The Sudan Handbook

15

Glossary

ada (Ar.) custom, tradition or habit

AACC All Africa Council of Churches

Abbala (Ar.) ethnic category: Arabic-speaking camel herders in

northern and western Sudan, derived from ibl, camel

ABCE Abyei Boundaries Commission

ajawid (Ar.) mediators, traditionally elderly people versed in

customary law and communal customs

Almanac Pocket-sized reference book produced for officials of the

Anglo-Egyptian government

amir (emir) (Ar.) tribal leader in northern Sudan, between an omda or

sheikh and a nazir

Ansar (Ar.) supporters of the Mahdi and his descendants

Anyanya (Madi) snake poison; a term used for the southern

guerrillas in the first civil war in the south (Anyanya I);

and for a pro-government militia in the second civil war

(Anyanya II)

Ashiqqa (Ar.) ‘blood brothers’; the name of a political group of

pro-Egyptian nationalists that emerged in the Graduates’

Congress in the 1940s and was assimilated into the NUP in

1952

AU African Union (formerly Organization of African Unity

(OAU))

Baggara Ar.) ethnic category: Arabic-speaking, cattle-keeping

peoples of northern and western Sudan

baraka (Ar.) blessing; religious charisma

Bilad al-Sudan (Ar.) ‘The land of the blacks’, the name given by medieval

Muslim geographers to the lands south of Egypt, from the

Red Sea to the Atlantic

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors

(www.riftvalley.net).