Unification of Makuria and Nobadia
If we return to the unification of the kingdoms of Makuria and Nobadia, the political transformations, the Arab conquest of the Byzantine Empire, and the Arab concentration in its African possessions, especially Egypt, must have had a clear impact on the political development of the Christian kingdoms in Kush. From here began the tendency to unite to confront the danger coming from the north. It seems that the Makurian kings played a pioneering role in this direction and succeeded in establishing the unified Nobadian Makurian state. It is clear that the unification process took place without bloodshed. Nobadia, or at least its northern outskirts, remained a free trade zone in which Arab merchants from Egypt were allowed to travel, trade freely, reside there, and own lands. Egyptian currencies became circulated in that border area. There was a customs center in the southern part of Nobadia, and beyond it, trade was subject to the king of Makuria, as, according to the narration of Ibn Salim al-Aswany: “It is not permissible for a dinar or a dirham, as they would not trade for that except without a jandal with the Muslims, and above that, there was no buying or selling between them, but rather it was exchange for slaves, livestock, ropes, iron, and grains, and no one was allowed to permit it except with the king’s permission, and whoever violated that was punished by death.”
Since there is evidence indicating that the Macrians had converted to Christianity according to the Nestorian doctrine (the doctrine of naturalists) and not the Orthodox one, as is the case with the Nobadias and Alawites, the issue of installing the Coptic Orthodox Church in the unified Nobadia kingdom of Makria may be a kind of agreement that Nobadia would be politically affiliated with Maqria, with the Orthodox doctrine prevailing in Nobadia being the official doctrine of the unified kingdom. This is certainly a hypothesis that we are putting forward without any evidence proving this.
Nobadia was administered by an official appointed by the King of Dongola, and this administrative position was named as the head of the Diocese (Eastern Church) of Nobadia, whose powers are still subject to debate among specialists. At the time of Ibn Salim Al-Aswany’s visit, the position was subject to appointment by the King of the United Kingdom in Dongola, but subsequent Arab writers indicated that the position was hereditary. It seems that both statements are correct, as texts were found in Lower Nubia indicating the existence of the position of head of the Diocese of Nobadia until 1464, that is, a long period after the dissolution of the Kingdom of Makuria. It may be that the position began as administrative, subject to appointment by the king, and then later turned into a hereditary position, an opinion expressed by Monier de Villard.
Under the unified kingdom, the head of the Diocese of Nobadia was considered a viceroy, but he does not appear to be a deputy with absolute powers, as he does not appear in the documents to have signed the decrees or to have legal powers. All available information indicates that the head of the Diocese of Nobadia enjoyed powers related to the terms of the Baqut Agreement... supervising trade with Egypt and with Makuria, protecting Muslim merchants residing in Lower Nubia, providing the stipulated annual numbers of slaves, and returning fugitive slaves. Martin Plumley believes that the head of the Diocese of Nobadia played the role of an agent for the king’s trade with Egypt and the Red Sea, Plumley 1975.
Many texts, complete and partial, were discovered in Qasr Ibrim, written in ancient Arabic, Coptic, and Nubian languages. Among them was a letter in Arabic from the governor of Egypt in the year 785 to the king of Dongola, containing a complaint about the latter’s non-compliance with the terms of the baqt. This document was revealed along with partial documents written in Coptic, which led Belmali to evaluate it as “drafts” of a response to a letter to the governor of Egypt. Adams explains the presence of this letter in Qasr Ibrim by saying that the King of Dongola sent it to the head of the Diocese of Nobadia in order to respond to it. Adams justifies his conclusion that there is no one fluent in Arabic in Dongola due to the ban imposed on Arab merchants from reaching beyond the free trade zone in Lower Nubia.
Balamli found a list containing the names of more than thirty officials, among which there was no mention of the King of Dongola. However, among the partial texts that were revealed in Qasr Ibrim, the name of the king of Makuria appears twice. The name of a king called the King of Dataau, whose name appears at the forefront in more than twenty legal documents dating back to the period 1155-1464, appears immediately after his name the name of the Queen Mother, followed by other officials, and the name of the head of the Diocese of Nobadia comes in a lower order in those lists. Although the name Dataw was mentioned repeatedly in documents written in the ancient Nubian language in Qasr Ibrim as well as in Jebel Ada, the name does not appear at all in any of the 120 Arabic documents that were found.
Since most of the texts in which Datao is mentioned date back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, hypotheses have been put forward that it represents a kingdom that separated from the unified Nobadian Makurian kingdom after the disintegration of the kingdom and the conversion of the kings of Dongola to Islam. However, the texts revealed in Ibrim indicate that the story is incomplete, as the mention of Datau and its kings dates back to an earlier period, since 1155, when Makuria was still thriving. Some believe that Dataau is identical to the name Al-Maqra, as the two names were never mentioned in one text. It seems to us that the answer to this dilemma may be provided by Al-Aswany’s statement that the number of Nubian kings was 13, and all of them ruled the country under the rule of the great king (Al-Khattab Al-Maqriziyya, p. 191). The same information is found in the Coptic historian Severus Al-Ashmuni Plumley 1975. Maqrizi plans
The end of the United Kingdom is still unclear. The year 1272 witnessed a series of interventions by the Mamluk sultans, and by the end of the thirteenth century, the Mamluks claimed control over Nobadia south to the Second Cataract, but this claim finds no support in the documents that have been uncovered so far in Qasr Ibrim. It seems that the collapse came from the exact opposite direction, from the south, not from the north. The Kingdom of Makuria was invaded in the fourteenth century by Arab Bedouin tribes who came not from the Nile but from the hills of the Red Sea. In the year 1323, the Crown of Maqra rested on the head of a Muslim king, so that the region from the third cataract in the north to the fifth cataract in the south was divided between semi-Arab kings, each of whom was nicknamed Mecca, and they are the ones about whom Ibn Khaldun wrote:
“Kingship came to some of the sons of Juhayna from their mothers, according to the custom of the non-Arabs in the ownership of the sister and the sister’s son, so their kingdom was torn apart and the Bedouins of Juhayna took over their country, and there was no way of royal policy because of the affliction that prevents them from submitting to each other. So they became sects for this covenant, and no symbol of the king remained in their country. Rather, they were nomadic travelers who followed the place of the rain, like the valley of the Bedouins, and no symbol of the king remained in their country because the nature of nomadism made it possible. Arabic language in dyeing them by mixing and combining.” (Introduction, pp. 922-923).
Nobadia was spared this fate for reasons related to its dry environment and the loss of pastures that constituted a temptation for Bedouin arrivals. The Christian Kingdom of Dataau succeeded in withstanding the Arab-Islamic tide from the north and south until the end of the fifteenth century. In fact, the head of the Diocese of Nobadia maintained his position side by side with the King of Dataau throughout that period. Since the head of the diocese was appointed by the King of Dongola, which disappeared around 1365, the situation of the diocese represents a dilemma that still requires further studies.
The last document in which both the king of Datau and the head of the Diocese of Nobadia are mentioned bears a late date, 1464. There is also another text dating back to the year 1684 from Mount Ada in which the king of Datau, King Joel, is mentioned. After that, a curtain of silence fell on both Dataw and Nobadia and on Christian Nubia and its culture. The events of the next half century are unclear, but when the Ottoman invasion of Lower Nubia arrived in the middle of the sixteenth century, the invaders found no trace of either Datau or the Diocese of Nobadia.
Our information about the collapse of the unified Kingdom of Makuria - Nobadia comes from four main sources, which are summarized in Al-Nuwayri’s book on the general knowledge, which contains an account of the campaigns carried out by the Mamluks against the unified Kingdom of Makuria, and in the biography of the Mamluk Sultan Qalawun written by Al-Mufaddal, and in the book of Ibn Khaldun, and information in the book Al-Suluk fi Ma’rifat Dawla Al-Maluk by Al-Maqrizi, who wrote a number of important works on the history and geography of Egypt. Both Ibn Khaldun and Al-Maqrizi were among the most famous authors of their time, although the history they left for us belongs to the type of historical novels characteristic of the Middle Ages, which represent an endless series of battles, massacres, and court intrigues. From these writings, the collapse and demise of the Kingdom of Makuria appears as follows.
After King David ascended the throne of Dongola, succeeding his uncle, in 1268 he sent a mission to Cairo to obtain recognition by the Mamluk Sultan Baybars as king of Makuria. It is known that the Sultan's response was dry, in which David demanded an immediate resumption of compliance with the conditions of the Baqt, which indicates that the Makri kings had neglected it for a long time. Sources indicate that Daoud did not appear in response to the Sultan's request. In the year 1272 AD. King David attacked the port of Aidhab, which was of vital importance to Egypt's trade. The Egyptian reaction was strong and it sent an expedition to the outskirts of northern Maqra, which resulted in the capture of large numbers, including the governor of the northern region of Maqra, Sahib al-Jabal, who was later executed in Cairo.
In the year 1275, a Nubian prince named Shakenda, who was aspiring to the throne of Makuria, arrived in Cairo, seeking help from the Mamluks to depose his uncle Daoud. Of course, his request was welcomed by the Sultan, as long as it opened a space for him to interfere in the political affairs of Makkah. Then he provided Shkinda with a large military force. In January 1276, the campaign entered the northern borders of the unified Kingdom of Makuria-Nobadia and occupied Dau Castle (Mount Ada) and Minarti Island. The owner of the mountain, for fear of being exposed to what his predecessor had met with, threw his strength with the conspirator Shkinda and the foreign forces accompanying him to complete the picture of conspiracy and national treason. Sources indicate that the Bedouins of Bani Kanz also joined the Shekenda army.
By April of the same year, the campaign had reached opposite the old capital, Dongola, and had succeeded in breaking the national resistance due to the conspiracy led by the traitor Shkinda. King David fled south to the Al-Abwab area, leaving his family members captive at the hands of the merciless Mamluks. The invading forces installed the agent Shekenda al-Adina, as Muhammad Ibrahim Naqd described him, as king on the historic throne of Makuria at a heavy price imposed by the Mamluks in exchange for their support for him. The new King Al-Ma'a swore an oath of loyalty and obedience to the Mamluk Sultan, making Makuria a state subordinate to the Emir of Egypt without shame, just to achieve his desire for power. When the invading armies retreated from Dongola, they resorted to the policy of Thutmose III, who, as we mentioned, had taken the son of the king of Kerma hostage. So they took with them a number of Makurian princes as hostages, and among them were those who had the right to claim the throne. As for King David, he apparently fell into the hands of the Mamluks, as a result of a conspiracy from Shkenda, as the King of Al-Abwab sent him in handcuffs to Cairo in June of the same year.
But betrayal does not always bear fruit, as the Mamluk leaders of Shkenda quickly incited those who would assassinate him and installed a replacement for him called Barak. Barak, in turn, demonstrated the dissatisfaction of the nominal Mamluk lords with him, so he was also deposed and killed after the Mamluk campaign against him was carried out. After that, the throne of Makuria passed to Samamun, who was one of the princes who were taken hostage in Cairo. Samamun seemed to be a man of his times, cunning and capable of attacking the Mamluks with their own language of political intrigue. For twelve years or more, Samamoun played the game of hiding and appearing, challenging the Mamluk authority from a distance, and wisely retreating outside the field whenever a campaign came from Egypt to discipline him. The Mamluk armies surprised him twice with help provided by the Bedouins of Banu Kanz, so he fled to the gates and his sister’s son was installed in his place. Every time the invaders were gone, he returned to Dongola safely, regaining his throne. After his second return to his throne in 1290, Samamun took a peaceful initiative in which he demonstrated his submission to the Mamluk Sultan, sending him a gift consisting of a large number of slaves, and promising to abide by the conditions of the Baqt. The Mamluk ruler, tired of the expensive and fruitless game of hiding and appearing, was satisfied. He left matters as they were and did not bother Samamun again.
In 1304, a twisted tale of betrayal and intrigue began again. A king named Ami emerged as a successor to Samamun. He sought support from the Mamluks in his struggle with a rebel whom he succeeded in removing from his throne. Ami was restored to power with the help of the Mamluk army, but he was assassinated in turn a few years later and was succeeded by his brother, King Kudanbas, who became the last Christian king in Makuria. As soon as he ascended the throne, Kudanbas traveled to Cairo, bringing with him gifts and regular tributes to pay obedience and loyalty to the Sultan. But after his return to Dongola, he resumed the game of challenge and deception against the Egyptian authority. The Mamluk ruler decided, as usual, to dispossess an army in order to depose him and install another Nubian prince named Bar Shambu, who had converted to Islam during his time as a hostage in Cairo. When Kudanbas learned of the Sultan's plan, he made a cunning proposal. He sent his sister's son Kanz al-Dawla to Cairo suggesting that if the Sultan's intention was to install a Muslim on the throne of Makur in his place, then the inheritance must go to Kanz al-Dawla due to his right according to the prevailing matrilineal inheritance system. kodanbass
Until that moment, the Banu Kanz had generally sided with the Mamluks in their struggle with the Makarians and participated in the campaigns directed against both Dawud and Samamun. But Sultan Al-Nasir was shrewd enough to realize that the Beni Kenz represented a threat to the interests of the Mamluks, just like the always disobedient Christian Nubian kings of Makuria. Hence, the suggestion of Kenz al-Dawla’s name as heir to the throne of Dongola was not convincing to Sultan Al-Nasser, and his response was that Kenz al-Dawla ended up in prison in Cairo. The Sultan carried out his campaign to Dongola, and Bar Shembu was installed as king of Makuria. Kudanbas fled, as two of his predecessors did, to the gates, but was captured and sent to Cairo as a prisoner. With Kodanbas a prisoner in Cairo and Bar Shembo crowned king in Dongola, the sultan felt that matters in Makariya were under control, so he agreed to release Kenz al-Dawla based on his last promise to return to Aswan to take care of his own affairs. However, as soon as the leader of Beni Kenz left Cairo safely, he went directly to his family to declare himself king of Dao, and from there he marched to Dongola, where Bar Shembo had been assassinated as a result of intrigues there. Thus, the historic throne of Makuria became in the hands of Beni Kenz.
The Nubians claiming the throne became nothing more than puppets in the struggle for control of Makuria. The Mamluks and Banu Kanz were the actual combatants. Once again, the Mamluk Sultan felt that his interests in Makuria were being threatened, and so he decided to intervene, sending Abram, the brother of Kudanbas and uncle of Kanz al-Dawla, at the head of the Mamluk army to depose his nephew. According to some accounts, as soon as Abram arrived in Dongola, he found recognition from Kanz al-Dawla, who agreed to cede the throne to his uncle. Whatever the case was, Abram did not trust Kanz al-Dawla, so he threw him in prison, intending to return him to Egypt, but death did not give Abram any time to wait, so it caught up with him three days later, and Kanz al-Dawla had no difficulty putting the crown back on his head.
The captive Kudanbas became the last card in the Sultan's hand. He was released and sent in 1323 with a Mamluk expedition to Dongola to reclaim the throne of Makuria from Kanz al-Dawla, the same nephew whom Kudanbas had recommended as his successor eight years previously. Kudanbas did not wait this time to welcome his uncle and fled to the gates, leaving the throne to Kudanbas without expressing opposition. But the sister's son borrowed a leaf from Samamoun's book. As soon as the Mamluk forces left, he reappeared to expel the uncle and seize the throne. Kudanbas retreated north to Aswan, where he waited in vain for Mamluk reinforcements, but the expected help never came. The Mamluks lifted their hands from Al-Maqaria and left it to face its fate with the Banu Kanz, who played a major role in irreversibly weakening Al-Maqaria.
There seems to be a consensus that Kanz al-Dawla's accession to the throne of Maqra represents the end of Christian rule in the entire Kingdom of Maqra. This interpretation is no longer supported by data. Parts of the northern outskirts of Makuria remained under low-ranking Christian princes for the next 150 years. On the other hand, Makuria had ceased to be a Christian kingdom long before that date. The fact that a Muslim became a crowned king on the throne of Makuria with the approval of most of its subjects stands as proof of this. In the fourteenth century, Makuria was a secular kingdom, most of its followers were Christians, and its rulers adopted Christianity as their religion until 1323. But it is clear that the old alliance between the state and the church was dead. Shkanda Al-Imaa, Samamon, and Kodanpas were worldly kings. There is no trace of their paintings on the walls of any of the churches that have been uncovered so far, and there is no indication in any of the consecration texts that they were protectors of the religion. The history of Makuria was short and ambiguous under Muslim rule, as Kenz al-Dawla or one of his descendants was still on the throne in 1349. Al-Amri states that Nubia was a Christian country ruled by Muslim kings from the Banu Kenz. By the year 1365, the picture changed again, as an embassy from a non-Christian Nubian king arrived in Egypt seeking to gain support against certain Arab tribes who had begun to invade the kingdom and wreaked plunder and plunder. Most likely, these tribes were represented by the Banu Jaad, the Banu Kerma, and the Banu Kanz.
In a period of time preceding the year 1465, there was another of the repeated coups in the Al-Maqra Palace, in which a king was deposed and killed by his sister’s son, and the Banu Ja’ad supported the sister’s son after they settled in large numbers in the old Dongola region. What is noteworthy is that the sister’s son, as soon as he assumed the throne, turned against his allies from the Banu Jaad and slaughtered most of their leaders. But he soon found that his authority in Dongola was under threat, so he and members of his court withdrew north to Dao, leaving his capital at the mercy of the Bani Jaad, who attacked the city after his departure, captivated it, and plundered it. Thus, the King of Makuria abandoned the southern parts of his kingdom to the Arab tribes. Since that date and what followed, Al-Maqaria no longer knew a government other than the plundering masters of the Bedouins, as Ibn Khaldun put it.
Al-Maqrizi's account of these events is far from clear. Aspects of the story suggest, however, that other rulers of Makuria whose names are not mentioned anywhere may have converted to the faith that had continued to prevail among the vast majority of their subjects. The fact that those rulers were no longer the ones who built Kenz is very clear. The return of family conflicts between the uncle and his sister's son indicates that inheritance through the mother has been revived, something that is almost impossible under an Islamic system. Finally, the northward decline of the Makurian rulers may be linked to the fact that Dao was the seat of the post-Christian Kingdom of Datau.
The Alwa region beyond the Fifth Cataract was different culturally and geographically compared to the two other kingdoms to the north of it, which were located in a dry region with ties to Egypt extending back to the middle of the second millennium BC. Alwa is located in a rainy region that was never subject to Egyptian, Persian, Greek, or Roman aggression. After the Roman retreat from the northern outskirts of Kush, as we have shown, at the end of the third century AD, and after the collapse of the Meroe Kingdom in the late fourth century that followed, the Alwa Kingdom arose to remain isolated from the north for nearly two centuries, as confirmed by archaeological sites of the post-Meroe era, Aksum became the major power in this part of the northeastern African continent.
When Longinius arrived in 580 AD. To Soba, he had knocked on the door of a Kushite kingdom that was completely different from the modernized Nobadia to some degree, where he had resided for six years during which he laid the foundations of the Nobadia Church (which later became known as Nubian). Longinius's mission paved the way for the winds of cultural change associated with the emergence of trade exchange with the Byzantine Empire, specifically with Byzantine Egypt. The Byzantine influence was clear in the northern outskirts of Kush - Nobadia in particular - and its features can be seen in the upper reaches of the Basilian form of the two churches in the capital, Soba, and in the use of the Greek language until the eleventh century, as indicated by the funerary inscription of its king David.
The problematic reasons for choosing Soba as the capital of the Kingdom of Alwa still exist. On the one hand, the loss of the Kingdom of Meroe to its northern outskirts as a result of the control of the Nobadis and Blemites over those outskirts made it a kingdom suffering from relative isolation, and on the other hand, it became vulnerable to attack as long as it was located towards the northern borders of the emerging Kingdom of Alwa. But there is a possibility that the establishment of a Christian capital away from the influences of traditional Meroe worship was the result of a decision that was made fully consciously. Also, the high rainfall rate in the Soba region, with its greater agricultural potential, may be an element of the conscious decision to establish the Kingdom’s metropolis in that particular good spot. Although the Kingdom of Alwa had existed since 580 AD. When its king was anointed, according to what was narrated by the Byzantine church historian John of Apheus, the mention of Soba as the capital visited by the missionary Longinius was not mentioned in any document. Kirwan put forward a hypothesis that according to Longinius's description of the last stage of his journey, which was included in his letter to Theodore, the Patriarch of the Coptic Church at the time in Alexandria, the location of Meroe (Al-Bajrawiya) as a height may be the closest to the truth. The oldest mention of Soba as the capital of Alwa is found in Kitab al-Buldan by al-Yaqubi. Book of Countries by Al-Yaqoubi.
If Meroe was the first capital of the Alwa Kingdom, the scarcity of evidence indicating Christianity indicates that Soba usurped its position immediately after 580 AD. This is if this had not been done in an earlier period. Hypotheses have been put forward that say that the reuse of the Meroe temple in Al-Musawwariyat Al-Safra as a church occurred in a period prior to Alwa’s official conversion to Christianity. Vantini also mentions the presence of a limited number of Axumite Christian visitors in Alwa when Longinius visited the city, which was recorded by John of Apheus as reported by Vantini 1975.
The Kingdom of Alwa was mentioned for the first time in the writings of John of Apheus, who recounts at some length the events that led to the christening of the northern outskirts of Kush Nobadia initially, and later to the christening of Alwa thanks to missionaries of the Orthodox sect. As for the Kingdom of Makuria, located between the two kingdoms, Al-Afiyusi does not mention anything about its Christianization, but it was noted that it was hostile to missionary activities in Alwa. A contemporary Orthodox, John Beclarum, claims that the Macrians converted to Christianity in 569 AD. Or in the following year. Ibn Salim Al-Aswany says that the Nubians and Macrians were ethnically different and entered into wars among themselves before the arrival of Christianity. It is possible that this hostility between Makuria and Alwa was a reason explaining Longinius’ decision to follow the desert road on his way to Alwa. It appears from Al-Afeusi’s account that the Kushite kings were keen to convert to Christianity: “When the king of Alwa sent his embassy to the king of Nobadia asking him to send Longinius to them to teach and Christianize his people, it was clear that the people’s desire for Christianity had been intensified by a divine miracle...and upon his arrival in the capital, the king received him with welcome and joy. As he settled among them, heralding the words of the Creator to the king and all his nobles, they received them with open hearts. After a few days, they were educated, and the king converted to Christianity along with all the nobles and the greater part of the population.”
Ibn Salim Al-Aswany, who visited Alwa in about the year 976, gave a description of its capital, Soba, as follows: “The city of Al-Alawi, east of the Great Peninsula, which is between the White and Green Seas, at the northern end of it, at its community, and to the east of it is the river that dries up and settles its belly, and it has beautiful buildings, spacious houses, churches abounding in gold, and orchards, and it has a community in which there is a group of Muslims.” Ibn Hawqal, who claimed to have visited Alwa in the latter half of the tenth century, wrote that the Kingdom of Makuria and its king were under the control of Alwa, while Al-Masudi mentions in the year 943 that the Nubian king ruling in Dongola extended his control over both Maquria and Alwa. Munro-Hay points out that the fact that the heir to the throne of Alwa, Prince Simon, enjoys a prestigious position in the Kingdom of Makuria indicates the prevalence of good relations between the two kingdoms. Munro-Hay 1982.
The tombstone engraved on a marble slab of King David of Soba, which was uncovered during the archaeological excavations currently underway at the Soba site, confirms that Alwa and Al-Maqara were subject to two different kings in the early years of the eleventh century. Ibn Salim Al-Aswany wrote a detailed description of Alwa’s wealth:
“Alwa possesses more wealth than the possessor of Maqra, and has a greater army, and has more horses than Maqri does, and his country is wider and more fertile, and there are palm trees and vineyards, and most of their grains are white corn, of which rice is their bread and ale, and meat is plentiful with them due to the large number of livestock and vast, great meadows, to the point that it does not reach the mountain except in a matter of days. And they have freed horses and red-brown camels, and their religion is Jacobite Christianity, and their bishops are from the owner of Alexandria. Like the Nuba and their books in Roman, they interpret them in their language, and they are less understanding than the Nuba, and their king enslaves whomever he wants from his subjects, whether for a crime or without a crime, and they do not deny that to him, but rather they prostrate to him and do not disobey his command despite the misfortune that befalls them, and they call on the king, “Long live, let his command be done,” and he is crowned with gold, and gold is abundant in his country. One of the wonders in his country is that on the Great Island that is between the two seas, a race of people has a vast land cultivated from. The Nile and the rain, then when it was time for planting, each one of them would go out with whatever seed he had and plan according to the amount of what he had and plant a little in the four corners of the plan, or he would put the seed in the middle of the plan and some of the ale and leave from it. Then in the morning he would find that what he had planned had been planted and he would drink the ale. Then if it was harvest time he would reap a little and put it in the place he wanted with the ale and he would go away and find the entire seed had been harvested.”
Traces of material culture indicate that Alwa was largely self-sufficient, with only a small amount of pottery imported from the north. The kingdom owned fertile lands, which makes it possible to assume that it traded in agricultural products, in addition to slaves brought from outside its borders, in addition to ivory and animal skins. The Arab-Islamic neighborhood referred to by Ibn Salim Al-Aswany indicates the existence of commercial connections with the Arab world. Regarding the gold mines in the area around Fazoghli (Famaka), to which the Axumite kings sent missions, Alwa’s control over them remains completely unclear, especially if we take into account what Ibn Hawqal mentioned that the gold mines in Alwa do not find anyone interested in them, even though they are productive.
The history of Alwa in general remained ambiguous, and its end was even more ambiguous, as it is rare to find its name in later historical narratives, which usually talk about the king of Al-Abwab, not the king of Alwa, and Al-Abwab was traditionally the northern province of Alwa. But we still do not know whether we can consider the title of King of Al-Abwab synonymous with the King of Alwa, or whether the kingdom has been divided into tribal sheikhdoms. Spaulding believes that the results of archaeological excavations in Soba reveal the low level of material culture in the capital of the Kingdom of Alwa at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Shinnie points out that the thirteenth-century geographer Al-Hourani narrates that the capital of Alwa moved to a place called Wayla, and that the Mamluk envoy Alam al-Din Sinjar found that he had to deal with nine ruling individuals during his mission in Alwa Shinnie 1961.
Alwa, with its vast pastures, was invaded, as was the Kingdom of Makuria to its north, by mobile Arab nomadic tribes who came to Kush between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries to pose a direct threat to the kingdom. The Juhayna and Quraish were the most powerful of those tribes that flowed from the Hijaz to southern Egypt in the times of the Fatimids, and then, under pressure from the Mamluks, moved south in search of greener pastures. According to Yusuf Fadl Hassan’s account, the immigrants did not come in the form of nomadic invaders, but rather in successive small bands... Although the general pattern of this infiltration may have been of a peaceful nature, the apparent emergence of local friendships and tribal fighting was inevitable. In their efforts to control the pastures, the Bedouins may have pushed the indigenous people away from their lands, or they may have invaded the rich lands on both banks of the Nile. Their presence in the Kingdom of Alwa must have put pressure on the kingdom. Alwa was initially able to defend itself, and able to impose its sovereignty over the small Arab groups, but with the increasing numbers of Arab immigrants, and with the formation of large tribal alliances and ties, the balance was completely upset. Hassan 1967.
Youssef Fadl points out that the Bedouin wave was not the only threat that the Alwa kings had to contend with, because their relations - apparently - with the kings of Al-Maqariya were witnessing a permanent deterioration due to the slavery campaigns that the Makrians were waging on Alwa lands. Youssef Fadl adds that in addition to all of this, the kings of Alwa had to face a new danger represented by the rising power of the local tribes to their south and west. Crawford says that in the early fourteenth century, a writer named Al-Dimashqi reported that the king of Alwa was residing in a place called Kusha, far west of the Nile, where he obtained water from underground wells. Crawford believes that this may be an indication that the king of Alwa was expelled from his traditional homes on the bank of the Nile by the invading Arabs (Crawford 1951).
Traditional accounts attribute the final collapse of the Alwa Kingdom and the destruction of its capital, Soba, to joint attacks launched by Bedouin Arabs and the Funj Sultans. There is no doubt that the rise of Amara Dengus, the first of the Funj sultans, is historically proven and documented, but we question the traditional narrative that says that the reign of Amara Dengus began with the overthrow of Soba. Currently, there is agreement that the overthrow of Alwa was a purely Arab act, and that the Funj in turn subjugated the Arabs at a later date, considering themselves the legal heirs of the Alwa kingdom. There is a story preserved by the Arabs of Al-Abdlab, which says that the people of Alwa, who survived the Arab attack and the destruction of Soba, fled the city and took shelter in the fort of Qara, located about forty miles north of Soba. On the basis of this account, Chittic described the complex at the top of a hill at the entrance to the Sablouga Waterfall (Sixth Waterfall) near the present-day village of Qari as the last stronghold of Christianity in Sudan (Chittic 1963).
Finally, we say that from the thirteenth century until the sixteenth century, Bedouin Arabs flowed south from Egypt to Kush, beginning along the Red Sea hills, then westward to the Nile and beyond, destroying in their flow the last remains of the Christian kingdoms. The arrival of the Arabs permanently changed the ecological balance between the desert and the cultivated land, as the number of Bedouin Arabs in the marginal land overwhelmed the farmers along the Nile. While many of the incoming Bedouins persevered for a Bedouin existence in Kush, others settled as chiefs of the sedentary local population and gradually assimilated with them, resulting in the unique composition of the present Sudanese nation.
(1) Thus his name was mentioned as “Kudanbas” in ancient Nubian texts, while in Arabic sources it was mentioned as “Karnabis”.
J.M.Plumley: The Scrolls of Bishop Timotheos, London.
Al-Yaqubi 1892, Ahmed bin Abi Wadh Al-Akhbari, Kitab Al-Buldan, Leiden ed. Al-Yaqoubi
G.Vantini: Oriental Sources Concerning Nubia, Heidelberg-Warsaw.
S.C.Munro-Hay: Kings and Kingdoms of Ancient Nubia, Rassenga di Studi Etiopici 29.
P.L.Shinnie: A Late Latin Inscription.- Kush 9.
Y.F.Hassan: The Arabs and the Sudan, Edinburgh.
O.G.S.Crawford: The Fung Kingdom of Sennar. Glocester.
H.N.Chittick: In: Kush, XI .
Excavations at Kerma 1993-94/1994-95