He explained in Arabic that he was a man of the Kababish tribe named Abou Fatma, and friendly to the English…”Why did you hide?”, asked Durrance. “It was safer. I knew you were my friends. But, my gentlemen, did you know me for yours?”
-The Four Feathers, A.E.W. Mason, a 1902 novel about an Englishman who redeems himself for an earlier act of cowardice by battling heroically against the Mahdi’s army
(The sand storm has cleared and in its place a harsh desert sun beats down. Willoughby offers Durrance his water flask.) Durrance, pulling a face- It’s bloody whisky. Willoughby, grinning- My camel drinks the water. Trench, jumping off his camel- I don’t know about you lot, but I’m going to grab a drink before Mustapha does. (“Mustapha” the camel whinnies as if he’s heard every word. The men start laughing.) Durrance- The water is probably poisoned. Trench, leading his camel to the well instead- Mustapha, be my guest.
-The Four Feathers, 2002 film, starring Heath Ledger, Kate Hudson as his Victorian high-necked fiancee, and Sudanese-born supermodel Alek Wek as a half-dressed Dinka slave who crushes the skull of her French slave trader after a candle-lit sex scene
You might think that in the one hundred years between the novel and the most recent movie version that the basic facts of the Mahdist Rebellion could be straightened out for the Western audience. But no, things have only gotten worse.
Mason at least had it right that the Kababish were anti-Mahdist, and in the early days some of them even aligned with Gordon, so that the Englishman’s helper Abou Fatma might plausibly be from that tribe, but no Arab man would ever be called Father of Fatima, or by any other daughter’s name. In the movie script Abou Fatma is said to be a Nubian, as if a farmer from Dongola, yet he is costumed as a Nuba, as if a wrestler from Dilling. And the ritual scarification keloids that dot Alek Wek’s forehead look like they were done by Hollywood’s top make-up artist, not over a cattle dung camp fire.
But a whisky-drinking camel named Mustapha is not far off the mark, all things considered. Steve adopted that as his nom de chemin which caused no end to confusion for the drovers. Mustapha is an honorific meaning The Chosen One that originally applied only to the Prophet Muhammad and has since been used as a given name for any muslim male.
Thus the drovers reasonably assumed that Steve was one of them and when he said, No, I am Jewish, he had a lot of explaining to do through my very spotty translation. You can say that we conducted a forty day long multi-faith dialogue all the way to Egypt..and we didn’t even once get into the Moses in the Bulrushes part of his story.