical alliance.”

Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Coloni…, loc. 1021