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Sudan
Christian Nubia
By the sixth century, three states had emerged as the political
and cultural heirs of the Meroitic kingdom. Nobatia in the north,
also known as Ballanah, had its capital at Faras, in what is now
Egypt; the central kingdom, Muqurra, was centered at Dunqulah,
the old city on the Nile about 150 kilometers south of modern
Dunqulah; and Alwa, in the heartland of old Meroe in the south,
had its capital at Sawba. In all three kingdoms, warrior aristocracies
ruled Meroitic populations from royal courts where functionaries
bore Greek titles in emulation of the Byzantine court.
The earliest references to Nubia's successor kingdoms are contained
in accounts by Greek and Coptic authors of the conversion of Nubian
kings to Christianity in the sixth century. According to tradition,
a missionary sent by Byzantine empress Theodora arrived in Nobatia
and started preaching the gospel about 540. It is possible that
the conversion process began earlier, however, under the aegis
of Coptic missionaries from Egypt, who in the previous century
had brought Christianity to the Abyssinians. The Nubian kings
accepted the Monophysite Christianity practiced in Egypt and acknowledged
the spiritual authority of the Coptic patriarch of Alexandria
over the Nubian church. A hierarchy of bishops named by the Coptic
patriarch and consecrated in Egypt directed the church's activities
and wielded considerable secular power. The church sanctioned
a sacerdotal kingship, confirming the royal line's legitimacy.
In turn the monarch protected the church's interests. The queen
mother's role in the succession process paralleled that of Meroe's
matriarchal tradition. Because women transmitted the right to
succession, a renowned warrior not of royal birth might be nominated
to become king through marriage to a woman in line of succession.
The emergence of Christianity reopened channels to Mediterranean
civilization and renewed Nubia's cultural and ideological ties
to Egypt. The church encouraged literacy in Nubia through its
Egyptian-trained clergy and in its monastic and cathedral schools.
The use of Greek in liturgy eventually gave way to the Nubian
language, which was written using an indigenous alphabet that
combined elements of the old Meroitic and Coptic scripts. Coptic,
however, often appeared in ecclesiastical and secular circles.
Additionally, early inscriptions have indicated a continuing knowledge
of colloquial Greek in Nubia as late as the twelfth century. After
the seventh century, Arabic gained importance in the Nubian kingdoms,
especially as a medium for commerce.
The Christian Nubian kingdoms, which survived for many centuries,
achieved their peak of prosperity and military power in the ninth
and tenth centuries. However, Muslim Arab invaders, who in 640
had conquered Egypt, posed a threat to the Christian Nubian kingdoms.
Most historians believe that Arab pressure forced Nobatia and
Muqurra to merge into the kingdom of Dunqulah sometime before
700. Although the Arabs soon abandoned attempts to reduce Nubia
by force, Muslim domination of Egypt often made it difficult to
communicate with the Coptic patriarch or to obtain Egyptian-trained
clergy. As a result, the Nubian church became isolated from the
rest of the Christian world.
Data as of June 1991
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