The Mahdi drew followers, vassals, slaves from all the surrounding regions with Islamic influence. There is mention and examples of pagan weapons made Islamic by the addition of Koranic verse in many books on African weapons. On the defeat of the Mahdi I wonder how many made there way back home, if they even new the way back or where home was. I suspect it was easier to put them in a uniform and call them the Sudan Rifles or something like that.
As for the remake of The Four Feathers which in my opinion was rubbish, the British had stopped wearing scarlet from 1879. I cannot imagine any Azande being more than auxiliaries.
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