Contrary to the other letters found in Mahdiyya 1/30, this set of letters does not appear to have been indexed by British Military Intelligence (which is not utterly surprising since previous British documents mentioned that not all the correspondence had been looked at, see Mahdiyya 1/30/02). The 31 letters contained in 1/30/06 represent thus a relatively new archival source (see NRO-M001127 to NRO-M001166).
In this particular letter, Yūsuf Khaṭīb explains how he married his slave, after having freed her, and had a daughter with her. In the turmoil of the aftermath of the fall of Khartoum, as he was in the west, he lost track of them and could not find them when he returned to Omdurman. The Khalīfa ʿAbd Allāh promised to send him news if they reappeared. He eventually found them in Kasalā, as he was heading toward Tūkar, but she had been seized as booty by another anṣār, who himself had left for Gadarif and asked another anṣār to take care of them. The judge of Kasalā maintained his wife and daughter under the custody of their current guardian, until the return of their legitimate owner. Yūsuf Khaṭīb writes to ʿUthmān Diqna because he has just learned that their owner returned from Gadarif and offered to surrender his ownership. Since he is busy working on the defences of Handūb, he asks of ʿUthmān Diqna that he asks the Khalīfa permission to bring them to him.
09/04/1306
09/04/1306
