Race outweighed circumstance in conferring Egyptian social status under Mahdist rule

Evidence

The khalifa then had Fawzï beaten and thrown into the dungeon cell where he encountered Charles Neufeld. Neufeld came over to help the wounded Fawzï, until the prison guards reentered the cell and began whipping and cursing both of them, yelling,“Why are you awläd al-rïf [Sudanese epithet for Egyptians], you infidels, all sitting together?” They then separated Neufeld and Fawzï, but not before Fawzï made his point. Describing it this way, he allowed the Sudanese to combine the elements of unbelief, culture, and most important, race, to elevate him to his desired status. It is a masterly manipulation of insult. By having the Sudanese themselves color him white and group him with the Europeans (though significantly they label Neufeld and Fawzï as awläd al-rïf, Fawzï turns the indignities and insults heaped on him into legitimization of his social superiority. Race, for Fawzï, was the ultimate, irrefutable badge of cultural identity and social status. Nothing erases this, no matter how the traditional roles are reversed. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 629

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s framing of Egypt vs Sudan colonial hierarchy — Egyptians ranking above Sudanese Sudanese despite being subordinate captives under the Mahdiya.
• QUESTION: Interesting that Sudanese grouped Egyptians with Europeans as ‘white’ awläd al-rïf; who exactly used that epithet and how did color categories map in Omdurman?