 The Sudanese, on the other hand had not renounced their ambition of spreading the Mahdist faith to Egypt.In 1889, the Khalifa Abdallahi ibn Muhammad sent the Emir Wad-el-Nujumi and an army 6,000 strong into Egypt for this purpose.The Mahdists avoided Wadi Halfa where most of the Egyptian troops were garrisoned, and camped at Toski by the Nile, 76 km north of the Egyptian border.