The Sudan Handbook

68 the sudan handbook

The Coming of Islam

Although Christianity remained the dominant religion on the Middle
Nile until the thirteenth century, Arab settlers began to arrive much
earlier, first along the Red Sea coast by way of Egypt and then westwards
to the Nile and beyond. Contact between Arabia and Sudan had existed
long before Islam. There were two main routes: the first ran across the
Sinai Desert through Egypt and into the Sudan; the second was across
the Bab el-Mandab into Abyssinia and then northward, or directly across
the Red Sea. Ninth-century Islamic tombstones from Khor Nubt in the
Eastern Desert provide early evidence for this Arab penetration. Later
migrations of Arab groups from the Arabian Peninsula to Sudan contrib-
uted a great deal to its Islamic culture, and led to the building of ports
and towns at Badi, Aidhab and Suakin and, in the post-medieval period,
at Sennar and El-Fasher.
There is clear evidence for the presence of Muslims within the Chris-
tian communities of Nubia. A large Muslim community, for example,
presumably traders, is recorded on the banks of the Blue Nile within the
Alwan capital in the tenth century. It was at the time of the Crusades
that attitudes to Christian Nubia in the Muslim world seem to have
changed. The first major breach of the peaceful coexistence of Muslims
and Christians on the Nile took place under Salah ed-Din, by then the
ruler of Egypt, who sent his brother Shams ed-Dawla to attack Nubia
in 1173. The next two centuries saw a round of invasions, many reaching
the Makurian capital. These were often precipitated by rival pretenders
to the Makurian throne soliciting assistance from the Arabs to the north.
In 1317, what may have been the audience hall of the Makurian kings at
Old Dongola, was converted into a mosque; soon afterwards the ruler of
the Christian kingdom is recorded as being a Muslim.
The decline of Alwa, the Christian kingdom to the south, is largely
undocumented. The great red-brick churches excavated in the capital
seem to have been occupied by squatters as early as the thirteenth
century. A very late source, the Funj Chronicle, reports that Soba was
overthrown in 1504 by a coalition of Arabs and the Funj of Sennar, under
The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors

(www.riftvalley.net).