Sudanese Arabs () are the inhabitants of Sudan who identify as

Arabs The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

and speak

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

as their mother tongue. Part of them are descendants of

who migrated to Sudan from the Arabian Peninsula, although the rest have been described as

Arabized Arabization or Arabisation ( ar, تعريب, ') describes both the process of growing Arab influence on non-Arab populations, causing a language shift by the latter's gradual adoption of the Arabic language and incorporation of Arab culture, aft ...

indigenous peoples of Sudan of mostly

Nubian Nubian may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Nubia, a region along the Nile river in Southern Egypt and northern Sudan. *Nubian people *Nubian languages *Anglo-Nubian goat, a breed of goat * Nubian ibex * , several ships of the Britis ...

,Richard A. Lobban Jr. (2004): "Historical Dictionary of Ancient and Medieval Nubia". The Scarecrow Press. P. 37 Nilo-Saharan, and

Cushitic The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and the Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As o ...

Jakobsson, Mattias; Hassan, Hisham Y.; Babiker, Hiba; Günther, Torsten; Schlebusch, Carina M.; Hollfelder, Nina (24 August 2017). "Northeast African genomic variation shaped by the continuity of indigenous groups and Eurasian migrations". ''PLOS Genetics''. 13(8): e1006976. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1006976.

ISSN An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs ...

1553-7404. PMC 5587336.

PMID PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintain the ...

28837655. ancestry who are culturally and linguistically Arab, with varying cases of admixture from Peninsular Arabs. The vast majority of Arab tribes in Sudan migrated there in the 12th century and intermarried with the

Nubians Nubians () ( Nobiin: ''Nobī,'' ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the region which is now northern Sudan and southern Egypt. They originate from the early inhabitants of the central Nile valley, believed to be one of the earliest cradles of ...

and other indigenous populations, as well as introducing Islam. The Sudanese Arabs were described as a "hybrid of Arab and indigenous blood", and the Arabic they spoke was reported as "a pure but archaic Arabic".

Burckhardt Burckhardt, or (de) Bourcard in French, is a family of the Basel patriciate, descended from Christoph (Stoffel) Burckhardt (1490–1578), a merchant in cloth and silk originally from Münstertal, Black Forest, who received Basel citizenship i ...

noted that the

Ja'alin The Ja'alin, Ja'aliya, Ja'aliyin or Ja'al ( ar, جعليون) are an Arab or Arabised Nubian tribe in Sudan. The Ja'alin constitute a large portion of the Sudanese Arabs and are one of the three prominent Sudanese Arab tribes in northern Sudan ...

of the

Eastern Desert The Eastern Desert (Archaically known as Arabia or the Arabian Desert) is the part of the Sahara desert that is located east of the Nile river. It spans of North-Eastern Africa and is bordered by the Nile river to the west and the Red Sea an ...

are exactly like the Bedouin of

Eastern Arabia Eastern Arabia, historically known as al-Baḥrayn ( ar, البحرين) until the 18th century, is a region stretched from Basra to Khasab along the Persian Gulf coast and included parts of modern-day Bahrain, Kuwait, Eastern Saudi Arabia, Unite ...

. Citation: ''The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan'', edited by Count Gleichen (London, 1905) Sudanese Arabs make up 70% of the population of Sudan, however prior to the independence of

South Sudan South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the ...

in 2011, Sudanese Arabs made up only 40% of the population. They are predominantly Sunni Muslims and speak Sudanese Arabic. The great majority of the Sudanese Arabs tribes are part of larger tribal confederations: the

, who primarily live along the Nile river basin between

Khartoum Khartoum or Khartum ( ; ar, الخرطوم, Al-Khurṭūm, din, Kaartuɔ̈m) is the capital of Sudan. With a population of 5,274,321, its metropolitan area is the largest in Sudan. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile, flowing n ...

and Abu Hamad, the

Shaigiya The Shaigiya, Shaiqiya, Shawayga or Shaykia () are an Arab or Arabised Nubian tribe. They are part of the Sudanese Arabs and are also one of the three prominent Sudanese Arabs tribes in North Sudan, along with the Ja'alin and Danagla. The tr ...

, who live along the Nile between

Korti Korti or Kurti is a town in northern-central Sudan. In the Meroitic period the city appeared as Cadetum, Cadata or Coetum in Roman sources. The town lies about from Khartoum, on the south side of the Nile at the terminus of the Wadi Muqaddam. I ...

and Jabal al-Dajer, and parts of the

Bayuda Desert The Bayuda Desert, located at , is in the eastern region of the Sahara Desert, spanning approximately 100,000 km2 of northeast Sudan north of Omdurman and south of Korti, embraced by the great bend of the Nile in the north, east and south ...

, the

Juhaynah The Juhaynah ( ar, جهينة, also transliterated as ''Djuhaynah'' and ''Johaynah'') are a nomad tribe of the Arabian Peninsula and the largest clan of Banu Quda'a. They are one of the most powerful Arabian tribes that rule important parts ...

, who live east and west of the Nile, and include the

Rufaa people Rufaa is an ethnic group in Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares bord ...

, the

Shukria clan The Shukria are a large Arab clan living in eastern Sudan. They may previously have lived around Merowe but in recent centuries have settled in the Butana region between the Atbara River and the Blue Nile. Towns where the Shukria live include Half ...

and the

Kababish The Kababish () are a nomadic tribe of the northern Kordofan region of Sudan. The Kababish comprise about 19 different groups, which are all led by a single ''nazir'' or chief. Their main occupation is as camel herders, which gives them a high s ...

, the

Banu Fazara The Banu Fazara or Fazzara or Fezara or Fezzara () were an Arab tribe whose original homeland was Najd. Origins of the tribe According to Arab genealogical tradition, the progenitor of the Banu Fazara was Fazāra ibn Dhubyān ibn Baghīd ibn Ra ...

or Fezara people who live in Northern Kordofan, the

Kawahla Kawahla are an Arabic tribe inhabiting Eastern Sudan. They speak Sudanese Arabic and members of this ethnicity are Sunni Muslim. There are over 40 million members worldwide, with over 2 million in Southern Egypt (Al-Ababda) and 15 million in Moro ...

, who inhabit eastern Sudan, Northern Kordofan, and White Nile State, and the

Baggara The Baggāra ( ar, البَقَّارَة "heifer herder") or Chadian Arabs are a nomadic confederation of people of mixed Arab and Arabized indigenous African ancestry, inhabiting a portion of the Sahel mainly between Lake Chad and the Nile ri ...

, who inhabit

South Kordofan South Kordofan ( ar, جنوب كردفان ') is one of the 18 wilayat or states of Sudan. It has an area of 158,355 km² and an estimated population of approximately 1,100,000 people (2000).Lake Chad. There are numerous smaller tribal units that do not conform to the above groups, such as the Messelemiya, the Rikabia, the Hawawir people, the Magharba, the

Awadia and Fadnia tribes Awadia and Fadnia are two small nomad tribes of pure Arab descent living in the Bayuda Desert, Sudan, between the wells of Jakdul and Metemma. They are often incorrectly classed as Ja'alin. They own numbers of horses and cattle, the former of th ...

, the Kerriat, the Kenana people, the Kerrarish, the Hamran, amongst others. Sudan also houses non-Sudanese Arab populations such as the

Rashaida The Rashaida () is an ethnic group inhabiting the coastal plain from Massawa in Eritrea to the border with eastern Sudan. They are descended from Arabs (descended from Banu Abs) who fled from the Hejaz in present-day Saudi Arabia after tribal warf ...

that only recently settled Sudan in the 1846, after migrating from the Hejaz region of the Arabian Peninsula. Additionally, other smaller Sudanese groups who have also been Arabized, or partially Arabized, but retain a separate, non-

Arab identity Arab identity ( ar, الهوية العربية ) is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as an Arab and as relating to being Arab. Like other cultural identities, it relies on a common culture, a traditional lineage, the com ...

, include the

, Copts, and Beja.

Regional variation

Arab tribes arrived in Sudan in three main waves, beginning with the

in the 12th century. The Ja'alin trace their lineage to

Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib Al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib ( ar, ٱلْعَبَّاسُبْنُ عَبْدِ ٱلْمُطَّلِبِ, al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib; CE) was a paternal uncle and Sahabi (companion) of Muhammad, just three years older than his ...

and their culture was closely linked with that of the Bedouin in

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plat ...

. The second main wave was the migration of the

before the 17th century in two main subgroups, the

and Kabbabish. The final main wave was the migration of Bani Rashid in the mid-19th century. Most Sudanese Arabs speak modern Sudanese Arabic, with western Sudanese tribes bordering Chad like the

and Darfurians generally speaking

Chadian Arabic Chadian Arabic ( ar, لهجة تشادية), also known as Shuwa Arabic, Baggara Arabic, Western Sudanic Arabic, or West Sudanic Arabic (WSA), is a variety of Arabic and the first language of 1.6 million people, both town dwellers and nomadic c ...

. Sudanese Arabs have large variations in culture and genealogy because of their descent from a combination of various population groups. Other Arab population in Sudan that are not Sudanese Arab, i.e. those that are recent arrivals to the region exist, and most of them such as the

, the Bani Hassan, Al-Ashraf and

tribes generally speak Hejazi Arabic instead of the more widespread Sudanese Arabic.

Sudanese Arabic

In 1889 the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain claimed that the Arabic spoken in Sudan was "a pure but archaic Arabic". The pronunciation of certain letters was like Hijazi, and not Egyptian, such as g being the pronunciation for the Arabic letter Qāf and J being the pronunciation for Jeem.Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, JSTOR (Organization) (1888). Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 17. The Institute. p. 11. Retrieved 2011-05-08.

Religion

Islam

Most Sudanese Muslims are adherents of the Sunni branch of Islam; Sunni Islam in Sudan is not marked by a uniform body of belief and practice, however. Some Muslims opposed aspects of Sunni orthodoxy, and rites having a non-Islamic origin were widespread, being accepted as if they were integral to Islam, or sometimes being recognized as separate. Moreover, Sunni Islam in Sudan (as in much of Africa) has been characterized by the formation of religious orders or brotherhoods, each of which made special demands on its adherents.

Five pillars

Sudan Omdurman Main Mosque Main Entrance 1936

Sunni Islam requires its adherents to follow the

Five Pillars of Islam The Five Pillars of Islam (' ; also ' "pillars of the religion") are fundamental practices in Islam, considered to be obligatory acts of worship for all Muslims. They are summarized in the famous hadith of Gabriel. The Sunni and Shia agree o ...

. The first pillar, the shahadah or profession of faith is the affirmation "There is no god but God (Allah) and

Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mo ...

is his prophet." It is the first step in becoming a Muslim and a significant part of prayer. The second obligation is prayer at five specified times of the day. The third enjoins

almsgiving Alms (, ) are money, food, or other material goods donated to people living in poverty. Providing alms is often considered an act of virtue or charity. The act of providing alms is called almsgiving, and it is a widespread practice in a numbe ...

. The fourth requires fasting during daylight hours in the month of Ramadan. The fifth requires a

pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...

Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow ...

for those able to perform it, to participate in the special rites that occur during the twelfth month of the

lunar calendar A lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the Moon's phases ( synodic months, lunations), in contrast to solar calendars, whose annual cycles are based only directly on the solar year. The most commonly used calendar, t ...

. Most Sudanese Muslims are born to the faith and meet the first requirement. Conformity to the second requirement is more variable. Many males in the

cities A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

and larger towns manage to pray five times a day: at dawn, noon, midafternoon, sundown, and evening. The well-to-do perform little work during Ramadan, and many businesses close or operate on reduced schedules. In the early 1990s, its observance appeared to be widespread, especially in urban areas and among sedentary Sudanese Muslims. Minaret S

The

to Mecca is less costly and arduous for the Sudanese than it is for many Muslims. Nevertheless, it takes time (or money if travel is by air), and the ordinary Sudanese Muslim has generally found it difficult to accomplish, rarely undertaking it before middle age. Some have joined pilgrimage societies into which members pay a small amount monthly and choose one of their number when sufficient funds have accumulated to send someone on the pilgrimage. A returned pilgrim is entitled to use the honorific title hajj or hajjih for a woman. Another ceremony commonly observed is the great feast Id al Adha (also known as Id al Kabir), representing the sacrifice made during the last days of the pilgrimage. The centerpiece of the day is the slaughter of a sheep, which is distributed to the poor, kin, neighbors, and friends, as well as the immediate family. Islam imposes a standard of conduct encouraging generosity, fairness, and honesty towards other Muslims. Sudanese Arabs, especially those who are wealthy, are expected by their coreligionists to be generous.

Islam in Sudanese law

In accordance with Islamic law most Sudanese Muslims do not eat

pork Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the domestic pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE. Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved; ...

. Conformity to the prohibitions on gambling and alcohol is less widespread.

Usury Usury () is the practice of making unethical or immoral monetary loans that unfairly enrich the lender. The term may be used in a moral sense—condemning taking advantage of others' misfortunes—or in a legal sense, where an interest rate is c ...

is also forbidden by Islamic law, but Islamic banks have developed other ways of making money available to the public. Some Sudanese are skeptical of Islamic Banking—seeing it as an attempt by the religious elite to mask exploitative capitalist banking practices under a guise of religious sanctity In Sudan (until 1983) modern criminal and civil, including commercial, law generally prevailed. In the north, however, the sharia, was expected to govern what is usually called family and personal law, i.e., matters such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance. In the towns and in some sedentary communities sharia was accepted, but in other sedentary communities and among

nomads A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...

local custom was likely to prevailparticularly with respect to inheritance. In September 1983, Nimeiri imposed the sharia throughout the land, eliminating the civil and penal codes by which the country had been governed in the twentieth century. Traditional Islamic punishments were imposed for theft, adultery, homicide, and other crimes. The zealousness with which these punishments were carried out contributed to the fall of Nimeiri. Nevertheless, no successor government has shown inclination to abandon the sharia.

Other influences

Islam is monotheistic and insists that there can be no intercessors between an individual and God. Nevertheless, Sudanese Islam includes a belief in spirits as sources of illness or other afflictions and in magical ways of dealing with them. The imam of a mosque is a prayer leader and preacher of sermons. He may also be a teacher and in smaller communities combines both functions. In the latter role, he is called a faqih (pl., fuqaha), although a faqih need not be an imam. In addition to teaching in the local Qur'anic school (khalwa), the faqih is expected to write texts (from the Qur'an) or magical verses to be used as

amulets An amulet, also known as a good luck charm or phylactery, is an object believed to confer protection upon its possessor. The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word amuletum, which Pliny's ''Natural History'' describes as "an object that protects ...

and cures. His blessing may be asked at births, marriages, deaths, and other important occasions, and he may participate in wholly non-Islamic harvest rites in some remote places. All of these functions and capacities make the faqih the most important figure in popular Islam. But he is not a priest. His religious authority is based on his putative knowledge of the Qur'an, the sharia, and techniques for dealing with occult threats to health and well- being. The notion that the words of the Qur'an will protect against the actions of

evil spirits A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in media such as comics, video games, movies, anime, ...

or the

evil eye The Evil Eye ( grc, ὀφθαλμὸς βάσκανος; grc-koi, ὀφθαλμὸς πονηρός; el, (κακό) μάτι; he, עַיִן הָרָע, ; Romanian: ''Deochi''; it, malocchio; es, mal de ojo; pt, mau-olhado, olho gordo; ar ...

is deeply embedded in popular Islam, and the amulets prepared by the faqih are intended to protect their wearers against these dangers. In Sudan as in much of African Islam, the cult of the saint is of considerable importance, although some Muslims would reject it. The development of the cult is closely related to the presence of the religious orders; many who came to be considered saints on their deaths were founders or leaders of religious orders who in their lifetimes were thought to have

barakah In Islam, ''Barakah'' or ''Baraka'' ( ar, بركة "blessing") is a blessing power, a kind of continuity of spiritual presence and revelation that begins with God and flows through that and those closest to God. Baraka can be found within physi ...

, a state of blessedness implying an indwelling spiritual power inherent in the religious office. Baraka intensifies after death as the deceased becomes a

wali A wali (''wali'' ar, وَلِيّ, '; plural , '), the Arabic word which has been variously translated "master", "authority", "custodian", "protector", is most commonly used by Muslims to indicate an Islamic saint, otherwise referred to by the ...

(literally friend of God, but in this context translated as saint). The tomb and other places associated with the saintly being become the loci of the person's baraka, and in some views he or she becomes the guardian spirit of the locality. The intercession of the wali is sought on a variety of occasions, particularly by those seeking cures or by barren women desiring children. A saint's annual holy day is the occasion of a local festival that may attract a large gathering. Better-educated Muslims in Sudan may participate in prayer at a saint's tomb but argue that prayer is directed only to God. Many others, however, see the saint not merely as an intercessor with and an agent of God, but also as a nearly autonomous source of blessing and power, thereby approaching "popular" as opposed to orthodox Islam.

Movements and religious orders

Islam made its deepest and longest lasting impact in Sudan through the activity of the Islamic religious brotherhoods or orders. These orders emerged in the Middle East in the twelfth century in connection with the development of Sufism, a reaction based in

mysticism Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in ...

to the strongly legalistic orientation of mainstream Islam. These orders first came to Sudan in the sixteenth century and became significant in the eighteenth. Sufism seeks for its adherents a closer personal relationship with God through special spiritual disciplines. The exercises (or ''

dhikr ''Dhikr'' ( ar, ذِكْر}, , also spelled ''Zikr'', ''Thikr'', ''Zekr'', or ''Zikar'', literally meaning "remembrance, reminder" or "mention") is a form of Islamic meditation in which phrases or prayers are repeatedly chanted in order to remem ...

'') include reciting prayers and passages of the Qur'an and repeating the names, or attributes, of God while performing physical movements according to the formula established by the founder of the particular order. Singing and dancing may be introduced. The outcome of an exercise, which lasts much longer than the usual daily prayer, is often a state of ecstatic abandon. Image:Sudan dancing dervish 7feb2005.jpg, A Dancing dervish Image:Sudan Dervish 1920s.jpg, A dervish from the 1920s A mystical or devotional way (sing. ''

tariqa A tariqa (or ''tariqah''; ar, طريقة ') is a school or order of Sufism, or specifically a concept for the mystical teaching and spiritual practices of such an order with the aim of seeking ''haqiqa'', which translates as "ultimate truth". ...

''; pl. ''turuq'') is the basis for the formation of particular orders, each of which is also called a tariqa. The specialists in

religious law Religious law includes ethical Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, ...

and learning initially looked askance at Sufism and the Sufi orders, but the leaders of Sufi orders in Sudan have won acceptance by acknowledging the significance of the sharia and not claiming that Sufism replaces it. The principal turuq vary considerably in their practice and internal organization. Some orders are tightly organized in hierarchical fashion; others have allowed their local branches considerable autonomy. There may be as many as a dozen turuq in Sudan. Some are restricted to that country; others are widespread in Africa or the Middle East. Several turuq, for all practical purposes independent, are offshoots of older orders and were established by men who altered in major or minor ways the tariqa of the orders to which they had formerly been attached. The oldest and most widespread of the turuq is the

Qadiriyah The Qadiriyya (), also transliterated Qādirīyah, ''Qadri'', ''Qadriya'', ''Kadri'', ''Elkadri'', ''Elkadry'', ''Aladray'', ''Alkadrie'', ''Adray'', ''Kadray'', ''Kadiri'', ''Qadiri'', ''Quadri'' or ''Qadri'' are members of the Sunni Qadiri ta ...

founded by

Abdul Qadir Jilani ʿAbdul Qādir Gīlānī, ( ar, عبدالقادر الجيلاني, ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī; fa, ) known by admirers as Muḥyī l-Dīn Abū Muḥammad b. Abū Sāliḥ ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī al-Baḡdādī al-Ḥasanī al-Ḥusayn ...

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...

in the twelfth century and introduced into Sudan in the sixteenth. The Qadiriyah's principal rival and the largest tariqa in the western part of the country was the

Tijaniyah The Tijāniyyah ( ar, الطريقة التجانية, Al-Ṭarīqah al-Tijāniyyah, The Tijānī Path) is a Sufi tariqa (order, path), originating in the Maghreb but now more widespread in West Africa, particularly in Senegal, The Gambia, ...

, a sect begun by Sidi Ahmed al-Tidjani at Tijani in Morocco, which eventually penetrated Sudan in about 1810 via the western Sahel (a narrow band of savanna bordering the southern Sahara, stretching across Africa). Many Tijani became influential in Darfur, and other adherents settled in northern

Kurdufan Kordofan ( ar, كردفان ') is a former province of central Sudan. In 1994 it was divided into three new federal states: North Kordofan, South Kordofan and West Kordofan. In August 2005, West Kordofan State was abolished and its territory ...

. Later on, a class of Tijani merchants arose as markets grew in towns and trade expanded, making them less concerned with providing religious leadership. Of greater importance to Sudan was the tariqa established by the followers of Sayyid Ahmad ibn Idris, known as Al Fasi, who died in 1837. Although he lived in Arabia and never visited Sudan, his students spread into the Nile Valley establishing indigenous Sudanese orders which include the Majdhubiyah, the Idrisiyah, the Ismailiyah, and the Khatmiyyah. Much different in organization from the other brotherhoods is the

Khatmiyyah The Khatmiyya is a Sufi order or tariqa founded by Sayyid Mohammed Uthman al-Mirghani al-Khatim. The Khatmiyya is the largest Sufi order in Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia. It also has followers in Egypt, Chad, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Uganda, Y ...

(or Mirghaniyah after the name of the order's founder). Established in the early nineteenth century by

Muhammad Uthman al Mirghani Mohammed Uthman al-Mirghani, known as Al-Khatim, was the founder of the Khatmiyya sufi tariqa, a sect of Islam, that has a following in Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia. Family He was born into the Mirghani family in Mecca which was on ...

, it became the best organized and most politically oriented and powerful of the turuq in eastern Sudan (see Turkiyah). Mirghani had been a student of Sayyid Ahmad ibn Idris and had joined several important orders, calling his own order the seal of the paths (Khatim at Turuq—hence Khatmiyyah). The salient features of the Khatmiyyah are the extraordinary status of the Mirghani family, whose members alone may head the order; loyalty to the order, which guarantees paradise; and the centralized control of the order's branches. Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi

The Khatmiyyah had its center in the southern section of

Ash Sharqi Ash or ashes are the solid remnants of fires. Specifically, ''ash'' refers to all non-aqueous, non- gaseous residues that remain after something burns. In analytical chemistry, to analyse the mineral and metal content of chemical samples, ash ...

State and its greatest following in eastern Sudan and in portions of the riverine area. The Mirghani family were able to turn the Khatmiyyah into a political power base, despite its broad geographical distribution, because of the tight control they exercised over their followers. Moreover, gifts from followers over the years have given the family and the order the wealth to organize politically. This power did not equal, however, that of the Mirghanis' principal rival, the Ansar, or followers of the Mahdi, whose present-day leader was

Sadiq al-Mahdi Sadiq al-Mahdi ( ar, الصادق المهدي, aṣ-Ṣādiq al-Mahdī; 25 December 193526 November 2020), also known as Sadiq as-Siddiq, was a Sudanese political and religious figure who was Prime Minister of Sudan from 1966 to 1967 and again f ...

, the great-grandson of

Muhammad Ahmad Muhammad Ahmad ( ar, محمد أحمد ابن عبد الله; 12 August 1844 – 22 June 1885) was a Nubian Sufi religious leader of the Samaniyya order in Sudan who, as a youth, studied Sunni Islam. In 1881, he claimed to be the Mahdi, ...

, who drove the Egyptian administration from Sudan in 1885. Most other orders were either smaller or less well organized than the Khatmiyyah. Moreover, unlike many other African Muslims, Sudanese Muslims did not all seem to feel the need to identify with one or another tariqa, even if the affiliation were nominal. Many Sudanese Muslims preferred more political movements that sought to change Islamic society and governance to conform to their own visions of the true nature of Islam. One of these movements,

Mahdism Mahdism ( fa, مَهدَویّت, ar, المهدوية) in the Twelver branch of Shia Islam, derived from the belief in the reappearance of the Twelfth Shiite Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi as the savior of the apocalypse for the salvation of human be ...

, was founded in the late nineteenth century. It has been likened to a religious order, but it is not a tariqa in the traditional sense. Mahdism and its adherents, the Ansar, sought the regeneration of Islam, and in general were critical of the turuq. Muhammad Ahmad ibn as Sayyid Abd Allah, a faqih, proclaimed himself to be al-Mahdi al-Muntazar ("the awaited guide in the right path"), the messenger of God and representative of the Prophet Muhammad, an assertion that became an article of faith among the Ansar. He was sent, he said, to prepare the way for the second coming of the Prophet Isa (Jesus) and the impending end of the world. In anticipation of Judgment Day, it was essential that the people return to a simple and rigorous, even puritanical Islam (see Mahdiyah). The idea of the coming of a Mahdi has roots in Sunni Islamic traditions. The issue for Sudanese and other Muslims was whether Muhammad Ahmad was in fact the Mahdi. In the century since the Mahdist uprising, the neo-Mahdist movement and the Ansar, supporters of Mahdism from the west, have persisted as a political force in Sudan. Many groups, from the

Baqqara The Baggāra ( ar, البَقَّارَة "heifer herder") or Chadian Arabs are a nomadic confederation of people of mixed Arab and Arabized indigenous African ancestry, inhabiting a portion of the Sahel mainly between Lake Chad and the Nil ...

cattle nomads to the largely sedentary tribes on the White Nile, supported this movement. The Ansar were hierarchically organized under the control of Muhammad Ahmad's successors, who have all been members of the Mahdi family (known as the

ashraf Sharīf ( ar, شريف, 'noble', 'highborn'), also spelled shareef or sherif, feminine sharīfa (), plural ashrāf (), shurafāʾ (), or (in the Maghreb) shurfāʾ, is a title used to designate a person descended, or claiming to be descended, fr ...

). The ambitions and varying political perspectives of different members of the family have led to internal conflicts, and it appeared that Sadiq al-Mahdi, putative leader of the Ansar since the early 1970s, did not enjoy the unanimous support of all Mahdists. Mahdist family political goals and ambitions seemed to have taken precedence over the movement's original religious mission. The modern-day Ansar were thus loyal more to the political descendants of the Mahdi than to the religious message of Mahdism. A movement that spread widely in Sudan in the 1960s, responding to the efforts to secularize Islamic society, was the Muslim Brotherhood (Al Ikhwan al Muslimin). Originally the Muslim Brotherhood, often known simply as the Brotherhood, was conceived as a religious revivalist movement that sought to return to the fundamentals of Islam in a way that would be compatible with the technological innovations introduced from the West. Disciplined, highly motivated, and well financed the Brotherhood became a powerful political force during the 1970s and 1980s, although it represented only a small minority of Sudanese. In the government that was formed in June 1989, following a bloodless coup d'état, the Brotherhood exerted influence through its political wing, the

National Islamic Front The National Islamic Front ( ar, الجبهة الإسلامية القومية; transliterated: ''al-Jabhah al-Islamiyah al-Qawmiyah'') was an Islamist political organization founded in 1976 and led by Dr. Hassan al-Turabi that influenced th ...

(NIF) party, which included several cabinet members among its adherents.

Genetics

According to

Y-DNA The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes (allosomes) in therian mammals, including humans, and many other animals. The other is the X chromosome. Y is normally the sex-determining chromosome in many species, since it is the presence or abse ...

analysis by Hassan et al. (2008), among Sudanese Arabs, 67% of Arakien, 43% of Meseria, and 40% of Galilean individuals carry the Haplogroup J. The remainder mainly belong to the

E1b1b E-M215, also known as E1b1b and formerly E3b, is a major human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. It is a division of the macro-haplogroup E-M96, which is defined by the single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mutation M215. In other words, it is one of ...

clade, which is borne by 18% of Galilean, 17% of Arakien, and 14% of Meseria. The next most frequently observed haplogroups among Sudanese Arabs are the European-associated R1 clade (25% Meseria, 16% Gaalien, 8% Arakien), followed by the Eurasian lineage F (11% Meseria, 10% Galilean, 8% Arakien), the Europe-associated I clade (7% Meseria, 4% Galilean), and the African A3b2 haplogroup (6% Gaalien). Maternally, Hassan (2009) observed that over 90% of the Sudanese Arabs samples carried various subclades of the Macrohaplogroup L. Of these

mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA ...

lineages, the most frequently borne clade was L3 (68% Galilean, 40% Meseria, 24% Arakien), followed by the L2 (53% Arakien, 33% Meseria, 9% Galilean), L0a1 (13% Meseria), L1 (7% Meseria, 5% Galilean), and L5 (9% Galilean, 6% Arakien) haplogroups. The remaining ~10% of Sudanese Arabs belonged to sublineages of the Eurasian macrohaplogroup N (Arakien: 6% preHV1, 6% N1a, 6% N/ J1b; Galilean: 9% preHV1; Meseria: 7% N/J1b). Dobon et al. (2015) identified an ancestral autosomal component of West Eurasian origin that is common to many modern Sudanese Arabs (as well as other North Sudan populations). Known as the ''Coptic'' component, it peaks among Egyptian Copts who settled in Sudan over the past two centuries. The scientists associate the Coptic component with Ancient Egyptian ancestry, without the later Arabian influence that is present among other Egyptians. Hollfelder et al. (2017) analysed various populations in Sudan and observed close autosomal affinities between their Nubian and Sudanese Arab samples, with both groups showing notable admixture from Eurasian populations. Genetic distance analysis in 1988, showed that the Beja and Gaalien tribes have more pronounced Arab genetic characteristics than the Hawazma and Messeria.

Music

Sudan has a rich and unique musical culture that has been through chronic instability and repression during the modern

history of Sudan The history of Sudan refers to both the territory of the Republic of the Sudan, including what became in 2011 the independent state of South Sudan. The territory of Sudan is geographically part of a larger African region, also known by the te ...

. Beginning with the imposition of strict '' sharia'' law in 1989, many of the country's most prominent poets, like

Mahjoub Sharif Mahjoub Sharif (1 January 1948 – 2 April 2014), born as Mahjoub Muhammad Sharif Muhammad, was a Sudanese poet, teacher and Activism, activist for human rights. He became known in Sudan and other Arabic-speaking countries for his colloquial po ...

, were imprisoned while others, like Mohammed el Amin (returned to Sudan in the mid 1990s) and

Mohammed Wardi Mohammed Osman Hassan Salih Wardi ( ar, محمد عثمان حسن وردي; 19 July 1932 – 18 February 2012), also known as Mohammed Wardi, was a Nubian Sudanese singer, poet and songwriter. Looking back at his life and artistic career, Sudan ...

(returned to Sudan 2003), fled to Cairo. Traditional music suffered too, with traditional

Zār In the cultures of the Horn of Africa and adjacent regions of the Middle East, ''Zār'' ( ar, زار, gez, ዛር) is the term for a demon or spirit assumed to possess individuals, mostly women, and to cause discomfort or illness. The so-cal ...

ceremonies being interrupted and drums confiscated . At the same time, however, the European militaries contributed to the development of Sudanese music by introducing new instruments and styles; military bands, especially the Scottish

bagpipe Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, ...

s, were renowned, and set traditional music to military march music. The march ''March Shulkawi No 1'', is an example, set to the sounds of the Shilluk.

Clothing

Image:Sudan - smiling lady.jpg Image:Piramidoj en Meroe (Sudano) 006.jpg Image:Deserto_Sudan_1.jpg Given the cultural and religious differences within the country, Sudanese clothing varies among the different parts and peoples of Sudan. However, most individual Sudanese wear either traditional or western attire. A traditional garb widely worn in Sudan is the

jalabiya The jellabiya, also jalabiya or galabeya ( ar, جلابية / ALA-LC: ', Egyptian slang: Galabyia, ; "jelebeeya" in Ethiopia; "jehllubeeya" in Eritrea) is a loose-fitting, traditional Egyptian garment from the Nile Valley. Today, it is associat ...

, which is a loose-fitting, long-sleeved, collarless ankle-length garment also common to

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

and Eritrea. The jalabiya is accompanied by a large scarf worn by men, and the garment may be white, colored, striped, and made of fabric varying in thickness, depending on the season of the year and personal preferences. Another traditional piece of clothing is the toub (pronounced toʊb). This is a large piece of fabric that measures around (4.5mx120m)or (4.5x110)depending on the way that its going to be worn is it the traditional way or the modern way, basically you just wrapped around the body in a particular way. Something is usually worn under it to prevent exposure of private areas. This garment is worn by women.

Regional variation

Sudanese Arabic

Religion

Islam

Five pillars

Islam in Sudanese law

Other influences

Movements and religious orders

Genetics

Music

Clothing

References

Further reading