Funj Sultanate

The Funj Sultanate, also known as Funjistan, Sultanate of Sennar (after its capital Sennar) or Blue
Sultanate due to the traditional Sudanese convention of referring to black people as blue (Arabic: ‫السلطنة‬
‫الزرقاء‬, romanized: al-Sulṭanah al-Zarqāʼ)[11] was a monarchy in what is now Sudan, northwestern
Eritrea and western Ethiopia. Founded in 1504 by the Funj people, it quickly converted to Islam,
although this embrace was only nominal. Until a more orthodox Islam took hold in the 18th century, the
state remained an "African-Nubian empire with a Muslim facade".[12] It reached its peak in the late
17th century but declined and eventually fell apart in the 18th. In 1821 the last sultan, greatly reduced
in power, surrendered to the Ottoman Egyptian invasion without a fight.[1]

Christian Nubia, represented by the two medieval kingdoms of Makuria and Alodia, began to decline
from the 12th century.[13] By 1365 Makuria had virtually collapsed and was reduced to a petty kingdom
restricted to Lower Nubia, until finally disappearing c. 150 years later.[14] The fate of Alodia is less clear.
[13] It has been suggested that it collapsed already as early as the 12th century or shortly after, as
archaeology suggests that in this period, Soba ceased to be used as its capital.[15] Between the 14th and
15th centuries Sudan was overran by Bedouin tribes.[16] In the 15th century one of these Bedouins,
whom Sudanese traditions refer to as Abdallah Jammah, is recorded to have created a tribal federation
and to have subsequently destroyed what was left of Alodia. In the early 16th century Abdallah's
federation came under attack of an invader from the south, the Funj.[17]

The ethnic affiliation of the Funj is still disputed. The first and second of the three most prominent
theories suggest that they were either Nubians or Shilluk, while, according to the third theory, the Funj
were not an ethnic group, but a social class.[citation needed]

In the 14th century a Muslim Funj trader named al-Hajj Faraj al-Funi was involved in the Red Sea trade.
[18] According to oral traditions the Dinka, who migrated upstream the White and Blue Nile since the
13th-century disintegration of Alodia, came in conflict with the Funj, who the Dinka defeated.[19] In the
late 15th/early 16th century the Shilluk arrived at the junction of the Sobat and the White Nile, where
they encountered a sedentary people Shilluk traditions refer to as Apfuny, Obwongo and/or Dongo, a
people now equated with the Funj. Said to be more sophisticated than the Shilluk, they were defeated in
a series of brutal wars[20] and either assimilated or pushed north.[21] Anti-Funj propaganda from the
later period of the kingdom referred to the Funj as "pagans from the White Nile" and "barbarians" who
had originated from the "primitive southern swamps".[22]

In 1504 the Funj defeated Abdallah Jammah and founded the Funj sultanate