The history of Sudan refers to the territory that today makes up Republic of the Sudan and the state of South Sudan, which became independent in 2011. The territory of Sudan is geographically part of a larger African region, also known by the term "Sudan". The term is derived from Arabic: بلاد السودان bilād as-sūdān, or "land of the black people", and has sometimes been used more widely referring to the Sahel belt of West and Central Africa.
Dongola, also known as Urdu or New Dongola, is the capital of the state of Northern Sudan, on the banks of the Nile. It should not be confused with Old Dongola, a now deserted medieval city located 80 km upstream on the opposite bank.
Gezira, also spelt Al Jazirah, is one of the 18 states of Sudan. The state lies between the Blue Nile and the White Nile in the east-central region of the country. It has an area of 27,549 km2. The name comes from the Arabic word for island. Wad Madani is the capital of the state. Gezira is known as an irrigated cotton-producing state as it is a well-populated area that is suitable for agriculture.
Ali Osman Mohammed Taha is a Sudanese politician who was First Vice President of Sudan from July 2011 to December 2013. Previously he was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1993 to 1995, First Vice President from 1995 to January 2005, and Second Vice President from August 2005 to July 2011. He is a member of the National Congress Party.
Kassala is the capital of the state of Kassala in eastern Sudan. In 2008 its population was recorded to be 419,030. Built on the banks of the Gash River, it is a market town and is famous for its fruit gardens.
Wad Madani or Madani is the capital of the Al Jazirah state in east-central Sudan. Wad Madani lies on the west bank of the Blue Nile, nearly 85 miles (136 km) southeast of Khartoum. It is linked by rail to Khartoum and is the center of a cotton-growing region. The city is also the center of local trade in wheat, peanuts, barley, and livestock. It is also headquarters of the Irrigation Service. In 2008, its population was 345,290. It is the home of the Al Jazirah University, the second biggest public university in Sudan. Further, there is Wad Medani Ahlia University, a private university.
Shendi or Shandi is a small city in northern Sudan, situated on the southeastern bank of the Nile River 150 km northeast of Khartoum. Shandi is also about 45 km southwest of the ancient city of Meroë. Located in the River Nile state, Shandi is the center of the Ja'alin tribe and an important historic trading center. Its principal suburb on the west bank is Matamma. A major traditional trade route across the Bayuda Desert connects Matamma to Merowe and Napata, 250 km to the northwest. The city is the historical capital of the powerful Arabised Nubian Ja'alin tribe whom most of its denizens belong to. The village of Hosh Bannaga, where former President Omar al-Bashir's hometown is, is located on the outskirts of the city.
The Islamization of the Sudan region (Sahel) encompasses a prolonged period of religious conversion, through military conquest and trade relations, spanning the 8th to 16th centuries.
Turco-Egyptian Sudan, also known as Turkiyya or Turkish Sudan, describes the rule of the Eyalet and later Khedivate of Egypt over what is now Sudan and South Sudan. It lasted from 1820, when Muhammad Ali Pasha started his conquest of Sudan, to the fall of Khartoum in 1885 to Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi.
The Mahdist State, also known as Mahdist Sudan or the Sudanese Mahdiyya, was a state based on a religious and political movement launched in 1881 by Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah against the Khedivate of Egypt, which had ruled the Sudan since 1821. After four years of struggle, the Mahdist rebels overthrew the Ottoman-Egyptian administration and established their own "Islamic and national" government with its capital in Omdurman. Thus, from 1885 the Mahdist government maintained sovereignty and control over the Sudanese territories until its existence was terminated by the Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1898.
This article discusses the history of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan during the history of Sudan from 1899 to 1955.
The Ja'alin, Ja'aliya, Ja'aliyin or Ja'al are a tribal confederation and 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 - the others being the Shaigiya and Danagla. They trace their origin to Ibrahim Ja'al, an Abbasid noble, whose clan originally hailed from the Hejaz in the Arabian Peninsula and married into the local Nubian population. Ja'al was a descendant of al-Abbas, an uncle of Muhammad. The Ja'alin formerly occupied the country on both banks of the Nile from Khartoum to Abu Hamad. According to a source, the tribe allegedly once spoke a now extinct dialect of Nubian as late as the nineteenth century. Many Sudanese politicians have come from the Ja'alin tribal coalition.
The Mahas are a sub-group of the Nubian people located in Sudan along the banks of the Nile. They are further split into the Mahas of the North and Mahas of the Center. Some Mahas villages are intermixed with remnants of the largely extinct Qamhat Bishari tribe, and as a result today the Qamhat Mahas are ethnic Beja who speak a Nubian language. In the Butana area some Mahas have intermarried with the Rashaida people.
The Butana, historically called the Island of Meroë, is the region between the Atbara and the Nile in the Sudan. South of Khartoum it is bordered by the Blue Nile and in the east by Lake Tana in Ethiopia. It should not be confused with the Gezira, the region west of the Blue Nile and east of the White Nile.
The Mahdist War was a war between the Mahdist Sudanese of the religious leader Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah, who had proclaimed himself the "Mahdi" of Islam, and the forces of the Khedivate of Egypt, initially, and later the forces of Britain. Eighteen years of war resulted in the nominally joint-rule state of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1899–1956), a de jure condominium of the British Empire and the Kingdom of Egypt in which Britain had de facto control over the Sudan. The Sudanese launched several unsuccessful invasions of their neighbours, expanding the scale of the conflict to include not only Britain and Egypt but also the Italian Empire, the Congo Free State and the Ethiopian Empire.
Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, also known as Ustaz Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, was a Sudanese religious thinker, leader, and trained engineer. He developed what he called the "Second Message of Islam", which postulated that the verses of the Qur'an revealed in Medina were appropriate in their time as the basis of Islamic law, (Sharia), but that the verses revealed in Mecca represented the ideal and universal religion, which would be revived when humanity had reached a stage of development capable of implementing them, ushering in a renewed era of Islam based on the principles of freedom and equality. He was executed for apostasy for his religious preaching at the age of 76 by the regime of Gaafar Nimeiry.
The Battle of Abu Hamed occurred on 7 August 1897 between a flying column of Anglo-Egyptian soldiers under Major-General Sir Archibald Hunter and a garrison of Mahdist rebels led by Mohammed Zain. The battle was a victory for the Anglo-Egyptian forces, and secured for the British the strategically vital town of Abu Hamed, which was the terminus for trade and transportation across the Nubian Desert.
The Egyptian conquest of Sudan was a major military and technical feat. Fewer than 10,000 men set off from Egypt, but, with some local assistance, they were able to penetrate 1,500 km up the Nile River to the frontiers of Ethiopia, giving Egypt an empire as large as Western Europe.
The Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan in 1896–1899 was a reconquest of territory lost by the Khedives of Egypt in 1884 and 1885 during the Mahdist War. The British had failed to organise an orderly withdrawal of Egyptian forces from Sudan, and the defeat at Khartoum left only Suakin and Equatoria under Egyptian control after 1885. The conquest of 1896–99 defeated and destroyed the Mahdist state and re-established Anglo-Egyptian rule, which remained until Sudan became independent in 1956.
In July, September, and October 2022, clashes broke out between the Hausa people and Funj and Berta peoples over land disputes in Blue Nile state in southeastern Sudan. Over the course of several attacks and massacres, hundreds of civilians were killed up until the violence ended in January 2023.
