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CHAPTER 2
The Guhayna Group
I The second great Arab group in the Sudan is known as the Guhayna.
As in the case of the Ga'ali^n, the word has a wider and a narrower
sense. In the latter it applies to certain nomads the bulk of whom
inhabit Sennar Province in the southern Gezi'ra. In the former sense
the term "Guhayna" is used of all the vast group, Rufa'a^, Kaba-
BfsH, Dar Hamid and other camel-owning nomads of Kordofan, as
well as of the great Bakkara fraternity of Kordofan, Darfur and the western states, all of whom are said to be descended from " Abdulla
el Guhani."
The parallelism between the use of the terms Ga'ali and Guhani
is, however, not complete, for, whereas any native is only too glad to imply a connection with the Prophet by calHng himself a Ga'ali,
there is not an equal enthusiasm for Abdulla el Guhani.
Thus a Bedayri, for instance, if asked his tribe would some- times say " Ga'ali," but a Rufa'i, a Kabbashi, or one of the Bakkara would never think of saying "Guhani." He would only say he be- longed to the Guhayna if he were asked "granted you are a Rufa'i (Kabbashi, Bakkari) from what main stock is your tribe sprung?"
A hypocritical tendency too has arisen among some of the tribes,
e.g. the Rufa'a, to assert a descent from one of the sons of the Imam
'Ali^, and to speak of the Guhayna connection as confined to the mother's side. Again, whereas it is useless to try and determine with what particular Arab tribe the Ga'aliin are most closely connected,
in the case of members of the Guhayna group there is often sufficient
evidence to create a strong presumption, if not a certainty.
The reason for this lies in the fact that the Guhayna represent
the nomad Arab immigrants who kept their tribal system unimpaired from generation to generation, whereas the Ga'aliin absorbed an
older and more sedentary, and therefore more heterogeneous, popu-
lation.
But a curious fact comes to light. The historical 'Abdulla el
^ The Rufa'a are sometimes called "Guhayna el Shark" ("Eastern Guhayna") to differentiate them from the nomads west of the Nile.
- The Fadnfa are another example.