The coming of the Arabs

The central axis of the eastern Bilād al-Sūdān is constituted by the River Nile. In the north, this is a single stream from the confluence of the Blue and White Niles by the modern town of Khartoum (al-Khartūm) to the First Cataract above Aswān. Except in certain districts, where rocky cliffs close in on the river, the main Nile is fringed by a narrow strip of irrigable land, which supports numerous villages and a few small towns. The riverain settled area, as far south as the Sabalūqa Cataract, a few miles below the confluence of the Niles, is the historic Nubia (Bilād al-Nūba), the seat of the most ancient civilization in what is now Sudanese territory. To its south, around the confluence, on the banks of the Blue and White Niles, andin the peninsula (al-Jazira, the Gezira) lying between them, is another area of settlement, where the greater annual rainfall makes more extensive cultivation possible. In this region, known to the medieval Arabic writers as ‘Alwa, the only ancient urban site lay at Sūba, on the Blue Nile, not far from Khartoum. East and west of the main Nile, the sandy deserts of the north merge imperceptibly into seasonal grasslands further south. This is herdsman's country, and a Hamitic-speaking group of nomad tribes, the Beja (al-Buja) have occupied the eastern desert from time immemorial. Their territory (Bilãd al-Buja) covers the rolling plains, which rise to the arid escarpment of the Red Sea Hills. Below, in the sultry and uninviting coastal plain, are scattered harbours, around four of which in succession, Bādi’, ‘Aydhāb, Suakin (Sawākin) and Port Sudan, substantial towns have grown up.