This paper illustrates how the Sudanese Mahdi was used to mark (and market) identity by three separate groups. The first were British anti-colonialists, such as Wilfred Scawen Blunt, who created and circulated an image of the Mahdi as an example of a “desert dwelling Arab,” so as to make a case for the kind of pastoral, “Middle Eastern” culture he wished to preserve—against the interests of the British Empire. Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani created an image of the Mahdi that was similar to that of Blunt’s, this time situating the Mahdi as an Arab like the Rashidun Caliphs, and claiming the Mahdiyya as a predominantly Islamic movement by situating it within the context of early Islamic history. Finally, Egyptian nationalists claimed the Mahdi as a comrade in arms in the Egyptian struggle against the British, despite the fact that his movement was aimed Egyptian, and not British colonialism. In each case, the Mahdi was used to market agendas he did not necessarily represent, and mark identities that lay far outside the Sudan and Sudanese history. This paper draws on archival materials, memoirs, and the periodical press.