Ottoman-Egyptian rule in Sudan began with the invasion of Muhammad ʻAli in 1821 and ended with the Mahdist insurgency in 1884, which established a state at the height of the ‘Scramble for Africa.’ The Ottoman period brought about significant changes in land and debt relations, including the vast expansion of individual ownership and new forms of debt tied to land, largely incurred by the northern peasantry. Indeed, such hardships propelled the spectacular success of the insurgency. This paper asks what it would mean to rethink these transformations—not through the categories of political economy but—through the conceptual framework offered by the Mahdi himself. For, unlike many subaltern uprisings, the Mahdist insurgency is unique in leaving in its wake a vast written record. What would it mean to treat the Mahdi as an intellectual, in the manner of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani or Muhammad ʻAbduh, and his words as a form of critique? What is an eschatological approach to land and debt? What might we learn from treating the Mahdist archive as a conceptual repository through which to rethink the key categories of political economy? The paper consists of two parts. First, it explores the Mahdi’s critique of and approach to debt and land, an approach transcending the division between religion and economy. It explores the way these ideas unfolded in practice following the success of the revolt, under the exigencies of worldly government (1884-1898). In this context, what role was played by messianic time—the time of the present, or political possibility—in attempts at a radical reconfiguration of practices? Second, it turns to the early decades of British colonial rule in Sudan, the Anglo-Egyptian condominium (1898-1925). Though Mahdism was defeated in the battlefield, the spectre of Mahdist resurgence remained present in the minds of British soldier-administrators. In light of this, how were approaches to land, debt, and development in Sudan oriented around overcoming this Mahdist threat? How was the production of prosperity—inherently orientated toward the future—a means through which to neutralise insurgent Mahdist temporalities? I explore how these questions played out on the establishment of a major cotton-growing project between White and Blue Niles, the Gezira Scheme, one site for the production of economic subjects. More broadly, I argue that Sudan was one early site in which land and debt were used as a strategy for colonial political governance, later to be transmitted to Egypt.