Governor Zubair Pasha was made governor of the province of Bahr-al-Ghazal in Sudan in 1869. In 1874 he conquered Darfur for the Khadive of Egypt, but when he went to Cairo in 1876 to obtain the governorship of that place, he was detained there. Meanwhile Zubair Pasha's son, Sulaiman, took up arms against General Gordon, newly appointed governor General of Sudan. General Gordon executed Sulaiman but in 1884 when the Mahdist movement threatened, Gordon suggested that Zubair should be appointed his successor to halt the revolt. But the British government refused to accept this suggestion and arrested Zubair on charges of treason and deported him to Gibraltar in 1885. Zubair Pasha returned to Egypt in 1887 and was allowed to live in his state in Sudan, where he was born, after 1899.