Kurdufan - 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

Include King Fuad I and King Farouk Tomb in Cairo in your tour of Egypt
Royal Family Photo Album

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.

Geography
Kurdufan covers an area of some 146,932 km² (56,730 miles²); with an estimated population in 2000 of 3.6 million (3 million in 1983). It is largely undulating plain, with the Nuba Mountains in the south east quarter. During the rainy season from June to September the area is fertile, but in the dry season it is virtually desert. The region’s chief town is El Obeid.

Economy and demography
Traditionally the area is known for production of gum Arabic. Other crops include groundnuts, cotton, and millet. The main ethnic groups are the Nuba, Shilluk, and Dinka. Large grazing areas used by Arabic-speaking, semi-nomadic Baggara and camel-raising Kababish.

The Kordofanian languages are spoken by a small minority in southern Kordofan and are unique to the region, as are the Kadu languages.

History
Before 1840

According to what Ignaz Pallme writes in his book Kordofan(#) –published in 1843-, in 1779 the King of Sennaar (see Kingdom of Sennar) sent the Sheikh Nacib, with two thousand cavalry, to take possession of the country which remained for about five years, under the government of Sennaar. In this period several Arab people, and native people from Sennaar and Dongola (see old Dongola), immigrated into the country; moreover, agriculture and commerce began to flourish.

Now the Sultan of Darfour directed its attention towards Kordofan, and entered on a campaign, in which the region was driven out of Sennaar for ever. Kordofan was now governed in the name of the Sultan of Darfour, up to the year 1821. During these years the country was also prosperous: the inhabitants lived in peace, and were not troubled with taxes; the merchants were exempt from all duties, and the tribute paid was a voluntary present to the Sultan of Darfour. Bara, the second commercial town of importance in the country, was built by the Dongolavi. The Commerce extended in all directions: caravans brought products from Abyssinia and from Egypt into the two towns of Lobeid and Bara, whence the greater part was again transported into other countries of Africa.

This state of prosperity ended in 1821 when Mehemet Ali, Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt sent his son-in-law, Defturdar, with about 4,500 soldiers and eight pieces of artillery, to subject Kordofan to his power. The monopoly enjoyed by the Egyptian governors in Kordofan totally impeded trade in general and any free entrepreneurial activity.

After 1840

The Mahdi captured El Obeid in 1883. The Egyptian government dispatched a force from Cairo under the British General William Hicks, which was ambushed and annihilated at Sheikan to the south of El Obeid. Following British reoccupation in 1898, Kurdufan was added to the number of provinces of the Sudan.

Explorations
Ignaz Pallme

(Steinschönau 1st Feb. 1807 - Hainburg near Vienna 11th June 1877), a Bohemian by birth, undertook the journey to Kordofan in 1837, on commission, for a mercantile establishment at Cairo, in the hope of discovering new channels of traffic with Central Africa.

In the pursuit of his object, he sojourned (1837-1839) longer in the country than any European before him; the information he furnished respecting the state of this province of Egypt in particular, and of the Belled Soudan in general, may, therefore, be considered the most authentic in existence at that time. That few travellers have visited these countries before Pallme, and subjected the information they were enabled to collect to print, may be deduced from the facts, that scarcely one-half of the places mentioned in Pallme's book(#) are to be found on the maps of that time.

The book Kordofan, written by Ignaz Pallme, is at the Austrian National Library

(Signat 393870 B, Band 24) in Vienna. Based on notes collected during Pallme's residence in Kordofan, the book is embracing a description of that province of Egypt and of some of the bordering countries, with a review of the state of the commerce in those countries, of the habits and customs of the inhabitants, as also an account of the slave-hunts taking place under the government of Mehemet Ali.

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

The Egyptian flag : 1922-1952

Include King Farouk's Tomb in Cairo in your tour of Egypt

Fuad I , King of Egypt and Sudan

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.

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).

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 independance 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 neighbours, 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 reignited 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 neighbouring 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.