IV. XL OF THE SUDAN 9

In the next paragraph he alludes to a further immigration in the following century.

Secondly, we are told of the Fezara that they "have dwelt in the Sudan since the conquest of el Bahnasa," that is, since 'Abdulla ibn Sa'ad's expedition of 641-642^.

Thirdly, the Mahass, who are Nubian rather than Arab by race, claim to be

descended from the Ansar who conquered the Sudan in 43 a.h. [663 a.d.]

during the period of the rule of 'Abdulla ibn Abu Sarah [i.e. ibn Sa'ad], the Companion. After the conquest the Khazrag settled in this country.... At the time of their coming to conquer the Sudan they numbered about

81,000^. Fourthly, the Hadarma are said to have migrated from Hadra-

maut "in the time of Haggag ibn Yusef " and settled at Suakin^, that is, between 662 and 713 a.d.

Fifthly, the ancestor of the Mesallamia is recorded to have come

to the Sudan from Syria "in the time of 'Omar ibn 'Abd el 'Aziz*," or between 679 and 718 a.d.

Sixthly, we have the entry of Sulayman ibn 'Abd el MaHk, the alleged Ommawi ancestor of the Fung, into Abyssinia between 750

and 754 A.D., and his passage thence to the Sudan°.

Seventhly, it is generally implied by genealogists of the Ga'ali group ^ that Kerdam or his son Serrar was the first of their ancestors to immigrate from Arabia.

Ahmad ibn Isma'i'l el Wall, the author of AB, was born about 1 830-1 840 and his pedigree makes him the twenty-second in descent from Kerdam. The latter or Serrar would therefore, if one reckon the generation at about thirty years, seem to have immigrated in the

latter part of the thirteenth century'.

Another ntsba says the first Ga'ali ancestor to immigrate was Ghanim (the fourth in descent from Serrar), and that he came in the middle of the thirteenth century a.d. after the fall of Baghdad before the Tartars^.

A third document makes Ghanim 's grandfather Subuh the original settler^. A fourth represents the forefathers of the Ga'aliin

^ A II, Liv, and D 6, xiii. Cp. account in Part II, Chap. 2. ^ ABC, IX, and see note thereto. ^ BA, CLXxvi. * BA, CLXXViii. ^ E.g. BA, ccxni and note.

^ E.g. BA, cxxxin and AB, clxvi. ' See Part III, Chap, i (a). One arrives at the same conclusion if one start with the reasonably legitimate assumption that 'Arman, who lived seven generations after Kerdam, was a contemporary of el Samarkandi.

8 ABC, xxii. 9 D 5 (c).