Darfur - Sudan

His Majesty King Farouk I

His full title was "H. M. Farouk I, by the grace of God, King of Egypt and of Sudan, Sovereign of Nubia, of Kordofan and of Darfur"

(February 11, 1920 – March 18, 1965)
Was the last ruling King of Egypt, succeeding his father, Fuad I, in 1936

Royal Family Photo Album

Darfur
( meaning "home of the Fur") is a region of far western Sudan, bordering the Central African Republic, Libya, and Chad. It is divided into three federal states within Sudan: Gharb Darfur (West Darfur), Janub Darfur (South Darfur), and Shamal Darfur (North Darfur).

Darfur covers an area of some 493,180 km² (196,555 miles²)—about three-quarters the size of Texas, more than half the size of Kenya or slightly smaller than France. It is largely an arid plateau with the Marrah Mountains (Jebel Marra), a range of volcanic peaks rising up to 3,000 m (10,100 ft), in the center of the region. The region's main towns are Al Fashir, Nyala, and Geneina.

There are four main physical features of the physical geography. The whole eastern half of Darfur is covered with plains and low hills of sandy soils, known as goz, and sandstone hills. In many places the goz is waterless and can only be inhabited where there are water reservoirs or deep boreholes. While dry, goz may also support rich pasture and arable land. To the north the goz is overtaken by the desert sands of the Sahara. A second feature are the wadis, seasonal watercourses ranging from small rivulets that flood only occasionally during the wet season to large wadis that flood for most of the rains and flow from western Darfur hundreds of miles west to Lake Chad. Many wadis have pans of alluvial deposit with rich soil that are also difficult to cultivate. The west of Darfur is dominated by the third feature, basement rock, sometimes covered with a thin layer of sandy soil. Basement rock is too infertile to be farmed, but provides sporadic forest cover that can be grazed by animals. The fourth and final feature are the Marrah Mountains, volcanic plugs created by a massif, that rise up to a peak at Deriba crater where there is a small area of temperate climate, high rainfall and permanent springs of water.

The rainy season is from June to September, transforming much of the region from dusty brown to verdant green. As much of the population of Darfur is agricultural, the rains are vital. In normal years, millet, a mainstay crop is ready to be harvested by November. Once harvested, the dry stalks may be fed to domestic livestock. In the far northern desert, years may pass between rainfall. In the far south, annual average rainfall is 700 mm and many trees remain green year-round.[1]

Economy and demography
Darfur has an estimated population of 7.4 million people. Darfur's economy is primarily based on subsistence agriculture, producing cereals, fruit and tobacco as well as livestock in the drier north. The main ethnic groups are the Fur (after whom the region is named), speaking a Nilo-Saharan language, and the Arab Baggara. Others include the non-Arab Zaghawa, Masalit, and Midob. The Baggara are divided into several tribes. Some of them, such as the Misseiria, speak languages other than Arabic natively. Many of these ethnic groups also have significant populations in neighboring Chad, particularly the Zaghawa and Baggara.

Relations between Arab and non-Arab inhabitants have been tense during much of Darfur's history. It was a center of slave trade when the Fur kingdom exported Africans from other parts of Sudan as slaves to the Arab world. Local Arab and non-Arab inhabitants have differing economic needs: the non-Arab peoples are primarily sedentary farmers, while the local Arabs are primarily nomadic herdsmen; this brought them into conflict over access to land and water.

Languages
The languages of Darfur include:

Arabic, particularly south of Nyala and in the east, but also touching the Chad border in a narrow strip north of Jebel Si, between Fur and Zaghawa;
Beigo, or Baygo, in a small area south of Nyala (this language, closely related to Daju, is now extinct).
Daju, in a small pocket near Nyala (of the Western branch of the Eastern Sudanic group of Nilo-Saharan);
Erenga, north of Geneina and across the border in Chad (considered a dialect of Tama);
Fongoro, south of Sinyar (a o-Bagirmi language of the Central Sudanic group of Nilo-Saharan; this language is nearly extinct; its speakers have shifted to Fur);
Fulbe, or Fulfulde, in a small area south of Nyala;
Fur, in the center, from Wadi Azum in the west to Al Fashir in the east (belonging to the Fur language group of Nilo-Saharan);
Kujarge, south of Sinyar (unclassified);
Masalit, west of Wadi Azum and around Geneina; also spoken across the border, and in a small isolated area south of Nyala (belonging to the Maban language group of Nilo-Saharan);
Sinyar, along the border south of Masalit (also a o-Bagirmi language, see Fongoro above);
Tama, in a small pocket between Jebel Si and Jebel Marra (also of the Western branch of the Eastern Sudanic group of Nilo-Saharan, see Daju above);
Zaghawa, in the north (an Eastern Saharan language);

History
The Darfur region is made up of mostly semi-arid plains that cannot support a dense population. The one exception is the area in and around the Jebal Marra mountains. It was from bases in these mountains that a series of groups expanded to control the region.

Kingdoms of Darfur
The Daju, inhabitants of Jebel Marra, appear to have been the dominant group in Darfur in the earliest period recorded. How long they ruled is uncertain, little being known of them save a list of kings. According to tradition the Daju dynasty was displaced, and Islam introduced, about the 14th century, by the Tunjur (of uncertain, possibly Arab origins[1]), who reached Darfur by way of Bornu and Wadai. The first Tunjur king is said to have been Ahmed el-Makur, who married the daughter of the last Daju monarch. Ahmed reduced many chiefs to submission, and under him the country prospered.

His great-grandson, the sultan Dali, a celebrated figure in Darfur histories, was on his mother's side a Fur, and thus brought the dynasty closer to the people it ruled. Dali divided the country into provinces, and established a penal code, which, under the title of Kitab Dali or Dali's Book, is still preserved, and differs in some respects from Quranic law. His grandson Soleiman (usually distinguished by the Fur epithet Solon, the Arab or the Red) reigned from c.1596 to c.1637, and was a great warrior and a devoted Muslim; he is considered as the founder of the Keira dynasty.

Soleiman's grandson, Ahmed Bukr (c.1682-c.1722), made Islam the religion of the state, and increased the prosperity of the country by encouraging immigration from Bornu and Bagirmi. His rule extended east of the Nile as far as the banks of the Atbara. The death of Bukr initiated a long running conflict over the succession. On his death bed Bukr stated that each of his many sons should rule in turn. Once on the throne each of his sons instead hoped to make their own son heir, leading to an intermittent civil war that lasted until 1785/6 (AH 1200) Due to these internal divisions Darfur declined in importance and engaged in wars with Sennar and Wadai.

One of the most capable of the monarchs during this period was Sultan Mohammed Terab, one of Ahmad Bukr's sons. He led a number of successful campaigns. In 1785/6 (AH 1200) he led an army against the Funj, but got no further than Omdurman. Here he was stopped by the Nile, and found no means of getting his army across the river. Unwilling to give up his project, Terab remained at Omdurman for months and the army began to grow disaffected. According to some stories Tayrab was poisoned by his wife at the instigation of disaffected chiefs, and the army returned to Darfur. While he tried to have his son succeed him, the throne instead went to his brother Abd al-Rahman.

Abd-er-Rahman, surnamed el-Rashid or the Just. It was during his reign that Napoleon Bonaparte was campaigning in Egypt; and in 1799 Abd-er-Rahman wrote to congratulate the French general on his defeat of the Mamluks. To this Bonaparte replied by asking the sultan to send him by the next caravan 2000 black slaves upwards of sixteen years old, strong and vigorous. Abd-er-Rahman also established a new capital at Al Fashir, the royal township, which he established as capital in 1791/2. The capital had formerly been at a place called Kobb.

Mohammed-el-Fadhl, his son, was for some time under the control of an energetic eunuch, Mohammed Kurra, but he ultimately made himself independent, and his reign lasted till 1838, when he died of leprosy. He devoted himself largely to the subjection of the semi-independent Arab tribes who lived in the country, notably the Rizeigat, thousands of whom he slew. In 1821 he lost the province of Kordofan, which in that year was conquered by the Egyptians ordered to conquer the Sudan by Mehemet Ali. The Keira dispatched an army but it was routed by the Egyptians near Bara on August 19, 1821. The Egyptians had been intending to conquer the entirety of Darfur, but their difficulties consolidating their hold on the Nile region forced them to abandon these plans.

Al-Fadl died in 1838 and of his forty sons, the third, Mohammed Hassan, was appointed his successor. Hassan is described as a religious but avaricious man. In 1856 he went blind and for the rest of his reign his sister Zamzam, the iiry bassi, was the de facto ruler of the sultanate.

Beginning in 1856 a Khartoum businessman al-Zubayr Rahma began to set up operations in the land south of Darfur. He set up a network of trading posts defended by well-armed forces and soon had a sprawling state under his rule. This area known as the Bahr el Ghazal had long been the source of the goods that Darfur would trade to Egypt and North Africa, especially slaves and ivory. The natives of Bahr el Ghazal paid tribute to Darfur, and these were the chief articles of merchandise sold by the Darfurians to the Egyptian traders along the road to Asyut. Al-Zubayr redirected this flow of goods to Khartoum and the Nile.

Hassan died in 1873 and the succession passed to his youngest son Ibrahim, who soon found himself engaged in a conflict with al-Zubayr. Al-Zubayr, after earlier conflicts with the Egyptians, had become their ally and in cooperation with them agreed to conquer Darfur. The war resulted in the destruction of the kingdom. Ibrahim was slain in battle in the autumn of 1874, and his uncle Hassab Alla, who sought to maintain the independence of his country, was captured in 1875 by the troops of the khedive, and removed to Cairo with his family.

Egyptian rule
The Darfurians were restive under Egyptian rule (under colonization by the British Empire). Various revolts were suppressed, but in 1879 the British General Gordon (then governor-general of the Sudan) suggested the reinstatement of the ancient royal family. This was not done, and in 1881 Slatin Bey (Sir Rudolf von Slatin) was made governor of the province. Slatin defended the province against the forces of the self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad, who were led by a Rizeigat sheik named Madibbo, but was obliged to surrender (December 1883), and Darfur was incorporated in the Mahdi's dominions. The Darfurians found his rule as irksome as that of the Egyptians had been, and a state of almost constant warfare ended in the gradual retirement of the Mahdi's forces from Darfur. Ahmad's successor, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, was a Darfuri of the minor Ta’isha tribe of cattle-herders. Abdallahi forced warriors of the Western tribes to move to the capital Omdurman and fight for him, sparking rebellions by the Rizeigat and Kababish nomads.

Following the overthrow of Abdallahi at Omdurman in 1898, the new (Anglo-Egyptian) Sudan government recognized (1899) Ali Dinar, a grandson of Mohammed-el-Fadhl, as sultan of Darfur, on the payment by that chief of an annual tribute of 500 British Pounds. Under Ali Dinar, who during the Mahdi's era had been kept a prisoner in Omdurman, Darfur enjoyed a period of peace and a de facto return to independence.

British rule, and independence
However, the British allowed Darfur de jure autonomy until they convinced themselves during World War I that the sultanate was falling under the influence of Turkey, invaded, and incorporated the region into Sudan in 1916.

Within Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, the bulk of resources were devoted toward Khartoum and Blue Nile Province, leaving the rest of the country relatively undeveloped. The inhabitants of the riverine states, referred to themselves as the awlad al-beled ("children of the country") in pride over their primary role and referred to the Westerners as awlad al-gharb ("children of the west"), an implicit slur. Meanwhile, the "Africans" were pejoratively known as zurga ("Blacks").

Over the course of the Condominium, 56% of all investment occurred in Khartoum, Kassala and Northern Province versus 17% for both Kurdufan and Darfur, resulting in about 5-6% in Darfur as Kurdufan received the bulk of funds in the West. This was despite the provinces in the Nile Valley having a population of 2.3 million versus 3 million people in the West.

Darfur, like the rest of Sudan outside the Nile Valley, remained an undeveloped backwater even as independence was achieved in 1956.

After independence, it became a major power base for the Umma Party, led by Sadiq al-Mahdi. By the 1960s, some Darfuris were beginning to question the neglect of the region by the Umma , despite their consistent political support. During the discussions of the proposed Islamic constitution proposed by Hassan al-Turabi, Muslims from Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and the Red Sea Hills joined the Southerners in opposition, perceiving the constitution as a ploy by the center to consolidate their dominance of the marginalized regions. The fracturing of the Umma led to the first political demagoguery attempting to split the "Africans" from the "Arabs" in the 1968 elections, a difficult task as they were substantially intermarried and could not be distinguished by skin tone. Sadiq al-Mahdi, calculating that the Fur and other "African" tribes formed a majority of the electorate, allied with the Darfur Development Front (DDF) in blaming "the Arabs" for Darfur's neglect. This left Sadiq's opponent, his uncle Iman al-Hadi, courting Baggara using the rhetoric of "Arabism" to offer hope of somehow being a part of the wealthy center.

To this underdevelopment and domestic political tension was added cross-border instability with Chad. Premiere al-Mahdi allowed FROLINAT, the guerilla movement trying to overthrow Chadian President François Tombalbaye, to establish rear bases in Darfur in 1969. However, FROLINAT factional infighting killed dozens within Darfur in 1971, leading Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiry to expel the group. This was further complicated by the interest of new Libyan President Muammar al-Gaddafi in the Chadian conflict. Obsessed with the vision of creating a band of Sahelian nations that were both Muslim and culturally Arab, Gaddafi made an offer to Nimeiry to merge their two countries in 1971.

However, Gaddafi was disillusioned with Nimeiry's Arab credentials after the Sudanese president signed the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement, ending the First Sudanese Civil War with the South. Libya claimed the Aozou Strip, began supporting the FROLINAT against the black Christian Tombalbaye, and supporting racist and Arab supremacist militants to achieve his goals by force, including the Arab Union in Darfur, which claimed the province to have an "Arab" nature. Nimeiry, concerned by the warm welcome Gaddafi had given to al-Mahdi, his exiled opposition, began to encourage the fragile administration of Félix Malloum, the new Chadian president after Tombalbaye's 1975 assassination. In retaliation, Gaddafi sent a 1200-man force across the desert to assault Khartoum directly. The Libyan force was barely defeated after three days of house to house fighting and Nimeiry chose to support the most anti-Libyan of the various Chadian leaders, Hissène Habré, giving his Armed Forces of the North sanctuary in Darfur. All of these external events buffeted the traditional structure of Darfuri society. Tribes that had seen themselves in local terms were asked to declare if they were "progressive, revolutionary Arabs" or "reactionary, anti-Arab Africans". The Khartoum government, rather than trying to calm these new ethnic tensions, instead exacerbated them when it seemed useful in the Sudan-Libya-Chad struggle.

In 1979, Nimeiry appointed to Darfur the only provincial governor who was not of the local population. The appointment of a Nile Valley walad al-beled, chosen to oversee the support to Habré, sparked riots by Darfuri across Sudan in which three students were killed. Nimeiry relented due to fears that his anti-Libyan bases were being jeopardized.

In a longer term cycle, the gradual reduction in annual precipation, coupled with a growing population, had begun a cycle in which increased use of arable land along the southern edge of the Sahara increased the rate of desertification, which in turn increased the use of the remaining arable land. In 1983 and 1984, the rains failed, the government refused to heed warnings of critical crop failure because they feared it would affect the administration's image abroad, and the region was plunged into a horrific famine. When 60-80,000 Darfuris walked across the country to Khartoum seeking food, the government declared them be Chadian refugees and trucked them to Kurdufan in "Operation Glorious Return", only to see them walk back to Khartoum as there was no food in Kurdufan.

The famine killed an estimated 95,000 Darfuris out of a population of 3.1 million and it was clear that the deaths had been entirely preventable. The incompetence of the regime, combined with the start of the Second Sudanese Civil War in 1983, proved unbearable for the country and Nimeiry was overthrown on 5 April 1985. Sadiq al-Mahdi came out of exile, making a deal with Gaddafi, which he had no intention of honoring, that he would turn over Darfur to Libya if he was supplied with the funds to win the upcoming elections.

In 1994, Darfur was divided into three federal states within Sudan: Northern (Shamal), Southern (Janub), and Western (Gharb) Darfur. Northern Darfur's capital is Al Fashir; Southern Darfur's is Nyala; and Wester Darfur's is Geneina.

King Farouk's sister Fawzia was Queen of Iran for a brief period.

The Egyptian flag : 1922-1952

Include King Fuad and Farouk Tomb in Cairo in your tour of Egypt

Fuad I , King of Egypt and Sudan

Kurdufan (sometimes Kordofan)
is a former province of central Sudan. In 1994 it was divided into three new federal states: North Kurdufan, South Kurdufan, and West Kurdufan.

Early History of Sudan

Three ancient Kushite kingdoms existed consecutively in northern Sudan. This region was also known as Nubia and Meroe, and these civilizations flourished mainly along the Nile River from the first to the sixth cataracts. The kingdoms were influenced by, and in turn influenced Pharaonic Egypt.

In ancient times, Nubia was ruled by Egypt from 1500 BC, to around 1000BC when the Napatan Dynasty was founded under Alara and regained independence for the kingdom of Kush although borders fluctuated greatly.

Christianity was introduced by missionaries in the 3rd or 4th century, and much of the region was converted to Coptic Christianity. Islam was introduced in 640 AD with an influx of Muslim Arabs who had conquered Egypt, although the Christian Kingdoms of Nubia managed to persist until the 15th Century.

A merchant class of Arabs became economically dominant in feudal Sudan. An important kingdom in Nubia was the Makuria, which reached its height in the 8th-9th centuries, and was of the Melkite Christian faith, unlike its Coptic neighbors, Nobatia and Alodia.

Kingdom of Sennar
Main article: Kingdom of Sennar
During the 1500s peoples called the Funj conquered much of Sudan, establishing the Kingdom of Sennar. By the time the kingdom was conquered by Egypt in 1820, the government was substantially weakened by a series of succession arguments and coups within the royal family.

Foreign Control of the Sudan : Egyptian and British
In 1820, Northern Sudan came under Egyptian rule when Mehemet Ali, the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, sent armies led by his son Ismail Pasha and Mahommed Bey to conquer eastern Sudan. The Egyptians developed Sudan’s trade in ivory and slaves

Ismail Pasha, khedive of Egypt from 1863-1879, tried to extend Egyptian, and therefore British, influence south. This led to a revolt led by religious leader Muhammad ibn Abdalla, the self-proclaimed Mahdi (Messiah), who sought to purify Islam in Sudan.

He led a nationalist revolt against Egyptian/British rule culminating in the fall of Khartoum and the death of the British General Charles George Gordon in 1885. The revolt was successful and Egypt and the British abandoned Sudan, and the resulting state was a theocratic Mahdist state.

In the 1890s the British sought to regain control of Sudan. Lord Kitchener led military campaigns from 1896-98. An agreement was reached in 1899 establishing Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, under which Sudan was run by a governor-general appointed by Egypt with British consent. In reality, Sudan was a colony of Great Britain.

From 1924, until independence in 1956, the British had a policy of running Sudan as two essentially separate colonies, the south and the north.

Independence

Britain agreed to Sudanese independence after the 1952 revolution in Egypt; the government that came to power in Egypt in 1952 supported a plebiscite on independence. Sudan became independent on January 1st, 1956, but, unlike other former British colonies, Sudan did not join the Commonwealth.

First Sudanese Civil War

The year before independence, a civil war began between Northern and Southern Sudan. Southerners, who knew independence was coming, were afraid the new nation would be dominated by the North.

The North of Sudan had historically closer ties with Egypt and was predominately Arab and Muslim. The South of Sudan was predominately black, with a mixture of Christianity and Animism. These divisions had been further emphasized by the British policy of ruling Sudan’s North and South administratively separately. From 1924 it was illegal for people living above the 10th parallel to go further south, and people below the 8th parallel to go further north. The law was ostensibly enacted to prevent the spread of malaria and other tropical diseases that had ravaged British troops, as well as to prevent Northern Sudanese from raiding Southern tribes for slaves. Critics however, have stated that the law was enacted to prevent the spread of Islam and Arab influences south. The result was increased isolation between the already distinct north and south and arguably laid the seeds of conflict in the years to come.

The resulting conflict was known as the civil war and lasted from 1955 to 1972. In 1972, the Addis Ababa Agreement led to a cessation of the north-south civil war and a degree of self-rule. This led to a ten-year hiatus in the civil war. Under the Addis Ababa Agreement Southern Sudan was given considerable autonomy.

Second Sudanese Civil War
Main article: Second Sudanese Civil War
In 1983 the civil war was re ignited following President Gaafar Nimeiry’s decision to circumvent the Addis Ababa Agreement. President Gaafar Nimeiry attempted to create a Federated Sudan including states in Southern Sudan, which violated the Addis Ababa Agreement which had granted the South considerable autonomy. The Sudan People's Liberation Army formed in May 1983 as a result. Finally, in June 1983, the Sudanese Government under President Gaafar Nimeiry abrogated the Addis Ababa Peace Agreement[1]. The situation was exacerbated after President Gaafar Nimeiry went on to implement Sharia Law in September of the same year [2].

The civil war went for more than 20 years, resulting in the deaths of 2.2 million Christians and Animists, and displacing roughly 4.5 million people within Sudan and into neighboring countries. It damaged Sudan’s economy and led to food shortages, resulting in starvation and malnutrition. The lack of investment during this time, particularly in the south, meant a generation lost access to basic health services, education, and jobs.

Peace talks between the southern rebels and the government made substantial progress in 2003 and early 2004. The peace was consolidated with the official signing by both sides of the Naivasha treaty on 9 January 2005, granting Southern Sudan autonomy for six years, to be followed by a referendum about independence. It created a co-vice president position and allowed the north and south to split oil equally, but also left both the North's and South's armies in place. John Garang, the south's elected co-vice president died in a helicopter crash on August 1, 2005, three weeks after being sworn in. This resulted in riots, but the peace was eventually able to continue.

The United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) was established under UN Security Council Resolution 1590 of March 24, 2005. Its mandate is to support implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and to perform functions relating to humanitarian assistance, and protection and promotion of human rights.

Queen Nefertiti Turns Egypt Upside Down!!

The first bloodless religious revolution against the established church in Ancient Egypt
And the seat of power that rested with the priests in Karnak

Nefertiti Turns Egypt Upside Down!! 1350 BC - Queen Nefertiti is reported to have led her Egyptian subjects on a wild spree of idol-smashing, temple-destruction, and forced migration, all part of a campaign of religious reformation.

"From now on, there will be only one Deity, and that Deity is Aten, the Sun Disc," she has commanded.

Reliable sources in the Nile Valley report that all temples to gods other than Aten have been closed, and that a hefty fine will be imposed on anyone caught with an outlawed statuette.

Idols are to be smashed immediately, and the shards turned over to the priests of Aten.

"The capital of Egypt will now be at Tel El Amarna," reads a decree widely circulated in cuneiform on clay tablets.

"All priests are to settle within one hour's journey of the new Temple to Aten. All bidders on public works contracts will likewise have their head offices within the same specified distance."

Egyptian leaders in exile have disputed the motives behind the upheaval. "It's just a ploy to concentrate power and wealth in her hands and those of her husband, Ikhnaton," stated one defrocked priest.

"Everybody knows that Nefertiti has risen to her position on qualities that have nothing to do with religion.

She isn't called Incarnation of Beauty for nothing," he added, referring to the literal meaning of her name. The source asked not to be identified, fearing reprisals. Tel El Amarna, Nile Valley, 2004 - from Paul Glassman, special correspondent "Wow," commented Joe Shiner, an agro-businesman from Des Moines, as he toured the main temple at Tel El Amarna. "It's one thing to hear that Nefertiti was a real beauty. But it's quite another to visit in person and learn the real story." "Until I came here, I didn't know that she was behind the idea of having only one god-even before the Hebrews and Christians and followers of Mohammed.

"And now that I see her picture, I can understand why people followed her. This is not what I expected . . . not at all!" Mr. Shiner gestured as he spoke to a temple painting of a well-endowed Nefertiti in a chariot, wearing only a see-through cloak and thong-style panties.

"If she was my queen, I'd follow her to the end of the . . . "
Mr. Shiner's comments were interrupted by the approach of his wife.

Disclaimer: The facts presented are as accurate as can be ascertained from the archeological record. Mr. Joe Shiner is a composite of the satisfied clients of Travel in Style.