FUNJ SULTANATE OF SINNAR.

Religion The Funj had originally practiced a religious mix of Animism and Christianity. Islam also had an important influence, and in 1523 the Sennar monarchy officially converted to Islam, though many elements of the previous beliefs continued. Expansion & Conflilcts Sennar expanded rapidly at the expense of neighboring states. Its power was extended over the Gezira, the Butana, the Bayuda, and southern Kordofan. This caused immediate tensions with its neighbours. Ethiopia felt it was much threatened but its internal problems prevented intervention. Newly Ottoman Egypt also saw the new state as a threat and invaded in force, but then failed to conquer the area, so the Ottoman forces fortified the border and consolidated their hold on northern Nubia. This border would hold until 1821. Relations with Ethiopia were more strained as both states competed over lowlands between their two states. Eventually the Ethiopians moved their capital to nearby Gondar and secured their influence over these areas. Conflicts with the Shilluk to the south continued, but later the two were forced into an uneasy alliance to combat the growing might of the Dinka. Under Sultan Badi II, Sennar defeated the Kingdom of Taqali to the west and made its ruler (styled Woster or Makk) its vassal. Military Culture The armies of Sennar relied most on heavy cavalry: horsemen drawn from the nobility, armed with long broadswords as the toe stirrups they used did not permit the use of lances. These riders were armoured with chain mail while the horses were covered in thick quilts and copper headgear. A greater mass of troops were infantry carrying swords and armoured. This permanent standing army, the largest in East Africa until the 1810s, was garrisoned in castles and forts throughout the sultanate. Reliance on a standing army meant that the professional armies fielded by Sennar were usually smaller, but highly effective against their less organized rivals. Civil Society The sultanate was heavily divided along geographic and racial/ethnic lines. The society was divided into six racial groups. There was a sharp division between those who were the heirs of the ancient kingdom of Alodia and the rest of Sennar. The Alodians adopted the mantle of the defeated Abdallah Jamma and came to be known as the Abdallab. In the late 16th century they rose in revolt under Ajib the Great. Ajib routed the Kings of Sennar, first making them his vassals and then seizing almost the entire kingdom in 1606. The Sennar monarchy regrouped under Adlan I, defeating Ajib in a pair of decisive battles. Eventually a compromise was reached whereby Ajib and his successors would rule the Sennar province of Dongola with a great deal of autonomy. Trade The capital Sennar, prosperous through trade, hosted representatives from all over the Middle East and Africa. The wealth and power of the sultans had long rested on the control of the economy. All caravans were controlled by the monarch, as was the gold supply that functioned as the state's main currency. In time this power was eroded. Foreign currencies became widely used by merchants breaking the power of the monarch to closely control the economy. The thriving trade created a wealthy class of educated and literate merchants, who read widely about Islam and became much concerned about the lack of orthodoxy in the kingdom. The monarchy of Sennar had long been regarded as semi-divine, in keeping with ancient traditions, but this idea ran strongly counter to Islam. Many festivals and rituals also persisted from earlier days, and a number them involved massive consumption of alcohol. These traditions were also abandoned. Decline Sennar was at its peak at the end of the 16th century, but over the seventeenth it began to decline as the power of the monarchy was eroded. The greatest challenge to the authority of the king was the merchant funded ulema who insisted it was rightfully their duty to mete out justice. In 1762 Badi IV was overthrown in a coup launched by Abu Likayik of the red Hamaj from the northeast of the country. Abu Likayik installed another member of the royal family as his puppet sultan and ruled as regent. This began long conflict between the Funj sultans attempting to reassert their independence and authority and the Hamaj regents attempting to maintain control of the true power of the state. These internal divisions greatly weakened the state and in the late 18th century Mek Adlan II, son of Mek Taifara, took power during a turbulent time at which a Turkish presence was being established in the Funj kingdom. The Turkish ruler, Al-Tahir Agha, married Khadeeja, daughter of Mek Adlan II. This paved the way for the assimilation of the Funj into the Ottoman Empire. In 1821, Ismail bin Muhammad Ali the general and son of the nominally Ottoman khedive of Egypt, Muhammad Ali, led an army into Sennar; he encountered no resistance from the last king, whose realm was promptly absorbed into Ottoman Egypt. The region was subsequently absorbed into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and the independent Republic of Sudan on that country's independence in 1956. Rulers of Sennar A king of Sennar, 1821 The rulers of Sennar held the title of Mek (sultan). Their regnal numbers vary from source to source.[11][12] • Amara Dunqas 1503-1533/4 (AH 940) • Nayil 1533/4 (AH 940)-1550/1 (AH 957) • Abd al-Qadir I 1550/1 (AH 957)-1557/8 (AH 965) • Abu Sakikin 1557/8 (AH 965)-1568 • Dakin 1568-1585/6 (AH 994) • Dawra 1585/6 (AH 994)-1587/8 (AH 996) • Tayyib 1587/8 (AH 996)-1591 • Unsa I 1591-1603/4 (AH 1012) • Abd al-Qadir II 1603/4 (AH 1012)-1606 • Adlan I 1606-1611/2 (AH 1020) • Badi I 1611/2 (AH 1020)-1616/7 (AH 1025) • Rabat I 1616/7 (AH 1025)-1644/5 • Badi II 1644/5-1681 • Unsa II 1681–1692 • Badi III 1692–1716 • Unsa III 1719–1720 • Nul 1720–1724 • Badi IV 1724–1762 • Nasir 1762–1769 • Isma'il 1768–1776 • Adlan II 1776–1789 • Awkal 1787–1788 • Tayyib II 1788–1790 • Badi V 1790 • Nawwar 1790–1791 • Badi VI 1791–1798 • Ranfi 1798–1804 • Agban 1804–1805 • Badi VII 1805–1821 Hamaj regents • Abu Likayik – 1769-1775/6 • Badi walad Rajab – 1775/6-1780 • Rajab 1780-1786/7 • Nasir 1786/7-1798 • Idris wad Abu Likayik – 1798–1804 • Adlan wad Abu Likayik – 1804–1805 See also • List of Sunni Muslim dynasties References 1. ^ Ofcansky, Thomas. "The Funj". Sudan: A country study (Helen Chapin Metz, ed.). Library of Congress Federal Research Division (Research completed June 1991). 2. ^ McHugh, Neil (1994). Holymen of the Blue Nile: The Making of an Arab-Islamic Community in the Nilotic Sudan, 1500–1850. Series in Islam and Society in Africa. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-8101-1069-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=FJVh-uUNSAkC&pg=PA9. "The spread of Arabic flowed not only from the dispersion of Arabs but from the unification of the Nile by a government, the Funj sultanate, that utilized Arabic as an official means of communication, and from the use of Arabic as a trade language." 3. ^ Trimingham, J. Spencer (1996). "Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa, till the 19th century". The Last Great Muslim Empires. History of the Muslim World, 3. Abbreviated and adapted by F. R. C. Bagley (2nd ed.). Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 167. ISBN 978-1-55876-112-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=cPlP5Y4of7AC&pg=PA167. "The date when the Funj rulers adopted Islam is not known, but must have been fairly soon after the foundation of Sennār, because they then entered into relations with Muslim groups over a wide area." 4. ^ Welch, Galbraith (1949) (snippet view). North African Prelude: The First Seven Thousand Years. New York: W. Morrow. p. 463. OCLC [//www.worldcat.org/oclc/413248 413248]. http://books.google.com/books?id=RH1yAAAAMAAJ&q=great+council. Retrieved 12 August 2010. "The government was semirepublican; when a king died the great council picked a successor from among the royal children. Then—presumably to keep the peace—they killed all the rest." 5. ^ "فرمان سلطاني إلى محمد علي بتقليده حكم السودان بغير حق التوارث [Sultanic Firman to Muhammad Ali Appointing Him Ruler of the Sudan Without Hereditary Rights]" (in Arabic). Bibliotheca Alexandrina: Memory of Modern Egypt Digital Archive. http://modernegypt.bibalex.org/TxtViewer/TextViewer.aspx?ID=20038&type=Document. Retrieved 12 August 2010. 6. ^ Avakov, Alexander V. (2010). Two Thousand Years of Economic Statistics: World Population, GDP, and PPP. New York: Algora Publishing. p. 18. ISBN 978-0-87586-750-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=kRZ6Rw5ebLAC&pg=PA18. 7. ^ Anderson, Julie R. (2008). "A Mamluk Coin from Kulubnarti, Sudan" (PDF). British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan (10): p. 68. http://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/Anderson.pdf. Retrieved 12 August 2010. "Much further to the south, the Funj Sultanate based in Sennar (1504/5–1820), did not mint coins and the markets did not normally use coinage as a form of exchange. Foreign coins themselves were commodities and frequently kept for jewellery. Units of items such as gold, grain, iron, cloth and salt had specific values and were used for trade, particularly on a national level." 8. ^ Pinkerton, John (1814). "Poncet's Journey to Abyssinia". A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and Travels in All Parts of the World. Volume 15. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme. p. 71. OCLC [//www.worldcat.org/oclc/1397394 1397394]. http://books.google.com/books?id=LiAnAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA71. 9. ^ Ogot 1999, p. 91 10. ^ Holt 1975, pp. 40–42 11. ^ MacMichael, H. A. (1922). "Appendix I: The Chronology of the Fung Kings". A History of the Arabs in the Sudan and Some Account of the People Who Preceded Them and of the Tribes Inhabiting Dárfūr. Volume II. Cambridge University Press. p. 431. OCLC [//www.worldcat.org/oclc/264942362 264942362]. http://www.archive.org/stream/ahistoryarabsin00macmgoog#page/n475/mode/1up. 12. ^ Holt, Peter Malcolm (1999). "Genealogical Tables and King-Lists". The Sudan of the Three Niles: The Funj Chronicle 910–1288 / 1504–1871. Islamic History and Civilization, 26. Leiden: BRILL. pp. 182–186. ISBN 978-90-04-11256-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=nF1hWJQusxIC&pg=PA182. Bibliography • Holt, Peter Malcolm (1975). "Chapter 1: Egypt, the Funj and Darfur". In Fage, J. D.; Oliver, Roland. The Cambridge History of Africa. Volume 4: from c. 1600 to c. 1790. Cambridge University Press. pp. 14–57. ISBN 978-0-521-20413-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=hUg0E8Op6UUC&pg=PA14. • Ogot, B. A., ed. (1999). "Chapter 7: The Sudan, 1500–1800". General History of Africa. Volume V: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. pp. 89–103. ISBN 978-0-520-06700-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=Fw-1DOCXUgsC&pg=PA89. • R.S. O'Fahey and J.L Spaulding: Kingdoms of the Sudan Studies of African History Vol. 9, Methuen, London 1974, ISBN 0-416-77450-4 • Arthur E. Robinson, "Some Notes on the Regalia of the Fung Sultans of Sennar", Journal of the Royal African Society, 30 (1931), pp. 361–376