Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah was a Nubian Sufi religious leader of the Samaniyya order in Sudan who, as a youth, studied Sunni Islam. In 1881, he claimed to be the Mahdi. He led a successful war against Ottoman-Egyptian military rule in Sudan and achieved a remarkable victory over the British, in the Siege of Khartoum. He created a vast Islamic state extending from the Red Sea to Central Africa, and founded a movement that remained influential in Sudan a century later.
The Funj Sultanate, also known as Funjistan, Sultanate of 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, northwestern Eritrea and western Ethiopia. Founded in 1504 by the Funj people, it quickly converted to Islam, although this embrace was only nominal. Until a more orthodox Islam took hold in the 18th century, the state remained an "African-Nubian empire with a Muslim façade". It reached its peak in the late 17th century, but declined and eventually fell apart in the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1821, the last sultan, greatly reduced in power, surrendered to the Ottoman Egyptian invasion without a fight.
El-Gadarif, also spelt Gedaref or Gedarif, is the capital of the state of Al Qadarif in Sudan. It lies on the road that connects Khartoum with Gallabat on the Ethiopian border, about 410 kilometres (250 mi) from the capital.
Taqali was a state of Nuba peoples which existed in the Nuba Mountains, in modern-day central Sudan. It is believed to have been founded in the eighteenth century, though oral traditions suggest its formation two centuries earlier. Due in part to its geographic position on a plateau surrounded by desert, Taqali was able to maintain its independence for some 130 years despite the presence of hostile neighbors. It was conquered by Sudanese Mahdists in 1884 and restored as a British client state in 1889. Its administrative power ended with the 1969 Sudanese coup, though the Makk of Taqali, its traditional leader, retains ceremonial power in the region.
Gallabat is a village in the Sudanese state of Al Qadarif. It lies at one of the country's border crossing points with Ethiopia; on the other side of the border is Ethiopia's corresponding border village Metemma.
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.
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.
The Battle of Khartoum, Siege of Khartoum or Fall of Khartoum was the conquest of Egyptian-held Khartoum by the Mahdist forces led by Muhammad Ahmad of Sudan. Egypt had held the city for some time, but the siege the Mahdists engineered and carried out from 13 March 1884 to 26 January 1885 was enough to wrest control away from the Egyptian administration.
Before the independence of South Sudan, the States of Sudan were subdivided into 133 districts. With the adoption of the Interim National Constitution of Sudan and the Interim Constitution of Southern Sudan, the ten states of South Sudan are, however, now divided into counties. The maps on this page represent the boundaries as they existed in 2006. Current information is available from the Humanitarian Data Exchange.
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 Abd Allah, 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 the Italian Empire, the Congo Free State and the Ethiopian Empire.
The Battle of Toski (Tushkah) was part of the Mahdist War. It took place on August 3, 1889 in southern Egypt between the Anglo-Egyptian forces and the Mahdist forces of the Sudan.
Mohammed Uthman al-Mirghani, known as Al-Khatim, was the founder of the Khatmiyya sufi tariqa that has a following in Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia.
Railway stations in Sudan include:
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Sudan. Sudan was governed by the United Kingdom and Egypt from 1898. Independence was proclaimed on January 1, 1956.
Cyril Alexander Edward Lea was a British colonial officer in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in the first half of the 20th century. He is known for his famous diary which he called his "trek journals." They provide a glimpse of how British civil servants understood their role in the administration of native peoples.
The Hamaj Regency was a political order in the region of modern-day central Sudan from 1762 to 1821. During this period the ruling family of the Funj Sultanate of Sennar continued to reign, while actual power was exercised by the regents.
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.
The Abdallabi are people living in central Sudan who claim descent from Abdallah Jamma’a. They were an important political force between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. For a short time the Abdallabi succeeded in establishing an independent state, but they were defeated by the Funj Sultanate in 1504 and thereafter ruled over the Butana as vassals until the Egyptian conquest of 1820.
