MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Sudan
Index
For several centuries Arab caliphs had governed Egypt through
the Mamluks. In the thirteenth century, the Mamluks seized
control of the state and created a sultanate that ruled Egypt
until the early sixteenth century. Although they repeatedly
launched military expeditions that weakened Dunqulah, the Mamluks
did not directly rule Nubia. In 1517 the Turks conquered Egypt
and incorporated the country into the Ottoman Empire as a
pashalik (province).
Ottoman forces pursued fleeing Mamluks into Nubia, which had
been claimed as a dependency of the Egyptian pashalik.
Although they established administrative structures in ports on
the Red Sea coast, the Ottomans exerted little authority over the
interior. Instead, the Ottomans relied on military kashif
(leaders), who controlled their virtually autonomous fiefs as
agents of the pasha in Cairo, to rule the interior. The rule of
the kashif, many of whom were Mamluks who had made their
peace with the Ottomans, lasted 300 years. Concerned with little
more than tax collecting and slave trading, the military leaders
terrorized the population and constantly fought among themselves
for title to territory.
Data as of June 1991
|
|