The Role of Southern Arabia in Enriching the Islamic Cultural Movement: The sons and scholars of Southern Arabia, from Yemen and Hadramaut, participated with their brothers, the scholars of Egypt, the Hejaz, the Maghreb, and West Africa, in enriching the Arab Islamic cultural movement, in coloring Sudan with an Islamic hue, and in preparing it to play its role in the Islamic movement in the heart of the African continent.

Yemen was one of the first sources of Islamic and Sufi culture in the Saudi city. This is because we find that since the fourteenth century AD, the eighth Hijri century, the Yemeni Sheikh "Ghulam Allah bin 'A'idh" arrived from Yemen to the land of Al-Jazira in Sudan. Upon his initial arrival, he settled on Sakieh Island, then moved to Dongola and resided there. After settling in that city, he began to fulfill his Islamic role. He built mosques for prayer, for the recitation of the Holy Quran, and for teaching Sharia sciences and direct sciences such as recitation and writing for Muslim children. He also gave lessons in the mosque after the Asr prayer for adults, and made his students gather around him in circles after he taught them the sciences of Tafsir, Fiqh, Hadith, Tajwid, and Qira'at.

From the lineage of that ascetic scholar, "Ghulam Allah bin 'A'idh," a large progeny of religious scholars emerged who spread Arab Islamic culture. That Sheikh was keen to include his children among the Muslim children he was teaching. In the long run, these individuals worked to spread Arab Islamic culture throughout Sudan, as a group of his sons and students descended to many regions in Sudan, including Al-Jazira and the Blue Nile. One of his sons, named Al-'Asiri, was its Qadi during the reign of the Funj. Indeed, some of them played their Islamic role even before the establishment of the Funj state in Sennar.

Also, Wad Daif Allah mentioned in his Tabaqat the names of some jurists, religious men, and scholars who arrived from Hadramaut in the land of Yemen to Sudan.