The Sudan Handbook

90 the sudan handbook

the region under a new dynasty, known as the Funj, based at Sennar on

the Blue Nile. The Funj kingdom inherited not only political, but ritual

and ceremonial practices which had much in common with those of

the older Nubian kingdoms and also of the Nilotic Sudan, as we know

from modern studies of the Shilluk kingdom, a polity that emerged later

further up the Nile.

The new rulers at Sennar were soon to adopt Muslim ways, though

in Jay Spaulding’s phrase, Islam remained an ‘exotic royal cult’ for some

time. By the seventeenth century, there was an increase in the number of

Muslim missionaries visiting Sennar, including men of Sudanese origin

(initially trained abroad), who helped win acceptance for the Maliki

school of Islamic law; and the first mosque in the Funj kingdom was

built, providing orthodox education and literacy in Arabic. The Sufi

school of Islam, which sought mystical union with the higher powers

through asceticism and spiritual exercises, also became established.

Sufism brought to the Sudan the tariqa or religious brotherhood, a new

form of social organization – still important today – in which authority

was vested in a leader recognized as having special spiritual power or

baraka. This was passed on from a teacher or spiritual master to his

followers, often to his own son. The Sufi communities, mainly locally-

based, though affiliated to the Qadiriya order, flourished both in urban

areas and in rural areas where syncretism with pre-Islamic beliefs was

relatively unproblematic.

The characteristic Sufi mode of worship has long been the dhikr or zikr,

in which the names of God are chanted, often in conjunction with music,

songs and circular dancing, occasionally producing trance. As trade and

towns developed through the eighteenth century, these communities were

often granted land and a tax-free status. Sufi centres proved an attraction

for many of the poorer urban migrants, including debtors and asylum

seekers in search of a new life; the leaders of these communities thus

became spokesmen for the masses, some remembered as folk-heroes,

their baraka transmitted onward and their tombs revered as shrines.

Meanwhile, the new bourgeoisie in the towns of the Sudanese heart-

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors land^ began^ to^ proclaim^ themselves^ Arabs,^ constructing^ putative^ family^

(www.riftvalley.net).