Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T22:09:45.671Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Funj origins: A critique and new evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Extract

The Funj Sultanate was the most easterly of the chain of Muslim dynastic States which at one time stretched south of the Sahara through Bilād al-Sūdān. Founded early in the sixteenth Christian century (tenth Hijri¯; century) by a king traditionally called ‘Amāra Dūnqas, its centre was on the Blue Nile, around the town of Sennar (Sinnār).

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1963

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Arkell, A. J., ‘More about Fung origins’, Sudan Notes and Records [SNR], xxvII (1946), 8798.Google Scholar

2 Crawford, O. G. S.The Fung Kingdom of Sennar (Gloucester, 1951).Google Scholar

3 Busaylī, Al-Shātir ‘Abd al-Jala¯l (Chater Bosayley A. Gaul), Ma'ālim ta'rīkh Sūdān Wādī al-Nīl (Cairo, 1955).Google Scholar

4 SNR, xv (1932), 201–50.Google Scholar

5 See an article by the present writer, ‘A Sudanese historical legend: the Funj conquest of Suba’, BSOAS, XXIII (1960), 112.Google Scholar

6 See Hillelson, S., ‘David Reubeni, an early visitor to Sennar’, SNR, XVI (1933), 5566.Google Scholar

7 Busaylī, op. cit. 270–1.Google Scholar

8 MacMichael, H. A., A History of the Arabs in the Sudan (Cambridge, 1922), vol. II, 36–7 (BA), 104–5 (A2), 132 (A11), 196 (D1), 213 (D2), 346 (D6), also tree illustrating B1, before p. 145.Google ScholarCf. also Chataway, J. D. P., ‘Notes on the history of the Fung’, SNR, XIII (1930), 257;Google ScholarNalder, L. F., ‘Fung origins’, SNR, xiv (1931), 63–4.Google Scholar

9 Bruce, James, Travels to discover the source of the Nile (2nd ed., Edinburgh, 1805), VI, 370–2; VII, 85, 87, 89–94, 96, 98.Google Scholar

10 Arkell, A. J., ‘More about Fung origins’, SNR, XXVVII (1946).Google Scholar

11 Palmer, H. R. (tr.), History of the first twelve years of the reign of Mai Idris Alooma of Bornu (1571–1585) by his Imam, Ahmed ibn Fartua (Lagos, 1926), 8491.Google Scholar

12 al-Burnūwī, Ahmad, Hādhā I'kitāb huwa mm sha'n Sultan Idris Alūma (Kano [1930]), 130–7.Google Scholar

13 Palmer, History of … Mai Idris, 90 footnote.Google Scholar

14 Palmer, H. R., Sudanese Memoirs, II (Lagos, 1928), 32 and footnote.Google Scholar

15 Ibid 47 and footnote.Google Scholar

17 Palmer, , History of … Mai Idris, 5, 114.Google Scholar

18 Palmer, , Sudanese Memoirs, II, 25.Google Scholar

20 Bruce, op. cit. VI, 370–2.Google Scholar

21 SNR, xv (1932).Google Scholar

22 See above, footnote 8.Google Scholar

23 Arkell's attempt to corroborate Bruce rests on three types of alleged evidence: (i) a supposed Shilluk origin of certain Funj names and terms; (a) tribal genealogies, derived from MacMichael; (3) reports of traditions current in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.Google Scholar

24 SNR, XVI (1933), 57, 60.Google Scholar

25 SNR, IV (1921), 211–12.Google Scholar

26 Vienna MS., f. 8b. Later recensions of the Funj Chronicle give the variants Lūlū and even Lu'lu'—an attempt at arabicization.Google Scholar

27 Crawford, op. cit. 147–55.Google Scholar

28 Busaylī, op. cit. 28–34.Google Scholar

29 Paul, A., A History of the Beja tribes of the Sudan (Cambridge, 1954), 76–7.Google Scholar

30 Robertson, J. W., ‘Fung origins’, SNR, XVII (1934), 260–6, especially pp. 261–3.Google Scholar

31 Evans-Pritchard, E. E., ‘Ethnological observations in Dar Fung’, SNR, xv (1932), 58–9.Google Scholar

32 Shibeika, Mekki (Makkī Shibayka), Ta'rīkh mulūk al-Sūdān (Khartoum, 1947).Google Scholar

33 MacMichael, op. cit. vol. II, 354.Google Scholar

34 MS. Arabe 5069. I have obtained a microfilm of this manuscript through the kindness of the authorities of the Bibliothèque Nationale.Google Scholar

35 See Hill, Richard, A biographical dictionary of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (Oxford, 1951), 15;Google Scholar also Holt, P. M., A modern history of the Sudan (London, 1961), 4952, 55–6, 59.Google Scholar

36 See Hill, op. cit. 55 (sub al-Anīn Muhammad al-Darīr).Google Scholar

37 MacMichael, op. cit. vo1. II, 338–405. The translation is slightly abridged.Google Scholar

38 MS. Or. 2345.Google Scholar

39 MS. Mixt. 677a.Google Scholar

40 See Hill, , op. cit. 205–6 (sub Knobehar);Google Scholar also Gray, Richard, A History of the Southern Sudan, 1839–1889 (London, 1961), Index (sub Knoblecher).Google Scholar

41 Later recensions follow the Vienna MS. in retaining this reference: cf.Shibeika, op. cit. Text, 19;Google ScholarMacMichael, op. cit. vol. II, 383, para. cxc.Google ScholarFor the campaign of the Defterdar, see Holt, op. cit. 45–6.Google Scholar

42 Mua¯ammad, Muhammad Dayfallāh b., K. al-Tabaqāt (ed. Ahmad, Ibrāhim Siddiq, Cairo, 1348 [1930]), 5.Google ScholarMuhammad, Muhammad wad Dayfallāh b., K. Tabaqāt wad Dayfallāh (ed. Mandīl, Sulaymān Da'ūd, Cairo, 1349 [1930]), 3.Google Scholar

43 For a transcription of the Arabic original, see Appendix.Google Scholar

44 For Lūl, see above, p. 44.Google Scholar

45 For the textual difficulties of this final passage, see note 32 to the Appendix.Google Scholar

46 von Slatin, R. C., Fire and sword in the Sudan (2nd ed., London, 1896), 3841. There are numerous variants of the legend, including forms which make the Wise Stranger a Hilālī or an ‘Abbasid (i.e. a Ja'alī). See my article ‘Dār Fūr, in EI2, II, 122.Google Scholar

47 Elles, R. J., ‘The Kingdom of Tegali’, SNR, XVIII (1955), 78.Google Scholar

48 Crawford, op. cit. 112;Google ScholarPaul, op. cit. 82–3.Google Scholar

49 The account of Sālih;, Abū in Evetts, B. T. A. (ed. and tr.), The churches and monasteries of Egypt (Oxford, 1895), 263–4.Google Scholar

50 Khaldūn, Ibn, K. al-'ibar (ed. Daghir, Y. A., Beirut, , 19561961), VI, 10;Google Scholartr. de Slane, , Histoire des Berbères (Paris, 1925), 1, 10.Google Scholar

51 Holt, P. M., ‘A Sudanese historical legend: the Funj conquest of Sūba’, BSOAS, XXIII (1960), 112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52 Bruce, op. cit. VI, 369–70.Google Scholar