Sultanate of Darfur

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Sultanate of Darfur سلطنة دارفور (Arabic) Salṭanat Dārfūr
1603–1874 1898–1916
Map of Darfur in 1914.
Status	Sultanate
Capital	Kobbe (before 1790) al-Fashir (after 1790)
Common languages	Fur, Arabic
Religion	Sunni Islam
Demonym(s)	Dafurian
Government	Absolute monarchy
Sultan
• 1603–1637	Sulayman Solong
• 1898–1916	Ali Dinar
Historical era	Early Modern Period
• Established	1603
• Conquered by Rabih az-Zubayr	24 October 1874
• Independence from Mahdist Sudan	1898
• Invasion of Darfur	1916
Preceded by Succeeded by Tunjur kingdom Mahdist Sudan Turkish Sudan Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
Today part of	Sudan

The Sultanate of Darfur (Arabic: سلطنة دارفور, romanized: Salṭanat Dārfūr) was a pre-colonial state in present-day Sudan. It existed from 1603 to 24 October 1874, when it fell to the Sudanese warlord Rabih az-Zubayr, and again from 1898 to 1916, when it was occupied by the British and the Egyptians and was integrated into Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. At its peak in the late 18th and early 19th century it stretched all the way from Darfur in the west to Kordofan and the western banks of the White Nile in the east, giving it the size of present-day Nigeria.^[1]

Darfur is composed mostly of semi-arid plains and small seasonal rivers that cannot support a dense population. The one exception is the area in and around the Jebal Marra mountains. It was from bases in these mountains that a series of groups expanded to control the region. According to written records the Daju and the 14th century migrants the Tunjur were the earliest powers in Darfur. The transition of power from the Daju to the Tunjur was facilitated through marriage.

Eventually the Tunjur began marrying amongst the Fur people producing Sultan Dali, a celebrated figure in Darfur histories, who was on his mother's side a Fur, and thus brought the dynasty closer to the people it ruled. Dali divided the country into provinces and established a penal code which, under the title of Kitab Dali or Dali's Book, is still preserved, and differs in some respects from Sharia law. His grandson Suleiman (or "Sulayman", usually distinguished by the Fur epithet Solon, meaning "the Arab" or "the Red") reigned from 1603 to 1637, and was a great warrior and a devoted Muslim. Suleiman Solon is considered the founder of the Keira dynasty and the Sultanate of Darfur. During the 17th century, the Keira sultans introduced the feudal hakura system into Darfur.

Soleiman's grandson, Ahmed Bukr (c.1682 – c.1722), made Islam the religion of the state, and increased the prosperity of the country by encouraging immigration from Bornu and Bagirmi.

The death of Bukr initiated a long-running conflict over the succession. On his deathbed, Bukr stated that each of his many sons should rule in turn. Once on the throne, each of his sons instead hoped to make their own son heir, leading to an intermittent civil war that lasted until 1785/1786 (AH 1200). Due to these internal divisions, Darfur declined in importance and engaged in wars with Sennar and Wadai.

One of the most capable of the monarchs during this period was Sultan Mohammed Terab, one of Ahmad Bukr's sons. He led a number of successful campaigns. In 1785/1786 (AH 1200), he led an army against the Funj, but got no further than Omdurman. Here he was stopped by the Nile, and found no means of getting his army across the river. Unwilling to give up his project, Terab remained at Omdurman for months and the army began to grow disaffected. According to some stories Terab was poisoned by his wife at the instigation of disaffected chiefs, and the army returned to Darfur. While he tried to have his son succeed him, the throne instead went to his brother Abd al-Rahman.

Sultan Abd-er-Rahman established a new capital at al-Fashir, meaning "the capital", in 1790. The capital had formerly been moved from place to place then at another location called Kobb. During his reign, Napoleon Bonaparte was campaigning in Egypt. In 1799 Abd-er-Rahman wrote to congratulate the French general on his defeat of the Mamluks. Bonaparte replied by asking the sultan to send him 2,000 strong and vigorous black slaves who were upwards of sixteen years old in the next caravan.

Muhammad al-Fadl, his son, was for some time under the control of an energetic eunuch, Mohammed Kurra, but he ultimately made himself independent, and his reign lasted till 1838, when he died of leprosy. He devoted himself largely to the subjection of the semi-independent Arab tribes who lived in the country, notably the Rizeigat, thousands of whom he slew.

An account of life and the geography in Darfur was written in the early 19th century by Muḥammad al-Tūnisī (d. 1857), who spent ten years as a merchant from Cairo in the sultanate and described the kingdom in detail and with his own drawings in the book translated as In Darfur.^[2]

In 1821, el-Fahl lost the province of Kordofan to the Egyptians under Mehemet Ali, who planned to conquer the Sudan. The Keira dispatched an army but it was routed by the Egyptians near Bara on 19 August 1821. The Egyptians had intended to conquer all of Darfur, but their difficulties consolidating their hold on the Nile region forced them to abandon these plans. Al-Fadl died in 1838 and of his forty sons, the third, Muhammad al-Husayn, was appointed his successor. Al-Husayn is described as a religious but avaricious man. In 1856 he went blind and for the rest of his reign Zamzam Umm al-Nasr, the sultan's eldest sister or ayabasi, was the de facto ruler of the sultanate. Zamzam and other members of the sultan's inner circle exploited his weakness to repossess and pillage large tracts of land, terrorizing the citizens and weakening the sultanate.^[3]

In 1856, a Khartoum businessman, al-Zubayr Rahma, began operations in the land south of Darfur. He set up a network of trading posts defended by well-armed forces and soon had a sprawling state under his rule. This area, known as the Bahr el Ghazal, had long been the source of the goods that Darfur would trade to Egypt and North Africa, especially slaves and ivory. The natives of Bahr el Ghazal paid tribute to Darfur, and these were the chief articles of merchandise sold by the Darfurians to the Egyptian traders along the road to Asyut. Al-Zubayr redirected this flow of goods to Khartoum and the Nile.

Sultan al-Husayn died in 1873 and the succession passed to his youngest son Ibrahim, who soon found himself engaged in a conflict with al-Zubayr. After earlier conflicts with the Egyptians, Al-Zubayr had become their ally and in cooperation with them agreed to conquer Darfur. The war resulted in the destruction of the kingdom. Ibrahim was slain in battle in the autumn of 1874, and his uncle Hassab Alla, who sought to maintain the independence of his country, was captured in 1875 by the troops of the khedive, and brought to Cairo with his family.

In 1898, with the decline of the Mahdists, sultan Ali Dinar managed to re-establish Darfur's independence. Darfur was conquered by the British Empire in 1916, officially because Dinar gave his support to the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Dinar was killed and his kingdom was incorporated into the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium.

The armies of Darfur underwent a three-staged evolution. Before the 18th century they consisted entirely of levy warbands, youths armed with spears, hide shields and occasionally throwing knives. They were commanded by an older man titled ornang or 'aqid. By the 18th century, a new type of warrior developed, the heavily armoured fursan.^[4] They would form the small core of the armies of Darfur.^[5] These fursan were armed with long swords imported from Solingen in Germany, lances, maces and sometimes firearms. Body armour consisted of locally made gambesons, German-made mail armour, silk coats, greaves and helmets. The horses were a Nubian breed imported from the Dongola Reach and were purchased with slaves. Like the riders they were armoured with gambesons and mail armour as well as additional armour for the head. All this equipment had to be organized and maintained by the chiefs responsible for the fursan.^[6] By the 1850s and 1860s, Darfur entered the third stage, when it attempted to build an army based on muskets. While firearms were already used in Darfur before it was only then when they were used tactically and in large numbers. These experiments were, however, ended with the invasion of al-Zubayr in 1874. Sultan Ibrahim died in a cavalry charge.^[7] The regular army of the revived state of Ali Dinar reportedly numbered 7,700 men in 1903 and 5,000 in 1916 and wielded a wide array of weapons, ranging from spears and shields to muzzle loaders, shotguns and Remington rifles.^[8]

Sultans and nobles were guarded by the korkwa, armed pages wielding spears and hide shields.^[5]

• O'Fahey, R. S.; Tubiana, Jérôme (2007). "Darfur. Historical and Contemporary Aspects" (PDF). Retrieved 2018-08-23.
• O'Fahey, Rex S. (1980). State and Society in Darfur. Hurst. ISBN 0312756062.
• Takana, Youssef Suliman Saeed (2016). "DARFUR – STRUGGLE OF POWER AND RESOURCES, 1650–2002: AN INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE" (PDF). Retrieved 2020-10-03.

• Kapteijns, Lidwien; Spaulding, Jay (1988). After the millennium: diplomatic correspondence from Wadai and Dar Fur on the eve of colonial conquest, 1885–1916. African Studies Center, Michigan State University. OCLC 18240510.
• O'Fahey, R.S.; Spaulding, Jay L. (1974). Kingdoms of the Sudan. Methuen Young Books. ISBN 0416774504.
• Spaulding, Jay; Kapteijns, Lidwien (1994). An Islamic Alliance: Ali Dinar and the Sanusiyya, 1906–1916. Northwestern University. ISBN 0810111942.
• Thebald, Alan Buchan (1965). Ali Dinar: Last Sultan of Darfur, 1898–1916. Longmans.