Facsimile · p. 166
Al-Jazira and Al-Butana. This situation was a golden opportunity for the increasing influence of religious scholars and jurists and their control over the common people. These kings remained weak, dominated by their ministers and commanders from the Hamaj (Bayt Ayn Shams), until they were swallowed by the Egyptian conquest in the first half of the nineteenth century. This was because, while matters were going from bad to worse, conditions changed in the north with the disappearance of royal rule and the escape of a group of them to northern Sudan, trying to establish themselves and set up a government to control the country. This increased injustice and deterioration, which prompted leaders from various walks of life to migrate to Egypt again. Some of them traveled to the Hejaz, where they met Muhammad Ali (during the Wahhabi war). These people asked him for assistance to put an end to the local unrest and wars after economic life had stopped and the specter of ruin and destruction, which had left its mark on life in the land of Sudan, had descended upon the country. The establishment of the Funj Sultanate in Sennar and their alliance with the Qawasim Arabs had a far-reaching impact on Islamic activity in Sudan and the Nile Valley, deepening their Islamic influence, supporting the Islamic movement, and contributing to the encouragement of Arab-Islamic culture. This is because the establishment of the Funj dynasty led to the spread of Arab culture throughout Sudan, from the Red Sea coast in the east to the Chad region in the west. From here, Sudan and the Nile Valley became linked as a major Islamic state on the African continent with the Arab-African blocs on the East African coast, Egypt, and the Maghreb. It was also linked by various relations with parts of the Arab world, and Sudan represented a link between Arabism in its general, authentic sense and the rest of the African countries, whether economically or culturally.
1.64