Didn’t that guy in Sudan try that? Didn’t he have the Black Flag of the Mahdi? He beat the Anglo-Egyptian forces? His army of “Fuzzy-Wussies” armed with swords and shield beat the British Square? He took over Sudan, built a new capital then died—his general took over and ran the place—fueled the state with slave markets. He ran things for a dozen years until Lord Kitchener came with an army with machine guns and defeated his native army—to rule an unhappy Sudan who were always revolting, even during WW I. England was glad to be rid of the place. Lord K. was a hero in England and lead the forces in WW I until Mata Hari did him in. She seduced an English officer, who told her of Lord K. trip to France on a cruiser. She told the huns, that had a U-boat waiting for his ship. Sadly, Lord K. didn’t know how to swim.
“Didn’t that guy in Sudan try that? Didn’t he have the Black Flag of the Mahdi?”
Well “the black flag of the Mahdi” in the prophecies is pretty non-specific. So just about any radical Muslim group that wants to start a global jihad hoists a black flag, in an attempt to be seen as the ones who will fulfill the prophecy. Iran, Hamas, ISIS, Al Qaeda, they all had some version of a black flag to wave around.