Sultanate of Darfur

The Sultanate of Darfur was a state in what is now western Sudan, ruled by the Keira dynasty of the Fur people from the seventeenth century until 1874, and again from 1898 to 1916. Centred on the Marra mountains, it was one of the major powers of the eastern Sahel, at the meeting point of trade routes linking Egypt, the Nile valley and West Africa.

Darfur, "land of the Fur", is a region of savanna and semi-desert around the volcanic Jebel Marra massif, whose fertile slopes and springs supported farming. The Fur people, farmers who speak a Nilo-Saharan language, lived in the mountains, while Arab cattle and camel herders, such as the Baggara and Rizeigat, and other peoples, such as the Zaghawa and Masalit, lived on the plains. Earlier states, such as the Daju and Tunjur kingdoms, preceded the Keira.

According to tradition, the Keira dynasty was founded by Sulayman Solongdungu in the early seventeenth century, who made Islam the state religion, though it spread gradually. The early sultans expanded from the mountains into the plains, fighting the neighbouring Wadai sultanate to the west and the Funj sultanate of Sennar to the east. In the late eighteenth century, Sultan Muhammad Tayrab conquered Kordofan from the Funj.

Around 1791 Sultan Abd al-Rahman al-Rashid founded a permanent capital at El Fasher. The sultan ruled with officials, provincial governors and a council, and granted land, hakura, to nobles and holy men. Royal women, such as the iya basi, the sultan's sister, had important roles. Abd al-Rahman corresponded with Napoleon, who was then in Egypt, sending gifts and asking for goods.

Darfur's wealth came from long-distance trade. The Darb al-Arba'in, the Forty Days Road, ran north across the desert to Asyut, in Egypt. Caravans carried ivory, ostrich feathers, gum arabic, tamarind, copper and enslaved people captured in raids to the south, to Egypt, and brought back cloth, firearms, horses and other goods. Pilgrims from West Africa crossed Darfur on their way to Mecca. The Tunisian traveller Muhammad al-Tunisi, who lived in Darfur in the early nineteenth century, wrote a detailed description.

In 1821 Egypt, under Muhammad Ali, conquered Kordofan from Darfur. In 1874 the Sudanese slave trader and warlord al-Zubayr Rahma Mansur, acting with Egypt, defeated and killed Sultan Ibrahim at Manawashi, and Darfur became part of Egyptian Sudan. In the 1880s, the Mahdist revolt took Darfur, and the Mahdist state ruled it harshly.

After the British and Egyptians defeated the Mahdists at Omdurman in 1898, Ali Dinar, a grandson of an earlier sultan, returned to El Fasher and restored the sultanate, recognised by the British. He rebuilt the palace, sent each year a covering for the Kaaba in Mecca, and ruled independently. During the First World War, he sided with the Ottoman Empire, and in 1916 a British force invaded; Ali Dinar was killed in November 1916. Darfur was annexed to Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.

Darfur's later history has been marked by conflict. From 2003 rebel groups fought the Sudanese government, which armed Arab militias known as the Janjaweed; hundreds of thousands were killed and millions displaced, and the International Criminal Court charged Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, with genocide. Renewed fighting since 2023 has brought new atrocities, particularly against the Masalit.

Our maps show the Sultanate of Darfur from 1600 to 1800, with an outline of up to about 360,000 square kilometres, almost all in today's Sudan and a small part in Chad, its largest on the 1600 map. Before it, the region appears simply as Darfur.