IV. XVI. OF THE SUDAN

the inhabitants of eastern and northern Kordofan, including the hills of el Haraza, etc. Western and southern Kordofan, and Darfur, he speaks of as inhabited by Nuba. He calls the autochthonous Danagla

'Anag, "and some remnants of them at the present day are called the Nuba." The Dinka are '"Anag from among the Zing^."

These quotations will suffice to shew that, as might have been expected, there is no really clear distinction traceable in the mind of

the native historian between any of the pre-Arab races of the Sudan. All are vaguely and indiscriminately heaped together under the names

" Nuba " and " 'Anag." The term Zing is reserved for more southernly negroid tribes, but it too is used with such obvious vagueness that there would be little point in discussing the exact connotation of the term as used, with rather more exactitude, by mediaeval Arab authors 2. The non-Arab element in the Bega tribes of the east and some of the negroid tribes in the west is ignored by the simple expedient of providing them with shadowy Arabian ancestors or else by omitting mention of them altogether.

XV Now we have seen that in the first nine hundred odd years that followed the conquest of Egypt the Arabs who entered the Sudan gradually acquired a temporal hegemony in certain districts, but the manuscripts do not leave one with the impression that they con-

cerned themselves very assiduously with the proselytizing of the earher inhabitants. The reason may easily be seen: those who left Egypt for the west and south were either led to do so by the spirit of wandering and the hope of booty or driven forth by the exactions of an unsympathetic government.

Their ancient superstitions, it is true, had been re-clothed in the new garment of Islam, but the sword and not the book was still their

first concern, and so long as a proper subservience was shewn to the name of Muhammadanism no exact compliance with its rules in daily life were universally exacted.

In proportion, however, as the sword gradually brought the country into subjection a more peaceful and pious type began to follow and explain the doctrine which the earlier immigrants had perforce neglected because of their own ignorance of its signifi- cance.

XVI It seems from the nishas that until the latter part of the fourteenth century such Muhammadanism as existed among the

people of Dongola was purely nominal— until, that is, the learned

and pious Ghulamulla ibn 'Aid settled there and began the work of

^ D I , CXXIX-CLXX. ^ See, however, the note to D i, xxii.