6 THE NATIVE MANUSCRIPTS iv.vii.

This type of Jiisba is both the oldest and the commonest. Hundreds of examples must exist in the Sudan, but the great majority of them are not merely incomplete but hardly pretend to be more than extracts copied from a larger manuscript. Misreadings and omissions abound. Interpolations also occur fairly frequently, but happily the Sudanese Arab excels at the type of work that demands no mental effort whatever, and as a copyist he may count this as a merit. Where interpolations have been added the fact is almost always obvious and consequently not without use.

VIII The father of this type of 7iisba is undoubtedly that renowned

but very elusive person, " el Samarkandi." As a writer of parables in the form of genealogies he deserves a considerable meed of praise.

The second type of manuscript, sometimes included under the term nisba, takes the form of a semi-historical, semi-genealogical hotch-potch founded partly on nishas proper and partly on some ill-digested Arabic history or encyclopaedia.

Thirdly, we have copies of a history^ of the Fung kingdom and the Turkish period which followed it by an unknown author, who probably wrote between 1870 and 1880 but had access to older

records.

Fourthly, we meet occasionally with a treasured copy of the

well-known Tabakdt wad Dayfulla^, a series of biographies of the Arab holy men of the Sudan, containing many anecdotes and his-

torical data.

Into a fifth category may be classed a number of present-day works dealing with the history of some particular region or with certain specified tribes. These are founded partly on tradition and

partly on the manuscripts described^.

IX A word must be said here as to the "Samarkandi" referred to as the originator of the most typical nisbas. It must be confessed that nothing really definite is known about him at all. All we have to go upon may be summed up as follows: hardly had the Fung and their Arab allies overthrown the kingdom of Soba in 1504 when

they were threatened with invasion by Sultan Seli'm who had con-

quered Egypt in 15 17. 'Omara Dunkas therefore thought it well to write to Seli'm and explain that the inhabitants of his kingdom were Arabs of exalted lineage. "With this letter he sent a book of the pedigrees of the Arab tribes in his kingdom compiled for him by el Imam el Samarkandi, one of the learned men of Sennar; and when

'1)7. ^D3. » Part IV consists of examples of all these types of MSS., and remarks as to authorship and reliability are given in each case in an introductory note.