Further reading: Ahmed Abd al-Hayy Arifi, Death
and Inheritance: The Islamic Way; A Handbook of Rules
Pertaining to the Deceased. Translated by Muhammad
Shameem (New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 1995); Laleh
Bakhtiar, Encyclopedia of Islamic Law: A Compendium of
the Major Schools (Chicago: ABC International Group,
1996), 40–53; Juan Eduardo Campo, “Muslim Ways
of Death: Between the Prescribed and the Performed.”
In Death and Religion in a Changing World, edited
by Kathleen Garces-Foley, 147–177 (New York: M.E.
Sharpe, 2005); Timothy Insoll, The Archaeology of Islam
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999), 166–200.
Funj Sultanate
The Funj Sultanate was an Islamic dynasty that
ruled the Upper Nile region of the sUdan for 300
years, from 1504 to 1821. Originally a pastoral
people, the Funj established a state based in Sin-
nar under the leadership of Amara Dunqas after
the latter defeated the Christian kingdom of
Alwa in 1504. Although Muslim monarchs ruled
the sultanate, the Funj developed a hierarchical
society headed by a semidivine king and a caste-
like ruling elite. The kings prided themselves on
their Islamic credentials, encouraged the presence
of Muslim scholars and holy men within their
kingdom, and provided support for pilgrims to go
to mecca. However, in order to heighten a sense
of their separation from the common man, these
monarchs withdrew from public view, leaving the
high court officials to take functional leadership
of the kingdom.
The Funj were active in the caravan trade,
establishing business relationships with egypt
and the wider Ottoman Empire. Maliki law and
Sufi orders both expanded considerably under
Funj rule. However, the Funj system broke down
during the late 18th century, when the sUlta ns
lost political control to regional warlords, eco-
nomic control to a new merchant class, and spiri-
tual authority to the local holy men. Muhammad
Ali of Egypt finally brought the kingdom to an
end, conquering the region in 1820–21.
See also east aFrica; maliki legal school.Stephen CoryFurther reading: P. M. Holt, The Sudan of the Three
Niles: The Funj Chronicle, 970–1288/1504–1871 (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1999); R. S. O’Fahey and J. L. Spaulding,
Kingdoms of the Sudan (London: Methuen, 1974); Jay
Spaulding, The Heroic Age in Sinnar (East Lansing: Afri-
can Studies Center, Michigan State University, 1985).Fyzee, Asaf Ali Asghar (1899–1981) Indian
Muslim intellectual and a leading scholar of Ismaili
Shiism and Islamic law
A. A. A. Fyzee was born near Poona, india, to a
prominent family of Ismaili Shii merchants. His
family favored the British educational system,
so after he obtained his college education, they
sent him to study at Cambridge University, where
he studied with several of the best Orientalist
scholars of the early 20th century, including A.
A. Bevan and R. A. Nicholson. After 1926, he was
employed at the High Court of Bombay. Fyzee
continued with his scholarly interests, however,
publishing studies and translations pertaining to
Islamic and Anglo-Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh).
As a reflection of the quality of his scholarly
ability, he was appointed a professor of Islamic
jurisprudence at Government College in Bombay.
In 1949, he was appointed India’s ambassador to
egypt and then served in several other ambassa-
dorial and government posts. He received many
academic honors in his later career and taught
Islamic studies at McGill University in Canada
and at the University of California at Los Angeles.
One of Fyzee’s most esteemed contributions to
scholarship is his Outlines of Muhammadan Law
(1949). At the end of his career, he devoted him-
self to a critical edition of a medieval Ismaili fiqh,
Qadi Numan’s Pillars of Islam (originally written
in the 10th century).
Fyzee’s views of Islamic religion and law
(sharia and fiqh) were very modern and progres-K 252 Funj Sultanate