Sudan

Sudan (or The Sudan; officially the Republic of the Sudan or Republic of Sudan)(Arabic :السودان) is the largest country by area in Africa and the largest Arab country by area. more...

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It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, Kenya and Uganda to the southeast, Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, and Libya to the northwest. It is the tenth largest country in the world by area.

History

Early history of Sudan

Three ancient kings of the Kushite kingdoms existed consecutively in northern Sudan. This region was also known as Nubia and Meroë, and these civilizations flourished mainly along the Nile River from the first to the sixth cataracts. The kingdoms were influenced by, and in turn influenced Pharaonic Egypt. In ancient times, Nubia was ruled by Egypt from 1500 BC to around 1000 BC when the Napatan Dynasty was founded under Alara and regained independence for the kingdom of Kush. Borders, however, fluctuated greatly.

Much of the region was converted to Coptic Christianity by missionaries during the third and fourth centuries AD. Islam was introduced in 640 AD with an influx of Muslim Arabs who had conquered Egypt, although the Christian Kingdoms of Nubia managed to persist until the 15th Century.

A merchant class of Arabs became economically dominant in feudal Sudan. An important kingdom in Nubia was the Makuria, which reached its height in the 8th-9th centuries, and was of the Melkite Christian faith, unlike its Coptic neighbours, Nobatia and Alodia.

Kingdom of Sennar

During the 1500s the people called the Funj conquered much of Sudan, establishing the Kingdom of Sennar. By the time the kingdom was conquered by Egypt in 1820, the government was substantially weakened by a series of succession arguments and coups within the royal family.

Foreign control: the Egyptian and British

In 1820, Northern Sudan came under Egyptian rule when Mehemet Ali, the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, sent armies led by his son Ismail Pasha and Mahommed Bey to conquer eastern Sudan. The Egyptians developed Sudan’s trade in ivory and slaves. Ismail Pasha, khedive of Egypt from 1863-1879, tried to extend Egyptian (and therefore British) influence south. This led to a revolt led by religious leader Muhammad ibn Abdalla, the self-proclaimed Mahdi (Messiah), who sought to purify Islam in Sudan. He led a nationalist revolt against Egyptian/British rule culminating in the fall of Khartoum and the death of the British General Charles George Gordon in 1885. The revolt was successful and Egypt and the British abandoned Sudan, and the resulting state was a theocratic Mahdist state.

Read more at Wikipedia.org