This book, first published in 1974, is a study of the two states which dominated the northern and western regions of Sudan from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century: the Funj kingdom of Sinnar and the Keira sultanate of Dar Fur. Until now the history of these two states has been neglected in comparison with that of the western states of the Sudanic Belt. The authors spent years researching the documentation of the period and the present book is a concise survey of their findings, comprising history, literature, politics, economics, trade and religion.

This book, first published in 1974, is a study of the two states which dominated the northern and western regions of Sudan from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century: the Funj kingdom of Sinnar and the Keira sultanate of Dar Fur. Until now the history of these two states has been neglected in comparison with that of the western states of the Sudanic Belt. The authors spent years researching the documentation of the period and the present book is a concise survey of their findings, comprising history, literature, politics, economics, trade and religion.

A merchant's remarkable travel account of an African kingdom Muhammad al-Tunisi (d. 1274/1857) belonged to a family of Tunisian merchants trading with Egypt and what is now Sudan. Al-Tunisi was raised in Cairo and a graduate of al-Azhar. In 1803, at the age of fourteen, al-Tunisi set off for the Sultanate of Darfur, where his father had decamped ten years earlier. He followed the Forty Days Road, was reunited with his father, and eventually took over the management of the considerable estates granted to his father by the sultan of Darfur. In Darfur is al-Tunisi's remarkable account of his ten-year sojourn in this independent state, featuring descriptions of the geography of the region, the customs of Darfur's petty kings, court life and the clothing of its rulers, marriage customs, eunuchs, illnesses, food, hunting, animals, currencies, plants, magic, divination, and dances. In Darfur combines literature, history, ethnography, linguistics, and travel adventure, and most unusually for its time, includes fifty-two illustrations, all drawn by the author. In Darfur is a rare example of an Arab description of an African society on the eve of Western colonization and vividly evokes a world in which travel was untrammeled by bureaucracy, borders were fluid, and startling coincidences appear almost mundane. An English-only edition.

A merchant's account of his travels through an independent African state Muhammad ibn 'Umar al-Tunisi (d. 1274/1857) belonged to a family of Tunisian merchants trading with Egypt and what is now Sudan. Al-Tunisi was raised in Cairo and a graduate of al-Azhar. In 1803, at the age of fourteen, al-Tunisi set off for the Sultanate of Darfur, where his father had decamped ten years earlier. He followed the Forty Days Road, was reunited with his father, and eventually took over the management of the considerable estates granted to his father by the sultan of Darfur. In Darfur is al-Tunisi's remarkable account of his ten-year sojourn in this independent state. In Volume One, al-Tunisi relates the history of his much-traveled family, his journey from Egypt to Darfur, and the reign of the noted sultan 'Abd al-Rahman al-Rashid. In Darfur combines literature, history, ethnography, linguistics, and travel adventure, and most unusually for its time, includes fifty-two illustrations, all drawn by the author. In Darfur is a rare example of an Arab description of Africa on the eve of Western colonization and vividly evokes a world in which travel was untrammeled by bureaucracy, borders were fluid, and startling coincidences appear almost mundane. A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

This book is the first study of the administration of this Sudanese sultanate in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to be drawn from recently-discovered Arabic land charters. Translations of forty-seven selected charters and related documents are presented to illustrate the complexity of land as an issue in the sultanate. The authors review the principles by which privileged status, rights in people and in landed estates were granted; and examine the nature of the administration in Dar Fur. The volume will be of interest to historians of Africa and the Middle East and to those concerned with land and society in a comparative framework.

This present volume presents annotated selections from the British records that were copied in situ by the author in al-Fashir and Kutum in 1970 and 1974 and of which the originals were subsequently destroyed by accident. The British were in Darfur for only forty years (1916-56) and, administratively, their impact was minimal. In retrospect, their most important role was in recording and codifying the customary law and administrative practice under the sultans. Their significance has become the greater recently following reports that the Sudan National Records Office is no long accessible to researchers. Darfur was unique in a Sudanese colonial context in that in 1916 the British conquered a functioning multi-ethnic African Muslim state. Their policy in the forty years of their rule was largely to maintain the system they had inherited from the sultans. Although they made some administrative modifications, it was only in the last few years before independence in 1956 that tentative steps were taken towards change, for example the introduction of local government in the towns.The material described here, a combination of administrative practice and ethnographic reporting, is far from simply academic in importance, but is invaluable on such issues as land tenure, agricultural practice, grazing rights and livestock migration routes, tribal administration and compensation for injury and death.