Ancient Times

SUDAN soodan', officially Republic of Sudan, republic (1995 est. pop. 30,120,000), 967,494 sq mi (2,505,813 sq km), NE Africa. The largest country in Africa, it borders on Egypt in the north, on the Red Sea in the northeast, on Eritrea and Ethiopia in the east, on Kenya, Uganda, and Congo (Kinshasa) in the south, on the Central African Republic and Chad in the west, and on Libya in the northwest. Khartoum is the capital and Omdurman is the largest city. Land The main geographical feature of Sudan is the Nile River, which, with its tributaries (including the Atbara, Blue Nile, and White Nile rivers), traverses the country from south to north. The Nile system provides irrigation for strips of agricultural settlement for much of its course in Sudan and also for the Al Gezira plain, situated between the White Nile and the Blue Nile, just south of their confluence at Khartoum. In the extreme north, the Nile broadens into Lake Nasser, formed by the Aswan High Dam in Egypt. Much of the rest of the country is made up of an undulating plateau (1,000–2,000 ft/305–610 m high), which rises to higher levels in the mountains located in the northeast near the Red Sea, as well as in the central, western, and extreme southern portions of the country. The highest point in Sudan is Kinyeti (10,456 ft/3,187 m), in the southeast. Rainfall diminishes from south to north in Sudan; thus, the south is characterized by swampland (the Sudd region) and woodland, the center by savanna and grassland, and the north by desert and semidesert. Sudan is divided into 26 states. People The inhabitants of Sudan are divided into three main groups. The northerners, who inhabit the country roughly north of 12°N lat. and mainly near the Nile, consist of Arab and Nubian groups; they are Muslim (mostly of the Sunni branch), speak Arabic (the country's official language), and follow Arab cultural patterns (although only relatively few are descended from the Arabs who emigrated into the region during the 13th–19th cent.). The westerners, so called because they immigrated (primarily in the 20th cent.) from W Africa, are also Muslim, live mostly in the central part of Sudan, and work as farmers or agricultural laborers. The southerners, consisting of Nilotic and Sudanic peoples, largely follow traditional religious beliefs, although some are Christian; they practice shifting cultivation or are pastoralists, and most speak Nilotic languages. The leading ethnic groups in the south are the Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk, Bari, and the non-Nilotic Azande. The great majority of the country's population live in villages or small towns; the only sizable cities are Port Sudan, Wad Madani, Al Ubayyid, and the conurbation of Khartoum, Omdurman, and Khartoum North. The desert and semidesert of the north are largely uninhabited. Since the late 1970s, there have been waves of refugees from neighboring countries, a result of political, environmental, and economic problems in the region. Many have settled in the area around Khartoum. However, since the 1980s there has also been outmigration due to the civil war in the south. Educational facilities are very limited, marked by low literacy rates. The main institutions of higher education are the Univ. of Khartoum, the Khartoum branch of the Univ. of Cairo, Juba Univ., Gezira Univ., and Omdurman Islamic Univ. Economy Sudan is an overwhelmingly agricultural country. Much of the farming is of a subsistence kind; in the late 1990s agriculture occupied some 80% of the workforce but contributed only 33% of the GDP. Agricultural production varies from year to year because of intermittent droughts that cause widespread famine. The government plays a major role in planning the economy. The leading export crops are cotton, sesame, and peanuts. Other agricultural products include sorghum, millet, wheat, dates, and sugarcane. Sheep, cattle, goats, and camels are raised. A variety of forest products are produced, by far the most important being gum arabic, with Sudan accounting for much of the total world production. In the south, fish caught in the Nile system are an important dietary staple. The leading products of the country's small mining industry are chromite, copper, salt, gold, manganese, gypsum, and mica. Petroleum deposits were developed in the 1970s, but the work was discontinued in the mid-1980s as military conflict in the south intensified. In the late 1990s, the government sought foreign partners to help redevelop the oil sector, and a pipeline was built from S Sudan to Port Sudan, on the Red Sea. Industry is largely confined to agricultural processing and the manufacture of basic consumer needs; the chief products include ginned cotton, processed food, beverages, textiles, cement, soap, and footwear. Petroleum is also refined, but the main source of energy is hydroelectric power. The country has a very limited transportation network. Foreign trade is largely conducted via Port Sudan. Chief among the annual imports, the value of which is usually higher than that of exports, are food, petroleum products, machinery, transportation equipment, medicines, chemicals, and manufactured goods; the principal exports are ginned cotton, sesame, gum arabic, livestock, and meat. The leading trade partners are Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and other European Union countries, China, and South Korea. History Early History Northeast Sudan, called Nubia in ancient times, was colonized (c.2000 b.c.) by Egypt as far as the fourth cataract of the Nile (near modern Karima). From the 8th cent. b.c. to the 4th cent. a.d. this region was ruled by the Cush kingdom, centered first at Napata (near the fourth cataract) and after c.600 b.c. at Meroë (between the fifth and sixth cataracts). From c.750 to c.650 b.c., Cush ruled Egypt as a result of a dynastic replacement. Meroë was a center of trade and ironworking, and from there iron technology may have spread to other parts of Africa. Most of the inhabitants of Nubia were converted to Coptic Christianity in the 6th cent. a.d., and by the 8th cent. three states flourished in the area. These states long resisted invasions from Egypt, which had come under Muslim rule in the 7th cent. However, from the 13th to the 15th cent. the region was increasingly infiltrated by peoples from the north; the states collapsed, and Nubia gradually became Muslim. The southern part of the modern Sudan continued to adhere to traditional African beliefs. Much of the north was ruled by the Muslim state of Funj from the 16th cent. until 1821, when it was conquered by armies sent by Muhammad Ali of Egypt. The Era of Foreign Control The Egyptians founded (1823) Khartoum as their headquarters and developed Sudan's trade in ivory and slaves. Ismail Pasha (in office 1863–79) tried to extend Egyptian influence further south in Sudan, ostensibly to end the slave trade. This campaign, which was headed first by Sir Samuel Baker and then by Charles Gordon, provoked a complex revolt (1881) by the Mahdi (Muhammad Ahmad), who sought to end Egyptian influence and to purify Islam in Sudan. The Mahdists defeated Anglo-Egyptian punitive expeditions, and Britain and Egypt decided to abandon Sudan. Gordon, sent to evacuate the British and Egyptian troops, was killed by the Mahdists at Khartoum in early 1885. The Mahdi died in the same year, but his successor, the Khalifa Abdallahi, continued to build up the theocratic Mahdist state. In the 1890s the British decided to gain control of Sudan, and, in a series of campaigns between 1896 and 1898, an Anglo-Egyptian force under Herbert (later Lord) Kitchener destroyed the power of the Mahdists. Agreements in 1899 (reaffirmed by the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936) established the condominium government of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Under the condominium, Sudan was administered by a governor-general, appointed by Egypt with the consent of Great Britain; in practice, however, the British controlled the government of Sudan. The Sudanese continued to oppose colonial rule, and the Egyptians resented their subordinate role to the British. In 1924 the British instituted a policy of isolating the southern Sudan by administering it separately from the north. An advisory council for the northern Sudan was established in 1943, and in 1948 a predominantly elective legislative assembly for the whole territory was set up. In the 1948 elections, the Independence Front, which favored the creation of an independent republic, gained a majority over the National Front, which sought union with Egypt. After the 1952 revolution in Egypt, Britain and Egypt agreed to prepare Sudan for independence in 1956. In 1955 southerners, fearing that the new nation would be dominated by the Muslim north, began a revolt that lasted 17 years. Struggles of an Independent Nation In spite of the continuing revolt in the south, Sudan achieved independence as a parliamentary republic in 1956, as planned. In 1958, Gen. Ibrahim Abboud led a military coup that ended the parliamentary system. Unable to improve the country's weak economy or to end the southern revolt, Abboud in 1964 agreed to the reestablishment of civilian government. The new regime also had little success in coping with the country's problems. In 1969, Col. Muhammad Gaafur al- Nimeiry staged a successful coup. He banned all political parties and subsequently nationalized banks and numerous industries. The bloody civil war was ended by an agreement between the government and the Southern Sudan Liberation Front (whose military arm was known as Anya Nya) signed (Feb., 1972) at Addis Ababa. Under the agreement S Sudan was granted considerable autonomy. Also in 1972, the Sudanese Socialist Union, the country's only political organization, elected a "people's assembly" to draw up a new constitution for the country, which was adopted in 1973. Nimeiry's regime became the target of criticism at home because of worsening economic conditions and for its support of Egypt's part in the Camp David Accords with Israel; in the late 1970s, Nimeiry dismissed his cabinet and closed universities in an attempt to quell opposition. During the 1980s, political instability in S Sudan increased, with renewed fighting by the largely Christian and animist Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). Motivated at least partly by a desire to shore up his popularity in the largely Muslim north, Nimeiry in 1983 instituted strict Islamic law, further inflaming opposition in the south. Having survived numerous earlier coup attempts, he was overthrown in 1985, and Gen. Abdul Rahman Swaredahab was installed as leader of a transitional military government. Elections were held in 1986 and a civilian government led by Sadiq al-Mahdi ruled until it was overthrown in a bloodless coup in 1989. The new military regime under Lt. Gen. Omar Ahmed al-Bashir strengthened ties with Libya, Iran, and Iraq; reinforced Islamic law; banned opposition parties; and continued to pursue the war with the south, diverting relief aid (primarily food) from the famine-stricken south to the Muslim north. In 1990 the United States halted relief efforts to Sudan; ties between the two nations were further strained when Sudan supported Iraq in the Persian Gulf War. Bashir officially became president in 1993, but significant political power was held by the National Islamic Front, a fundamentalist political organization formed from the Muslim Brotherhood and led by Hassan al-Turabi, who became speaker of parliament. In 1996, Bashir won a presidential election that was boycotted by most opposition groups; a multiparty system was restored in 1999. In Aug., 1998, U.S. missiles destroyed a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum that was suspected of manufacturing chemical-weapons compounds to be used in terrorist activities; however, international investigators were unable to find evidence to support the charges. Civil war continued through the 1990s, by which time it had reportedly resulted in nearly 2 million deaths (mostly from war-related starvation and disease) and had left the economy crippled. Sudan was cited by the UN Human Rights Commission for human-rights violations (including alleged widespread slavery and forced labor), condemned for supporting terrorism abroad, and accused by human-rights groups of "ethnic cleansing" in its offensive against the south. A cease-fire was declared in July, 1998, in order to allow food shipments to be delivered, but there were violations. In July, 1999, peace talks in Nairobi, Kenya, broke down as the warring sides failed to renew the cease-fire. During 1999 the parliament increased Turabi's powers and moved to limit those of the president. In response, Bashir declared a three-month state of emergency in December and dissolved parliament; the next month he appointed a new cabinet. Bashir also improved his position in the ruling National Congress party. In May, 2000, Turabi's position as secretary-general of the party was frozen, and Turabi subsequently formed his own party, the Popular National Congress party. Meanwhile, Bashir's government worked to improve its foreign relations, and, in December, Bashir was reelected president. The opposition boycotted the vote, and the concurrent parliamentary elections were swept by the National Congress party. In Feb., 2001, Turabi was placed under house arrest after signing a memorandum of understanding with the southern rebels in which they called for joint peaceful resistance to Bashir's government, and subsequently other members of Turabi's political party were arrested; Turabi was not released until Oct., 2003. In Jan., 2002, a cease-fire was declared in the ongoing civil war in the Nuba Mts. to allow relief aid to be distributed in the drought-stricken south-central region, but fighting continued elsewhere. The same month two rebels groups, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and Sudan People's Defense Force, established a formal alliance. The government and the SPLA agreed to a framework for peace in July, 2002, that called for autonomy for the south and a referendum on independence after six years; however, three regions of central Sudan claimed by the rebels were not covered by the agreement. A broad truce was agreed to in Oct., 2002. Despite some violations of the cease-fire, talks continued in 2003. In Sept., 2003, an accord between the two sides called for the withdrawal of government troops from the south, rebel forces from the north, and the establishment of a joint government-rebel force in the south and in two central regions, and talks continued. In 2003 a separate rebellion broke out in the Darfur region of W Sudan; it involved a group linked to an opposition party. A cease-fire was signed in Sept., 2003, but fighting continued. The Darfur rebels subsequently agreed to form alliance with the Beja rebels in NE Sudan (around Kasala ) if they were not included in any settlement with the government; the Beja group had expected to be part of the negotiations with the southern rebels. Militias allied with the government in Darfur were accused of ethnic cleansing, and perhaps as many as 800,000 Sudanese had been displaced by the fighting when a new cease-fire was signed in Apr., 2004. Also in April, Turabi and members of his party were again arrested by the government, which accused them of plotting against it. Bibliography See P. M. Holt, A Modern History of the Sudan (3d ed. 1979); R. O. Collins, Shadows in the Grass: Britain in the Southern Sudan, 1918–1956 (1983); N. O'Neill and J. O'Brien, Economy and Class in the Sudan (1988); J. O. Voll, ed., Sudan (1991); P. Woodward, Sudan, 1898–1989 (1991); J. M. Burr, Africa's Thirty Years' War: Chad, Libya, and the Sudan, 1963–1993 (1999); D. Petterson, Inside Sudan (1999). ____________________ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved. By 2500 B.C.E. Nubians, as shown by A-Group culture, had experienced the evolution from tribal Neolithic to more stable agricultural life. During periods of Egyptian military strength, the pharaohs would extend their control into the Sudan; during periods of political disorganization within Egypt, peoples in the Sudan would be able to develop independently. During the period when Egypt itself was under the rule of the Hyksos, conquerors who had come from Asia, there developed in the Sudan a state centered around the city of Kerma and usually called Kush. This state flourished in the period between roughly 1730 and 1580 B.C.E.; it came to an end when Egyptian imperial power was reestablished during the New Kingdom. For the following five hundred years most of the northern and central parts of the Nile Valley in the Sudan were under the direct rule of pharaonic Egypt. Then, following the older rhythm of history, as Egyptian imperial power declined, powers in the Sudan asserted first a major degree of independence and then actually conquered Egypt itself, ruling as the twenty-fifth dynasty. (This period extends from about 750 to 660 B.C.E.) For the next thousand years, peoples in the Sudan were relatively free from foreign conquest. Major expeditions were sent from time to time by the rulers of Egypt, whether Assyrian, Persian, Hellenistic, or Roman, but none of these had much success. During this more sheltered time, a special state and culture developed. Many of the older customs and beliefs of ancient Egypt survived there long after they had disappeared in Egypt itself. There also emerged a clearly autonomous culture with special political attitudes and institutions as well as artistic and religious traditions. The product of these developments was the state and society of Meroe. Many scholars believe that Meroe was the path by which many Middle Eastern techniques and ideas came to Africa. It clearly was a major center in the developing iron industry at the time. It is also clear that Meroe produced a dynamic cultural synthesis that is more than simply the sum of outside influences; historically, it was more than just a channel between two other areas. Like the modern Sudan, classical Sudan seems to have had a mediating role in the overlapping regions in which it found itself. States surrounding Meroe began in the third century C.E. to impinge upon its lands and peoples. The emergence of a strong kingdom, Axum, in the Ethiopian highlands created a major enemy, and raids from Axum by 350 C.E. signaled the end of the Meroitic state. However, the state did not fall before it had established itself as an important actor on the stage of world history, joining Middle Eastern and African elements into "a strongly original civilization.'' 2 In the wake of the collapse of Meroe there emerged a number of medieval states located in the river valley. In the middle of the sixth century the rulers of these states converted to Christianity. When Egypt was conquered by the Arab-Islamic armies in 640, a new era in Sudanese-Egyptian relations began. For eight or nine centuries there was a long history of interactions between Muslim rulers in Egypt and Christian rulers in the Sudan. Gradually, with the migration of Arab tribes into the Sudan and the growing activities of Muslim merchants, the influence of Christianity began to decline. Some states became Muslim through the conversion of their rulers; others were conquered by Muslim neighbors. The capital of the last medieval Sudanese Christian state is traditionally reported to have fallen in 1504. However, despite various wars, it seems clear that the end of the medieval era in the Sudan was more the product of evolution and conversion than of invasion and attack. A new and complicated set of societies was emerging by the sixteenth century. The special forms of regional and local identities visible in the modern Sudan have their roots in the era beginning in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Although many lines of continuity also exist with the cultures of antiquity, the characters of the constituent parts of the Sudan were precisely defined during the period since the fall of the last medieval states. In the northern part of the Sudan this process is most apparent in the Islamization of communities and society. In the south, tribal movements not associated with Islam laid the foundations for the groups that were to emerge as the major components of modern southern Sudanese society. In both regions this process of definition reflected the organization of tribal and agricultural groups under the control of special commercial and warrior elites. The best-known state to emerge during this time was the Funj sultanate, with its capital at Sennar south of modern Khartoum. Although the origins of the Funj ruling elite are subject to disagreement, it is clear that by the middle of the sixteenth century the central part of the Nile Valley in the Sudan was under the direct control of an emerging Funj state that had at least tributary relationships with various surrounding groups. Only gradually did the Funj sultanate assume the forms of an Islamic state; in its early days it appears to have reflected local and African traditions of monarchical rule. Originally, Islam had come to the Sudan through the migrations of Arab tribes and the wanderings of Muslim merchants. These people had been responsible for the gradual introduction of Islamic practices into Sudanese life before the establishment of the Funj state. The habits, practices, and beliefs of the tribal and trading Muslims were not particularly rigorous in adherence to the specific requirements of the faith, and they reflected little scholarly sophistication. Not until the establishment of the Funj state did an informed scholarly class of Muslims begin to emerge. The Funj leaders provided patronage for these learned men, or ulama, granting them special economic privileges. In return, the emerging class of Islamic scholars frequently provided helpful support to the state, either by helping to create support among the population or by acting as mediators in various types of disputes. In this context, the Islamic dimension of life within the Funj state came to be centered around individual teachers and local Islamic educational centers. These schools often were significant meeting places for people from many different tribes, bringing a cosmopolitan element to and, at the same time, becoming integrated into local life. No central institution emerged to regulate Islamic education or to control the local teachers. By the eighteenth century, when Funj power was declining, these teachers and spiritual guides became the major coordinating forces in their various localities. The Majdhub family in the city of Damer (Ad Damir), for example, established a virtually independent community-state that was centered around the family's school. By the end of the eighteenth century the pattern that emerged in the central and northern parts of the Sudan involved a network of independent Islamic schools and community centers led by holy families. The focal point of each of these communities was the tomb of some pious ancestor of the leading holy family. Tribal leaders often looked to the holy men for support, and the general population believed that these teachers had special spiritual power. The Funj sultans had established a state that ruled above the tribes and holy families; in this way they laid the foundations for the acceptance of centralized authority. But the limited nature of Funj control also laid the foundations for feelings of strong local autonomy. Many of the holy families who established themselves in the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries continue to be influential in the modern Sudan. The Funj state was not the only major state to emerge in this era. In the western regions other small states helped to define the special regional identities of Darfur and Kordofan. The Daju, a little-known group, gained control of at least part of Darfur before 1200 C.E. They were succeeded by the Tunjur, who by the mid seventeenth century were replaced by the Keira dynasty. This dynasty ruled as an Islamic sultanate from the time of Sulayman Solang in the late seventeenth century. Keira sultans maintained at least nominal control of Darfur until the last of them was defeated by the British during World War I. Although the general population in the western Sudan appears to have gradually converted to Islam, not as much stress was put on the Islamic tradition of learning as in the Funj areas. In the west, local tribal holy figures had greater influence, and popular religion was less in the traditional Islamic mold. Whatever the nature of Islamic organization, the northern parts of the Sudan had been incorporated into the Islamic world by the beginning of the nineteenth century. Along with this process of Islamization was a parallel one of arabization, so that despite the great linguistic and ethnic diversity in the northern Sudan, an Arabic-Islamic society emerged, especially among the educated portions of the population. Even in areas such as the Red Sea hills, where the local people maintained distinctive linguistic and cultural traditions in their daily lives, the emerging Arabic-Islamic culture of the northern Sudan was important at tribal and regional levels. A different line of development took place in the southern part of the area now included in the Sudan. Major tribal migrations brought most of the southern groups to their presentday locations. Little is known about these movements beyond a general outline of the history. In the period after 1000 C.E. people in the southern region called Bahr al Ghazal developed a herding-pastoral lifestyle. This society gradually evolved, and sometime in the fifteenth century these people began to expand their heartland into the central part of the southern Sudan. Called Nilotes, they developed their own distinctive culture; they tended to be insulated from outside threats by the relative isolation of their home areas as well as by the swamps and forests of the upper Nile Valley. The major Nilotic groups established homeland areas in the centuries after the fifteenth, but they did not develop centralized political institutions. "Their minimal government satisfactorily dealt with internal disputes, and the absence of external threats made the evolution of more centralized institutions of authority unnecessary.'' 3 The largest of the groups of Nilotes is the Dinka, who comprise about 10 percent of the population of the modern Sudan. They became a large cluster of tribal groupings with a relatively homogeneous culture but little or no large-scale political organization. A second grouping of Nilotes that was established in the southern Sudan during this era is the Nuer. A cattleherding people, they created settlements over a relatively large area; they shared cultural values but had no centralized political institutions to provide a unified government. The Nilotes with the most effectively centralized political structure are the Shilluk. They lived along a portion of the Nile where the river valley was less swampy and more clearly defined, and they engaged more extensively in agriculture and were less dependent upon cattle herding. Their centralized monarchical institution provided a means for coordination of all the Shilluk groups, at least in time of war. Some scholars speculate that the Funj leaders may originally have been a Shilluk raiding band who successfully established themselves north of their own heartland. Another group that moved into the region, the Azande, began to arrive sometime in the sixteenth century in the southwestern areas. Originally relatively weak and disorganized, the Azande became a unified kingdom in the eighteenth century. The critical element in this development was the arrival of a new group, the Avungara, who established themselves as a proud military aristocracy. Azande expansion brought together the earlier groups and assimilated others, creating a large imperial system. By the nineteenth century the southern Sudan was emerging as a complex region with a few major tribal-cultural groupings and a large number of smaller tribes. There were expansive tribal and supratribal groupings like the Azande and the Dinka, but the region as a whole remained relatively isolated. It had limited contact with the rest of the world, usually involving invasion or conflict--already the beginning of today's pattern of relations in which southern Sudanese view with suspicion outsiders coming into their region. By the start of the nineteenth century the special identities of the regional states and societies of the modern Sudan were quite clearly defined. The states that emerged in the central and western parts of the Sudan, the largest of which were the Darfur and Funj sultanates, firmly established traditions of supratribal political organization in the northern Sudan. This political experience provided a way of integrating tribes and local religious centers into a political whole without eliminating local identities. In the other parts of the modern Sudan, the premodern experience has supported even more strongly this characteristic of maintaining local identities within some visible but not overwhelming broader unit. In the south, for example, independent local units share cultural traits but have limited, if any, political coordination. This pattern was not limited to the south. In the north, especially among peoples who did not become fully arabized although they converted to Islam, the preservation of local diversity took many forms. In the societies with ancient roots along the river in Nubia, a tradition of small kingdoms or principalities was maintained; local language variations and traditions were preserved within a broader sense of Nubian identity. In the Red Sea hills area, the various Beja tribes represent a complex hierarchy of sociopolitical order. There, the Hadandowa and Bishariyyin, for example, provide large, almost supratribal identities but contain a wide variety of local and independent clans. From earliest times the history of the Sudan reflected a diversity of social and cultural experience. But once again a pattern emerges in which unity and diversity interact. At the beginning of the nineteenth century new forces were at work, both within and outside the Sudan, that would transform the country from a collection of regional and local groupings into a single unit, at least in internationally recognized political terms. This was the period during which the modern Sudan emerged in the shape that it maintains today. The process of centralization involved both the evolution of institutions within Sudanese society and invasion by outsiders, who imposed regionwide and countrywide systems of political and military control. These internal and external forces interacted to create distinctively Sudanese but relatively cosmopolitan social, economic, and political structures. The most visible alteration of the Sudanese scene in the early nineteenth century was the conquest of much of the northern Sudan by Egypt, beginning in 1820-1821. Since 1805, Egypt, at that time a province in the Ottoman Empire, had been ruled by Muhammad Ali. Although technically an Ottoman governor, Muhammad Ali soon established himself as a virtually independent ruler. He set out to modernize Egypt as rapidly as possible, rebuilding the Egyptian military and restructuring the economy. As a part of these programs he came to the conclusion that it would be useful to conquer the Sudan. The resources of the Sudan would contribute much to his modernization plan; slaves from the Sudan would swell his new army, and Sudanese gold could be mined and used to pay for his programs. As a result, the comparatively modern Egyptian army moved into the Sudan in 1820 and brought an end to the Funj sultanate and to the political independence of the smaller states and groups along the river valley. The process of gaining control over other areas of the Sudan continued throughout the century, and various efforts were made to extend Egyptian control into the south and east. The conquest of the sultanate of Darfur was finally completed in 1874, although shadow sultans continued to threaten revolts after that. The Egyptians attempted to establish a countrywide administrative structure. They did not want to abolish tribal groups, but they did want them integrated into a pattern of control that could provide the basis for stable rule. Some tribes accepted this new pattern and became the mainstays of the new government. One such group was the Sha'iqiyyah of the northern river valley area. In a short time, the Sha'iqiyyah became irregular soldiers, merchants, and low-level officials throughout the country. In the process, the tribe was transformed into a relatively cosmopolitan social network engaging in nontribal and supratribal activities. Other tribal groupings resisted the expansion of Egyptian control. However, to resist effectively they began to organize themselves into larger units. Thus, some of the "paramount chiefs" of various Beja tribes in the eastern Sudan began to exercise more control over their people than they had previously. A parallel evolution of religious organization was occurring in the northern part of the country. Although this development was strengthened by the policies of the Egyptian administration, Islamic institutions had been developing in the direction of greater centralization even before the Egyptian conquest. At the end of the eighteenth century a new kind of Islamic organization began to have influence in the Sudan: religious brotherhoods that represented a new style of Sufism (the Islamic tradition of mysticism). This neo-Sufism emerged in many areas of the Islamic world during the eighteenth century. Traditional Sufism had presented a special set of devotional exercises for followers of pious teachers, and social organizations for these followers had developed. Both the devotional exercises and the organizations are called "The Path," or tariqah. By the sixteenth century these tariqahs or brotherhoods had become a major social force within many parts of the Islamic world, providing a way of organizing the common people as well as the religious elite into effective groupings. Until the eighteenth century brotherhoods tended to be relatively passive social organizations, especially in terms of political action. Some exceptions occurred, when brotherhoods became the base for revolutionary, religion-inspired movements. But most of the orders were very loosely organized, usually around the memory of some pious religious teacher or as the followers of an individual, and orders that were widespread had little effective organization. During the eighteenth century a new type of tariqah began to emerge, more centralized in organization and more concerned with mobilizing the general population in order to renew or reform Islamic society. The first brotherhoods to come to the Sudan were of the old style. Their decentralized organization fit the pattern of Islamic life in the Sudan at the time, organized as it was around local schools and holy men or families. According to traditional accounts, the first major order to be introduced into the Sudan was the Qadiriyyah tariqah, which came in the sixteenth century; other tariqahs followed. The new Sufi style gradually entered the Sudan in the last days of the Funj sultanate and the early days of Egyptian rule. One of the major neo-Sufi orders of the time was the Sammaniyyah, which had been established in the Arabian Peninsula and was brought to the Sudan by a wandering teacher, Ahmad al-Tayyib al-Bashir, in the late eighteenth century. Although the Sammaniyyah did not break up into purely local units, it was nevertheless affected by the fragmented pattern of Sudanese Islamic organization. The Khatmiyyah tariqah was introduced into the Sudan slightly later. Its organization was centered around the Mirghani family, and the Mirghanis were able to maintain a more broadly based and regionally integrated structure. The founder of the order, Muhammad Uthman al-Mirghani ( 1793-1853), came to the Sudan from Mecca around 1817 and laid the basis for a countrywide brotherhood. His son Hasan ( 1819-1869) continued his work under Egyptian rule. The Khatmiyyah became a close ally of the Egyptian administration and was the major instance of a regionwide religious organization at work. The Egyptian administrative system represented the first centralized government of the Sudan. This process of political centralization and definition was reflected in similar developments in tribal and religious structures as well as in more widespread trade and population movement patterns. The emergence of the Sudan as a separate and identifiable unit was, however, a long and slow process that was only beginning during the era of Egyptian rule. The full extent of the modern Sudan was not yet included within the general boundaries, and some parts, like Darfur, were only loosely integrated. Tribal, local religious, and regional loyalties were still the strongest ties for the people living in the Sudan. Few if any of these people would have actually identified themselves as "Sudanese." That would only come later. The heritage of the nineteenth century was not fully constructive in its impact on Sudanese society as it emerged in the twentieth century. The fact that the centralization of government administration was in the hands of outsiders reinforced the natural reluctance of tribal and village peoples to submit to central governmental control. Rulers in the capital were seen as outsiders, even if they were Sudanese, and the heavy-handed methods of the Egyptians frequently aroused mistrust and fear rather than confidence. This aspect of Egyptian rule became more important in the second half of the nineteenth century, when rulers in Egypt began to use Europeans as administrators in some of the Sudanese provinces. This practice aroused resentment, especially among the Muslim peoples, who objected not only to foreign rule but to rule by non-Muslims. In addition, the standards of efficiency among Egyptian administrators were low, and a highly visible level of corruption angered the Sudanese. Although these negative situations did not stop the development of countrywide communications systems and the creation of a central government, attitudes toward central government control were not as sympathetic as they might have been under different circumstances. Possibly the most damaging effects of the nineteenthcentury heritage of countrywide integration were felt in the southern Sudan, where various forces destroyed that region's isolation. Explorers and traders moved up the Nile Valley in search of products, wealth, and glory. Early commercial activity centered on the ivory trade, but merchants soon found the trade in slaves to be more profitable. By the middle of the century a number of private armies had been created by slave traders who raided many parts of the south. The government did little to stop this and, at least at times, actually participated in this trade. The Egyptian rulers sent armies into the south to extend the areas under their control. As a result, a pattern of violent interaction developed between the southern peoples and the outsiders coming from the north, undermining any possible positive effects of friendly commercial relations and augmenting the southern mistrust of outsiders. The period of Egyptian rule in the Sudan came rather abruptly to an end in the 1880s. At that time a major local Islamic movement defeated the Egyptian forces and established an independent state in the Sudan. The centralizing tendencies that had begun in the period of Egyptian rule did not, however, disappear. The changes introduced into Sudanese life in the years of Egyptian rule could not be reversed. The foundations for the modern Sudan had been laid.