Sanü`a saw the Mahdïya as nationalism among people not ready for self-government

Evidence

What complicated the Mahdïya, Sanüa explained, was not the leader's fanaticism but the fanatical feelings the Mahdï inspired in people, which resulted from the fact that, since the times of the Fatimids, the Abbasids, the Muwahids, and the Murabits, political authority had been deeply entwined with the concept of a Mahdï. The result of this, said Sanüa, was that “there are not yet, among Muslims, free thinkers. That is what has made the Sayyid Muhammad Ahmad successful, rendered even greater by his fighting the English, hated by Islam.” The Mahdïya was the personification of nationalism run slightly amok, among people not quite ready for the disciplined communal activity of self-government. The Sudanese thus provided an important model for their more civilized cousins, the Egyptians, of what nationalist fervor could accomplish; but they also demonstrated the dangers of untutored uprisings. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 482

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines how Sanü`a distinguished ‘fanaticism’ from ‘fanatical feelings’ — a key conceptual move separating leader from follower.
• XREF: Echoes the condescension pattern in which Egyptian nationalists infantilized the Sudanese; parallels the gatekeeper framing in paragraph 491.