as early as the 8th century and to settle in the district around Sennar on the Blue Nile, a region which probably marked the southern limits of the kingdom of Aloa. The Omayya, who during the following centuries were reinforced by further immigrants from Arabia, intermarried with the negroid races, and gradually Arab influence became predominant and Islam the nominal faith of all the inhabitants of Sennar. In this way a barrier was erected between the Christians of Nubia and those of Abyssinia. By the 15th century the Arabized negro races of the Blue Nile had grown into a powerful nation known as the Funj (q.v.), and during that century they extended their conquests north to the borders of Egypt. The kingdom of Dongola had already been reduced to a condition of anarchy by Moslem invasions from the north. Christianity was still professed by some of the Nubians as late as the 16th century, but the whole Sudan north of the lands of the pagan negroes (roughly 12° N.) was then under Moslem sway. At that time the sultans of Darfur (q.v.) in the west and the sultans or kings of Sennar (the Funj rulers) in the east were the most powerful of the Mahommedan potentates.
The first of the Funj monarchs acknowledged king of the
whole of the allied tribes, of which the Hameg were next in
importance to the Funj, was Amara Dunkas, who
reigned c. 1484–1526.[1] During the reign of Adlan,
c. 1596–1603, the fame of Sennar attracted learned
The Funj
Empire.
men to his court from such distant places as Cairo and Bagdad.
Adlan's great-grandson Badi Abu Daku attacked the Shilluk
negroes and raided Kordofan. This monarch built the great
mosque at Sennar, almost the only building in the town to survive
the ravages of the dervishes in the 19th century. In the early
part of the 18th century there was war between the Sennari
and the Abyssinians, in which the last named were defeated
with great slaughter. It is said that the cause of quarrel was
the seizure by the king of Sennar of presents sent by the king
of France to the Negus. The victory over the “infidel”
Abyssinians became celebrated throughout the Mahommedan
world, and Sennar was visited by many learned and celebrated
men from Egypt, Arabia and India. Towards the end of the
18th century the Hameg wrested power from the Funj and the
kingdom fell into decay, many of the tributary princes refusing
to acknowledge the king of Sennar. These disorders
continued up to the time of the conquest of the country by the
Egyptians.
B. From the Egyptian Conquest to the Rise of the Mahdi.—The
conquest of Nubia was undertaken in 1820 by order of Mehemet
Ali, the pasha of Egypt, and was accomplished in
the two years following. In its consequences this
proved one of the most important events in the
Conquest
by Egypt.
history of Africa. Mehemet Ali never stated the reasons which
led him to order the occupation of the country, but his leading
motive was, probably, the desire to obtain possession of the
mines of gold and precious stones which he believed the Sudan
contained. He also saw that the revenue of Egypt was falling
through the diversion, since about 1800, of the caravan routes
from the Nile to the Red Sea ports, and may have wished to
recapture the trade, as well as to secure a country whence
thousands of slaves could be brought annually. Mehemet Ali
also wished to crush the remnant of the Mamelukes who in 1812
had established themselves at Dongola, and at the same time
to find employment for the numerous Albanians and Turks
in his army, of whose fidelity he was doubtful.
Mehemet Ali gave the command of the army sent to Nubia to his son Ismail, who at the head of some 4000 men left Wadi Halfa in October 1820. Following the Nile route he occupied Dongola without opposition, the Mamelukes fleeing before him. (Some of them went to Darfur and Wadai, others made their way to the Red Sea. This was the final dispersal of the Mamelukes.) With the nomad Shagia, who dominated the district, Ismail had two sharp encounters, one near Korti, the other higher up the river, and in both fights Ismail was successful. Thereafter the Shagia furnished useful auxiliary cavalry to the Egyptians. Ismail remained in the Dongola province till February 1821, when he crossed the Bayuda Desert and received the submission of the meks (kings) of Berber, Shendi and Halfaya, nominal vassals of the king of Sennar. Continuing his march south Ismail reached the confluence of the White and Blue Niles and established a camp at Ras Khartum. (This camp developed into the city of Khartum.) At this time Badi, the king of Sennar, from whom all real power had been wrested by his leading councillors, determined to submit to the Egyptians, and as Ismail advanced up the Blue Nile he was met at Wad Medani by Badi who declared that he recognized Mehemet Ali as master of his kingdom. Ismail and Badi entered the town of Sennar together on the 12th of June 1821, and in this peaceable manner the Egyptians became rulers of the ancient empire of the Funj. In search of the gold-mines reported to exist farther south Ismail penetrated into the mountainous region of Fazokl, where the negroes offered a stout resistance. In February 1822 he set out on his return to Sennar and Dongola, having received reports of risings against Egyptian authority. The Egyptian soldiery had behaved throughout with the utmost barbarity, and their passage up the Nile was marked by rapine, murder, mutilation and fire. Of the rulers who had submitted to Ismail, Nair Mimr, the mek of Shendi, had been compelled to follow in the suite of the Egyptians as a sort of hostage, and this man entertained deep hatred of the pasha. On Ismail's return to Shendi, October 1822, he demanded of the mek 1000 slaves to be supplied in two days. The mek, promising compliance, invited Ismail and his chief officers to a feast in his house, around which he had piled heaps of straw. Whilst the Egyptians were feasting the mek set fire to the straw and Ismail and all his companions were burnt to death.
Ismail's death was speedily avenged. A second Egyptian army, also about 4000 strong, had followed that of Ismail's up the Nile, and striking south-west from Debba had wrested, after a sharp campaign, the province of Kordofan (1821) from the sultan of Darfur. This army was commanded by Mahommed Bey, the Defterdar, son-in-law of Mehemet Ali. Hearing of Ismail's murder the Defterdar marched to Shendi, defeated the forces of the mek, and took terrible revenge upon the inhabitants of Meternma and Shendi, most of the inhabitants, including women and children, being burnt alive. Nair Mimr escaped to the Abyssinian frontier, where he maintained his independence. Having conquered Nubia, Sennar and Kordofan the Egyptians set up a civil government, placing at the head of the administration a governor-general with practically unlimited power.[2] About this period Mehemet Ali leased from the sultan of Turkey the Red Sea ports of Suakin and Massawa, and by this means got into his hands all the trade routes of the eastern Sudan. The pasha of Egypt practically monopolized the trade of the country except that in slaves, which became a vast “industry,” the lands inhabited by negro tribes on the borders of the conquered territories being raided annually for the purpose. From the negro population the army was so largely recruited that in a few years the only non-Sudanese in it were officers. The Egyptian rule proved harmful to the country. The governors-general and the leading officials were nearly all Turks, Albanians or Circassians, and, with rare exceptions, the welfare of the people formed no part of their conception of government.[3] Numerous efforts were made to extend the authority of Egypt. In 1840—previous attempts having been unsuccessful—the fertile district of Taka, watered by the Atbara and Gash and near the Abyssinian frontier, was conquered and the town of
- ↑ Various lists and dates of reign of the rulers of Sennar are given; reference may be made in Stokvis's Manuel d'histoire vol. i. (Leiden, 1888), and to The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, vol. i. (London, 1905).
- ↑ For a list of the governors-general see The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, i. p. 280 (London, 1905).
- ↑ Khurshid Pasha, governor-general for 13 years (1826–1839), was one of these exceptions. He gained a great reputation both for rectitude and vigour. He led expeditions up the White Nile against the Dinkas as far as Fashoda; defeated the Abyssinians on the Sennar frontier, and taught the natives of Khartum to build houses of brick.
