Their food.

Cultivation and some small livestock, and their land does not yield a harvest that can be relied upon by the inhabitants, because the irrigation is only by means of waterwheels, and there is great hardship in it, and the rains are scarce. The sky does not bestow rain upon them to irrigate their lands except rarely. And they have experienced famine.

They measure by the "tassa" every seven or ten years, a single measure. Therefore, life in that region was difficult, unlike the southern Sudan. Among the examples of their dealings is: (They measure by the tassa and count the qirassa). The tassa is a measure that does not exceed a ratl.

From the ratl, and the meaning of counting the qirassa is that they estimate a known number of ratls from the scales. And the qirassa is the name of every piece made from sorghum bread, which is called: (Kaseera). For these reasons, you see the merchants moving about in the lands of Sudan, and the inhabitants of those lands consider them. The people of northern Sudan call them (sellers of shateeta), and the people of southern Kordofan call them (people of 'ara), meaning camel riders, because more than twenty of them share one.

Despite all this, you see them as the most noble tribes of Sudan, with long and wide genealogies, claiming descent from the uncle of the Prophet, peace be upon him. And their ancestors settled in Sudan from the time of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad. It is said that they are descendants of the Arabs who entered Sudan from: Samid, Egypt. And it is unlikely that the Abbasids settled in the lands of Sudan in the prime of their states and their great power. There is no indication of this in the pages of history. The historians filled books with the news of the state of the Abbasids, may God be pleased with them.

They were more concerned with the news of the imams and similar details and subtleties. Sudan. 140d 600091