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135 6 Islam in Nubia and Funj Historical Themes and Patterns The focus on Egypt as the paramount power on the Nile since pharaonic times has preempted a similar strong focus on the history of the lands beyond the first cataract, south of Aswan. The lands between the first cataract in the north and the sixth cataract in the south and beyond, to the confines of Ethiopia, nevertheless saw the rise and fall of great empires, from Kush in pharaonic times to Meroe in Roman times, to Nubia in Byzantine, ʿAbbasid, and Fāt ˙ imid times and Sinnār-Funj in Ottoman times. These empires were informed in religious, political, and cultural terms by their closeness to Egypt and their entanglement with historical developments in the north. At the same time, the empires on the Upper Nile developed their own distinct identity and even met with Egypt on their own terms, as, for instance, in the context of military interventions in both pharaonic and Islamic times. The history of the populations on the Nile south of the first cataract can thus be described as being rooted in multiple cultural, social, political, and religious legacies, fusing pharaonic and post-pharaonic Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Arab, Ethiopian, and Iranian influences, as well as Islam and Christianity with ancient Nilotic and Sudanese traditions from the south. SubSaharan Nilotic and Sudanic traditions contributed to shaping the empires and populations on the Nile to such an extent that the lands on the upper Niles, the Blue Nile and the White Nile, cannot be seen as a simple extension of a pharaonic, Christian, or Muslim north. The strength of Sudanic influences became particularly clear in the sixteenth century, when the Funj federation stopped the southward advance of the Arab-Nubian ʿAbdallāb tribal populations and delayed the process of Islamization on the Niles for more than 200 years. Even Funj was unable and unwilling, however, to isolate itself from her Muslim neighbors, in particular Egypt and Arabia, and eventually abandoned her foundations in pre-Islamic traditions. The shift to Islamic sources of political legitimacy in the early eighteenth century led to the demise of Funj as a major power on the Nile. From Christian to Muslim Nubia While Egypt may be seen as a gift of the Nile, depending on its annual floods, Nubia, the land of gold (nūb in Coptic) beyond the first cataract, may be seen, like the Sahara, as a transmission belt which linked the bilād al-sūdān on the Nile with Egypt in the north and vice versa. Like the Sahara, Nubia not only acted as a transmission belt but also as a filter, channeling and sieving influences in both directions. By contrast to 136 | Muslim Societies in Africa the empires in sub-Saharan West Africa, Nubia reached far into the north and even influenced the history of Egypt in decisive ways. This was not only valid in pharaonic times, when Nubian kings came to rule Egypt in the twenty-fifth, Ethiopian dynasty (751–635 bc), but also for the Christian and Islamic periods of Nubian history. The rulers of Egypt, on the other hand, repeatedly tried to gain control over Nubia, which was not only a source of slaves and resources, but also, and most important, a major supplier of gold, in particular the mines of Wādī ʿAllaqī which came to supply most of Egypt’s gold between the ninth and the thirteenth centuries ce. Political rule in Nubia was organized in many respects along Egyptian models, not only in terms of policies and administration but also in terms of religion. Again, this was true not only in pharaonic times but also in the Christian period of Nubian history, as well as during the spread of Islam since the ninth and tenth centuries. For most of the time, Nubia’s kingdoms managed to preserve their independence, however, and to consolidate their rule between the first cataract (south of Aswan) and the sixth (north of contemporary al-Khart ˙ ūm/Khartoum). This was also true of the last pre-Christian kingdom of Nubia, Meroe, which resisted Roman advances to the south and managed to expand Nubian domination beyond the sixth cataract to the south into the fertile Jazīra region south of the confluence of the two Niles: the Blue Nile, which drains the annual floods from the highlands of Ethiopia, and the White Nile, linking Nubia with the region of the great lakes in the south. Meroe’s...

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