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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Sudan
Index
Darfur was the Fur homeland. Renowned as cavalrymen, Fur
clans frequently allied with or opposed their kin, the Kanuri of
Borno, in modern Nigeria. After a period of disorder in the
sixteenth century, during which the region was briefly subject to
Bornu, the leader of the Keira clan, Sulayman Solong (1596-1637),
supplanted a rival clan and became Darfur's first sultan.
Sulayman Solong decreed Islam to be the sultanate's official
religion. However, large-scale religious conversions did not
occur until the reign of Ahmad Bakr (1682-1722), who imported
teachers, built mosques, and compelled his subjects to become
Muslims. In the eighteenth century, several sultans consolidated
the dynasty's hold on Darfur, established a capital at Al Fashir,
and contested the Funj for control of Kurdufan.
The sultans operated the slave trade as a monopoly. They
levied taxes on traders and export duties on slaves sent to
Egypt, and took a share of the slaves brought into Darfur. Some
household slaves advanced to prominent positions in the courts of
sultans, and the power exercised by these slaves provoked a
violent reaction among the traditional class of Fur officeholders
in the late eighteenth century. The rivalry between the slave and
traditional elites caused recurrent unrest throughout the next
century.
Data as of June 1991
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