The Funj are an ethnic group in present-day

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

. The Funj set up the Funj Sultanate with Abdallah Jamma and ruled the area for several centuries. The Funj rose in southern Nubia and had overthrown the remnants of the old Christian kingdom of Alodia. In 1504 a Funj leader named Amara Dunqas, founded the Blue Sultanate at Sannar (the capital). The Blue Sultanate soon became the keystone of the Funj Empire. The origins of the Funj are not clearly known. There is only limited evidence for a pre-Arabic Funj language. There are three different hypotheses regarding their origin. The Funj claimed to be descendants of Banu Umayya through those who escaped the slaughter of their family by the Abbasids and fled to Abyssinia and thence into the Nubian territory. Since the

Ja'alin The Ja'alin, Ja'aliya, Ja'aliyin or Ja'al () are an Arabs, Arab or Arabised Nubians, Nubian tribe in Sudan. They claim Arab descent. The Ja'alin formerly occupied the country on both banks of the Nile from Khartoum to Abu Hamad; Citation: ''The A ...

claimed descent from the Abbasids and the Abdallab from the Juhayna, the Funj may have claimed Umayyad descent to express their superiority to their subject peoples.

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 ...

, in his book '' Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile'', theorized that the Funj descend from the Shilluk people. Bruce wrote his book after 22 years of travel through

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

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 ...

in the 18th century. The third hypothesis is that they are descendants of the remnants of the Kingdom of Alodia Nubians who escaped further south to replenish their supplies and resources and returned to establish their state. The most cited theory is that they are Nubians who mixed with

Arabs Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of yea ...

Notable people

* Nasra bint ʿAdlan, noblewoman and power broker

Notes

References

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External links

* Muslim communities in Africa Nubians in Sudan {{Sudan-ethno-group-stub