in northeastern Africa, bordering the Red Sea. It
is bordered by egypt to the north and libya on
the northwest. Other neighbors include Eritrea,
the Central African Republic, Chad, the Demo-
cratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya,
and Uganda. The Nile River and its tributaries
flow from south to north through the country. A
large majority of the people of Sudan are Sunni
Muslims (70 percent) located mainly in the north
of the country. About 5 percent are Christian; they
are located mainly in the south and in the capital,
Khartoum. About 25 percent of the population
follow traditional African religions. About half
of the people of Sudan—primarily those living in
the northern two-thirds of the country—consider
themselves Arabs. The southern part of the coun-
try is home to a number of indigenous African
groups, including the Dinka (8 percent), Nuba (6
percent), Nuer (4 percent), and Fur (3 percent).
The official language of Sudan is Arabic, but more
than 100 other languages are spoken, especially in
the south; most of them belong to the Afro-Asiatic,
Niger-Congo, and Nilo-Saharan language families.
Sudan’s major cities include Khartoum (the capi-
tal), Omdurman, Port Sudan, and Kassala.
Sudan has been inhabited for thousands of
years. By about 4000 b.c.e. people had settled in vil-
lages along the Nile, farming and raising animals.
The area was conquered by Egypt some time after
2600 b.c.e. A new civilization developed, heavily
influenced by Egypt. Around 500 c.e. Coptic mis-
sionaries converted the rulers of northern Sudan—
then known as Nubia—to Christianity. By the
mid-600s, Egypt was conquered by arab Muslims.
As time passed, many Arabs migrated to Nubia.
Eventually, the Christian kingdoms of northern
Nubia came under Muslim control. Around 1504,
the FUnJ sUltanate was founded in central Sudan.
The king converted to Islam and spread the new
religion through much of the rest of Sudan.
In 1820 Muhammad Ali (r. 1805–48), the ruler
of Egypt, attacked Sudan, bringing the Funj Sul-
tanate to an end. By 1821 Sudan was under Egyp-
tian control. In 1881 a Sudanese Muslim religious
teacher named Muhammad Ahmad declared that
he was the mahdi, a messianic guide appointed by
God. Over the next few years, he led a successful
revolt against the Egyptian rulers. Then, in 1898,
Egyptian and British forces joined to suppress the
revolt. An agreement was made to place Sudan
under joint British-Egyptian rule; however, the
British appointed a governor-general to Sudan,
and most important officials were British.
In 1956, after years of nationalist struggle,
Sudan became an independent nation. However,
the north and south were distinctly different in
terms of ethnic background, religion, and lan-
guage, leading to a series of civil wars. The first
civil war ended in 1972 with the establishment of
autonomy for the south. However, civil war broke
out again in 1983. In that same year, president
Jaafar Nimeiri (r. 1969–85), declared the intro-
duction of sharia, or Islamic law, for the entire
country, regardless of religious affiliation. This
proclamation stemmed from the growing promi-
nence of the mUslim brotherhood, an Islamic
activist movement originating in Egypt that estab-
lished a branch in Sudan in the 1950s. Hasan
al-Turabi (b. 1932) reorganized it and renamed it
the National Islamic Front in 1985. A more radi-
cal Islamist regime was established in 1989, after
a coup led by General Umar al-Bashir, who was
allied with al-Turabi. In addition to gaining control
of the government, the Islamists also controlled
the civil service, professional syndicates, and the
economy. Meanwhile, the civil war continued for
some two decades, leading to the displacement of
more than 4 million people and the deaths of some
2 million more, many of them as a result of famine.
A peace agreement was signed in 2005.
In 2003, a separate conflict broke out in the
western region of Darfur, whose population is
largely black African Muslims. Pro-government
Arab militias known as the Janjaweed are accused
of ethnic cleansing against non-Arabs. The conflict
has displaced nearly 2 million people and caused
an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 deaths. It has also
brought instability to other countries in the region,
including Chad and the Central African Republic.
Sudan’s economy is booming, thanks to oil
production and rising oil prices. However, the
nation is suffering from two decades of civil warK (^636) Sudan