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26-522: The hakura system was a method of land allocation in the Sultanate of Darfur . The system was based on charters or hawakir (singular hakura ) issued by the sultan entitling one to ownership of a certain estate, usually as a freehold , sometimes as fiefs in exchange for tribute or rent. The possessors of hawakir were usually wealthy aristocrats, while most of the estates granted were worked by slaves or bondservants. A distinction can be made between

52-571: A short wet season that produces virtually all the year's rainfall of around 210 millimetres or 8.3 inches, accompanied by much higher humidity than during the remainder of the year. Due to the nearby Abu Shouk and Al Salam IDP camps with the influx of humanitarian aid from the United Nations as a result of the Darfur crisis , the city has experienced a significant economic and population boom. Rents and retail sales increased, including

78-632: Is composed mostly of semi-arid plains and small seasonal rivers 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. According to written records the Daju and the 14th century migrants the Tunjur were the earliest powers in Darfur. The transition of power from

104-720: Is still preserved, and differs in some respects from Sharia law . His grandson Suleiman (or "Sulayman", usually distinguished by the Fur epithet Solon, meaning "the Arab" or "the Red") reigned from 1603 to 1637, and was a great warrior and a devoted Muslim . Suleiman Solon is considered the founder of the Keira dynasty and the Sultanate of Darfur. During the 17th century, the Keira sultans introduced

130-483: The Dongola Reach and were purchased with slaves. Like the riders they were armoured with gambesons and mail armour as well as additional armour for the head. All this equipment had to be organized and maintained by the chiefs responsible for the fursan . By the 1850s and 1860s, Darfur entered the third stage, when it attempted to build an army based on muskets. While firearms were already used in Darfur before it

156-612: The Ottoman Empire during the First World War . Dinar was killed and his kingdom was incorporated into the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium . The armies of Darfur underwent a three-staged evolution. Before the 18th century they consisted entirely of levy warbands, youths armed with spears, hide shields and occasionally throwing knives . They were commanded by an older man titled ornang or ' aqid . By

182-404: The demesne lands of the estate-holder, whose slaves he personally owned, and the rest of the hakura , from whose inhabitants he exacted tribute and who owned their own slaves. The hakura system was introduced to Darfur during the reign of Kuuru , the second sultan of the Keira dynasty . When the itinerant court finally settled down around El Fasher towards 1790, the land around the capital

208-497: The korkwa , armed pages wielding spears and hide shields. Al-Fashir Al-Fashir or El Fasher ( Arabic : الفاشر , romanized :  al-Fāshir ) is the capital city of North Darfur , Sudan . It is a city in the Darfur region of southwestern Sudan, 195 kilometres (121 mi) northeast of Nyala, Sudan . A historical caravan post, Al-Fashir is located at an elevation of about 700 metres (2,300 ft). The city serves as an agricultural marketing point for

234-469: The 18th century, a new type of warrior developed, the heavily armoured fursan . They would form the small core of the armies of Darfur. These fursan were armed with long swords imported from Solingen in Germany , lances, maces and sometimes firearms. Body armour consisted of locally made gambesons , German-made mail armour, silk coats, greaves and helmets. The horses were a Nubian breed imported from

260-506: The Daju to the Tunjur was facilitated through marriage. Eventually the Tunjur began marrying amongst the Fur people producing Sultan Dali, a celebrated figure in Darfur histories, who 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,

286-498: The army began to grow disaffected. According to some stories Terab 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 . Sultan Abd-er-Rahman established a new capital at al-Fashir , meaning "the capital", in 1790. The capital had formerly been moved from place to place then at another location called Kobb . During his reign, Napoleon Bonaparte

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312-470: The cereals and fruits grown in the surrounding region. Al-Fashir is linked by road with both Geneina and Umm Keddada . Al-Fashir had 264,734 residents as of 2006 , an increase from 2001, when the population was estimated to be 178,500. UN Habitat reported a population of 500,000 for al-Fashir in 2009, attributing the increase to refugees and economic migrants. Al Fashir University was created in 1990 by decree of President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir , and

338-698: 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. Sultan al-Husayn died in 1873 and the succession passed to his youngest son Ibrahim , who soon found himself engaged in a conflict with al-Zubayr. After earlier conflicts with the Egyptians , Al-Zubayr had become their ally and in cooperation with them agreed to conquer Darfur. The war resulted in

364-590: 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 brought to Cairo with his family. In 1898, with the decline of the Mahdists , sultan Ali Dinar managed to re-establish Darfur's independence. Darfur was conquered by the British Empire in 1916, officially because Dinar gave his support to

390-663: The feudal hakura system into Darfur. 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 . The death of Bukr initiated a long-running conflict over the succession. On his deathbed, 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 1785/1786 ( AH 1200). Due to these internal divisions, Darfur declined in importance and engaged in wars with Sennar and Wadai . One of

416-460: 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 1785/1786 (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

442-535: The province of Kordofan to the Egyptians under Mehemet Ali , who planned to conquer the Sudan. The Keira dispatched an army but it was routed by the Egyptians near Bara on 19 August 1821. The Egyptians had intended to conquer all 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, Muhammad al-Husayn ,

468-483: The selling of bottled water and the opening of a pizza parlor to cater to the demand from western aid workers. The number of gas stations has tripled in three years as a result of the increase in the amount of automobiles in the city. Employment opportunities also increased as the United Nations offered jobs to citizens. Economics analyst Adam Ahmed stated that the "people [of Al-Fashir] are beginning to think in

494-494: The subjection of the semi-independent Arab tribes who lived in the country, notably the Rizeigat , thousands of whom he slew. An account of life and the geography in Darfur was written in the early 19th century by Muḥammad al-Tūnisī (d. 1857), who spent ten years as a merchant from Cairo in the sultanate and described the kingdom in detail and with his own drawings in the book translated as In Darfur . In 1821, el-Fahl lost

520-745: The sultan's palace grounds. Fighting known as the Battle of El Fasher commenced in April 2023. Al-Fashir has a hot arid climate ( Köppen BWh ) with three distinct seasons. There is a bone-dry and relatively "cool" season from October to February when temperatures are merely hot by afternoon and cool in the mornings, which gives way to a sweltering and equally arid "hot season" from March to May with high temperatures around 38 °C or 100 °F and morning lows of 21 °C or 70 °F. The Sahelian monsoon arrives in June and lasts until September, creating

546-514: The sultanate. In 1856, a Khartoum businessman, al-Zubayr Rahma , began 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

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572-407: Was appointed his successor. Al-Husayn is described as a religious but avaricious man. In 1856 he went blind and for the rest of his reign Zamzam Umm al-Nasr , the sultan's eldest sister or ayabasi , was the de facto ruler of the sultanate. Zamzam and other members of the sultan's inner circle exploited his weakness to repossess and pillage large tracts of land, terrorizing the citizens and weakening

598-671: Was campaigning in Egypt . In 1799 Abd-er-Rahman wrote to congratulate the French general on his defeat of the Mamluks . Bonaparte replied by asking the sultan to send him 2,000 strong and vigorous black slaves who were upwards of sixteen years old in the next caravan. Muhammad al-Fadl , 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

624-545: Was gradually given out to courtiers through hawakir . In exchange these landholders were responsible for tax collection on their estates, which were the most heavily taxed in the country. The right to employ nomads as herders was sometimes granted to hakura holders. After the conquest of Darfur in 1916, the Anglo-Egyptian government abolished the hakura system and abolished slavery, effecting "the release of Sudanese servants". Sultanate of Darfur Darfur

650-571: Was officially opened in February 1991 in premises west of El Fasher Airport and south of the El Fashir School. Late in the 18th century, Sultan Abd al-Rahman al-Rashid of the Sultanate of Darfur moved his itinerant court ( fashir ) to a site called Rahad Tendelti while campaigning in the region of northern Darfur as it was a superb spot for a settlement and grazing; eventually the site was renamed to al-Fashir. A town developed around

676-454: Was only then when they were used tactically and in large numbers. These experiments were, however, ended with the invasion of al-Zubayr in 1874. Sultan Ibrahim died in a cavalry charge. The regular army of the revived state of Ali Dinar reportedly numbered 7,700 men in 1903 and 5,000 in 1916 and wielded a wide array of weapons, ranging from spears and shields to muzzle loaders, shotguns and Remington rifles . Sultans and nobles were guarded by

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