Bādī III, or Bādī al-Aḥmar ( badi the red) (1692–1716), was a ruler of the

Kingdom of Sennar The Funj Sultanate, also known as Funjistan, Sultanate of Sennar (after its capital Sennar) or Blue Sultanate (due to the traditional Sudanese convention of referring to black people as blue) (), was a monarchy in what is now Sudan, northwester ...

James Bruce James Bruce of Kinnaird (14 December 1730 – 27 April 1794) was a Scottish traveller and travel writer who physically confirmed the source of the Blue Nile. He spent more than a dozen years in North and East Africa and in 1770 became the fir ...

includes in his account of Ethiopia the translation of a letter the Ethiopian Emperor Tewolfos sent him dated 21 January 1706, wherein he addresses him as "king Baady, son of king Ounsa". According to a manuscript history known as ''The History of Nuba'' (British Museum Arabic MS. 2345), Bādī was confronted with a pretender, Awkal, whom he defeated. C. J. Poncet, who passed through Sennar in 1699 on his way to provide medical services to Emperor

Iyasu I Iyasu I ( Ge'ez: ኢያሱ ፩; 1654 – 13 October 1706), throne name Adyam Sagad (Ge'ez: አድያም ሰገድ), also known as Iyasu the Great, was Emperor of Ethiopia from 19 July 1682 until his death in 1706, and a member of the Solomonic dy ...

of Ethiopia, left this description of his interview with King Bādī:

When we had almost past over the court, they oblig'd us to stop short before a stone, which is near to an open hall, where the King usually gives audience to embassadors . There we saluted the king according to the custom of the country, falling upon our knees and thrice kissing the ground. That prince is nineteen years of age, dark brown, almost black but well shap'd and of a majestick presence; not having thick lips nor flat nose, like many of his subjects. He was seated upon a rich bed under a canopy, with his legs across, after the oriental fashion; and round him twenty old men, seated after the same manner, but somewhat lower. He was cloath'd with a long vest of silk, embroider'd with gold, and girt with a kind of scarf made of fine calico. He had a white turban on his head. The old men were clad much after the same manner.

Poncet's departure from Sennar was delayed at the border for 19 days until 11 June 1699, due to the death of sultan Bādī's mother. A Jesuit residing at

Port Said Port Said ( , , ) is a port city that lies in the northeast Egypt extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, straddling the west bank of the northern mouth of the Suez Canal. The city is the capital city, capital of the Port S ...

, Jean Verzaeu, wrote on 20 October 1700 that the kingdom and

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

were at war over the assassination of a Sennar national in Ethiopia, and that the trade route between the two countries was closed. Because of the success of Poncet's visit to Ethiopia,

Benoît de Maillet Benoît de Maillet ( Saint-Mihiel, 12 April 1656 – Marseille, 30 January 1738) was a well-travelled French diplomat and natural historian. He was French consul general at Cairo, and overseer in the Levant. He formulated an evolutionary hypoth ...

, the French consul at

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

, ordered Lenoir de Roule to visit the Ethiopian Emperor on behalf of

Louis XIV LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reign ...

. Due to the hostility of the natives of the lands he travelled through, de Roule was unable to get any further than Sennar, where he was murdered with his five companions in front of the royal palace on November 10, 1705. Although King Bādī was seen by many as being responsible for this act, the Scots traveller

, who travelled through Sennar later in the eighteenth century, accused the

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent Religious institute, religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor bei ...

s of having manipulated the events that led to these deaths.

E. A. Wallis Budge Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge (27 July 185723 November 1934) was an English Egyptology, Egyptologist, Orientalism, Orientalist, and Philology, philologist who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient ...

, ''A History of Ethiopia: Nubia and Abyssinia'', 1928 (Oosterhout, the Netherlands: Anthropological Publications, 1970), pp. 426-434

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Badi 03 17th-century African people 18th-century monarchs in Africa Funj sultans