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Sudan
The Fur
Darfur was the Fur homeland. Renowned as cavalrymen, Fur clans
frequently allied with or opposed their kin, the Kanuri of Borno,
in modern Nigeria. After a period of disorder in the sixteenth
century, during which the region was briefly subject to Bornu,
the leader of the Keira clan, Sulayman Solong (1596-1637), supplanted
a rival clan and became Darfur's first sultan. Sulayman Solong
decreed Islam to be the sultanate's official religion. However,
large-scale religious conversions did not occur until the reign
of Ahmad Bakr (1682-1722), who imported teachers, built mosques,
and compelled his subjects to become Muslims. In the eighteenth
century, several sultans consolidated the dynasty's hold on Darfur,
established a capital at Al Fashir, and contested the Funj for
control of Kurdufan.
The sultans operated the slave trade as a monopoly. They levied
taxes on traders and export duties on slaves sent to Egypt, and
took a share of the slaves brought into Darfur. Some household
slaves advanced to prominent positions in the courts of sultans,
and the power exercised by these slaves provoked a violent reaction
among the traditional class of Fur officeholders in the late eighteenth
century. The rivalry between the slave and traditional elites
caused recurrent unrest throughout the next century.
Data as of June 1991
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