138 THE PROGRESS THROUGH EGYPT il. 1. ix.

IX GUHAYNA. The GuHAYNA, prior to their immigration into

Africa, had been settled in the Hegaz from south of Yanbu' to north

of el Haura, and their chief neighbours were Beli, Gudham, and Kenana^. Many never left these parts, and at the present day the

headquarters of the Guhayna are still at Yanbu', and the Beli are

still their neighbours to the north-.

They were among the first of the Beduins to accept Islam ^. Some 600 of those who crossed to Africa took part in 647 a.d. in the

first Libyan expedition*; and in 869 numbers of them joined the Beni Rabi'a in their invasion of the Bega country^.

About 1400 A.D. Makrizi speaks of them as the most numerous

tribe in Upper Egypt. They had been in Ashmunayn district, but were

ejected thence by the Kuraysh in the Fatimite era and had settled round el Siut and Manfalut^.

It is, however, more important for our purpose to note that by

the end of the fourteenth century they had penetrated far into Nubia. Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) tells us:

In Upper Egypt from Aswan and beyond it as far as the land of the Nuba and that of Abyssinia are numerous tribes and scattered sections, all

of them belonging to Guhayna, one of the branches of Kuda'a. They

filled those parts and conquered the lands of the Nuba and swarmed over

those of Abyssinia and shared their countries with them'^.

Elsewhere^ the same author, speaking of events that occurred

only a decade or two before his own birth and therefore within common recollection, says:

And with the conversion of the Nubians the payment of tribute ceased^. Then the tribes of the Guhayna Arabs spread over their country and

settled in it and ruled it and filled it with rapine and disorder. At first

the kings of the Nuba attempted to repulse them but they failed: then

they won them over by giving them their daughters in marriage^". Thus was their kingdom disintegrated, and it passed to certain of the sons of Guhayna on account of their mothers [s.c. being Nuba of the blood-royal],

* See Wiistenfeld, i, 186-7, *"^ " Goheina ben Zeid."

- The boundary between the two is nearly 50 miles north of Haura (Burton,

loc. cit. n, 133).

' Caussin de Perceval, m, 217.

* El Nuwayry, ap. Ibn Khaldun, Hist. Berb. i, pp. 313 ff. Some 700 Ghatafan and Fezara, etc., accompanied them.

^ Makrizi, Khetdt, u, 569.

* Ibid, u, 710. Sir C. Wilson mentions them among the semi-nomadic tribes north of Aswan {loc. cit. p. 4).

' Ed. de Slane, pp. 9-10; ed. ar. vol. 6, p. 5.

* Ed. ar. vol. 5, p. 429. This passage, not having been translated by de Slane^ has generally escaped notice.

* See Part II, Chap. 2. The Arabic is^.ov*^"'^ ^-ij-^^ C-s*JaiJt.