|
Sudan
The Arabs
Contacts between Nubians and Arabs long predated the coming of
Islam, but the arabization of the Nile Valley was a gradual process
that occurred over a period of nearly 1,000 years. Arab nomads
continually wandered into the region in search of fresh pasturage,
and Arab seafarers and merchants traded in Red Sea ports for spices
and slaves. Intermarriage and assimilation also facilitated arabization.
After the initial attempts at military conquest failed, the Arab
commander in Egypt, Abd Allah ibn Saad, concluded the first in
a series of regularly renewed treaties with the Nubians that,
with only brief interruptions, governed relations between the
two peoples for more than 600 years. So long as Arabs ruled Egypt,
there was peace on the Nubian frontier; however, when non-Arabs
acquired control of the Nile Delta, tension arose in Upper Egypt.
The Arabs realized the commercial advantages of peaceful relations
with Nubia and used the treaty to ensure that travel and trade
proceeded unhindered across the frontier. The treaty also contained
security arrangements whereby both parties agreed that neither
would come to the defense of the other in the event of an attack
by a third party. The treaty obliged both to exchange annual tribute
as a goodwill symbol, the Nubians in slaves and the Arabs in grain.
This formality was only a token of the trade that developed between
the two, not only in these commodities but also in horses and
manufactured goods brought to Nubia by the Arabs and in ivory,
gold, gems, gum arabic, and cattle carried back by them to Egypt
or shipped to Arabia.
Acceptance of the treaty did not indicate Nubian submission to
the Arabs, but the treaty did impose conditions for Arab friendship
that eventually permitted Arabs to achieve a privileged position
in Nubia. For example, provisions of the treaty allowed Arabs
to buy land from Nubians south of the frontier at Aswan. Arab
merchants established markets in Nubian towns to facilitate the
exchange of grain and slaves. Arab engineers supervised the operation
of mines east of the Nile in which they used slave labor to extract
gold and emeralds. Muslim pilgrims en route to Mecca traveled
across the Red Sea on ferries from Aydhab and Sawakin, ports that
also received cargoes bound from India to Egypt.
Traditional genealogies trace the ancestry of most of the Nile
Valley's mixed population to Arab tribes that migrated into the
region during this period. Even many non-Arabic-speaking groups
claim descent from Arab forebears. The two most important Arabic-speaking
groups to emerge in Nubia were the Jaali and the Juhayna (see
Ethnic Groups , ch. 2). Both showed physical continuity with the
indigenous pre-Islamic population. The former claimed descent
from the Quraysh, the Prophet Muhammad's tribe. Historically,
the Jaali have been sedentary farmers and herders or townspeople
settled along the Nile and in Al Jazirah. The nomadic Juhayna
comprised a family of tribes that included the Kababish, Baqqara,
and Shukriya. They were descended from Arabs who migrated after
the thirteenth century into an area that extended from the savanna
and semidesert west of the Nile to the Abyssinian foothills east
of the Blue Nile. Both groups formed a series of tribal shaykhdoms
that succeeded the crumbling Christian Nubian kingdoms and that
were in frequent conflict with one another and with neighboring
non-Arabs. In some instances, as among the Beja, the indigenous
people absorbed Arab migrants who settled among them. Beja ruling
families later derived their legitimacy from their claims of Arab
ancestry.
Although not all Muslims in the region were Arabic-speaking,
acceptance of Islam facilitated the arabizing process. There was
no policy of proselytism, however, and forced conversion was rare.
Islam penetrated the area over a long period of time through intermarriage
and contacts with Arab merchants and settlers. Exemption from
taxation in regions under Muslim rule also proved a powerful incentive
to conversion.
Data as of June 1991
|
