THE GENESIS OF THE MODERN SUDAN: AN INTERPRETIVE STUDY OF THE RISE OF AFRO-ARAB HEGEMONY IN THE NILE VALLEY, A.D. 1260-1826

This dissertation is a broadened survey, critical analysis, and reinterpretation of the historical and political writings on the evolution of the modern Sudan since A.D. 1260. The choice of 1260 as a starting point was dictated by the fact that this was the eventful moment when the Arabs, once an imperial ruling class, found themselves at the wanting mercey of their erstwhile praetorian guards--the Mamelukes--as a result of the Mongol assault and the destruction of the Arab Abassid regime in 1258. The demise of the Abassid regime centered in Baghdad was immediately followed by the rise of the Mamelukes as the rulers of the rapidly disintegrating Arab-Islamic Empire. When Cairo, Egypt, became the political capital of the Mameluk-ruled Arab-Islamic empire, this succession of power that might have made little impact on the Nile Valley soon became the chief cause of renewed Arab migration into the isolated and weakened Christian kingdom of Nubia (Sudan).;The focus of this inquiry, therefore, is not on the activities of the Arabs per se, but on the role played by the Mamelukes and subsequent external forces that impelled Arab flight into the Nile Valley. Other subsequent external forces that aided Arab immigration into the Nile Valley and contributed directly or indirectly to the nurturing and consolidation of Arab influence and power there were the Ottoman Turks, who conquered Mameluk-ruled Egypt in 1517, and Muhamed Ali, who, folowing Napoleon's brief incursion into Egypt, assumed power in Egypt in 1811 and eventually conquered the Funj Confederacy in 1822, the year that is regarded as the beginning of the modern Sudan.;By focusing on the roles of the Mamelukes, the Ottoman Turks, and Muhamed Ali as the major political forces through which Arab hegemony was fostered in the modern Sudan, this study seriously questions the Arab-Sudanese claim that their refugee-ancestors alone conquered the modern Sudan. Rather, it argues that both Nubia and the Funj Confederacy were, in fact, conquered by non-Arab forces which used Egypt as a staging ground.;The methodology involved in this study combines comparison, analysis, and reinterpretation of Sudan's historical and political writings from an African viewpoint. Naturally, this entails looking at the Sudan's evolution from a Black African's perspective. Sources consist of Sudan's published archival materials as well as all of the available social science and humanities literatures on the Sudan. The study of published archival materials and other scholarly literature was supplemented by personal contacts and discussions with Sudan's officials, scholars, and students, both Arab and Black. And the ultimate purpose of this study was, of course, to review, reinterpret, and thus revise the Afro-Arab claims for historical basis of their hegemony in the Sudan today.;This renewed wave of Arab migration into Nubia was deliberately aided and accelerated by the Mamelukes as a political means to destabilize and destroy the kingdom of Nubia, partly because the Mamelukes wanted to reduce Arab opposition to their regime in lower Egypt to deporting them to Nubia, and partly because the Mamelukes were uneasy with the existence of a viable, independent, and possibly hostile state on their southern flank. Thus, by ushering the Arabs into Nubia, the Mamelukes achieved two objectives: They were ridding themselves of Arab malcontents at home in Egypt, and they were destroying a potential enemy. For the displaced Arabs, on the other hand, Nubia represented a new frontier and a relief from the scorned but feared Mamelukes.