III. 2. III. THE GUHAYNA GROUP 239
DWAYH Mesallamia The Bakkara tribes Mahamid, Mahria, etc. Kababish (certain sections only) Mogharba Hamar The Kababish, the Hamar, the Bakkara, the Mahamid group and the " Fezara" group of the above are all in Kordofan or west of
it ; the remainder are nearly all in the Gezira or east of it.
(a) THE RUFA'A GROUP, THE GUHAYNA PROPER, THE
LAHAWlfN, THE 'ABDULLAB AND THE IN^ERRIAB
III The RufA'A. The Rufa'a, descendants of Rafa'i, that is,
generally appear in the "nisbas" among the Guhayna group and
are said to have sojourned among the Bega and in Abyssinia before moving down to the valley of the Nile^. This tradition is corroborative
of the statement quoted by Quatremere^ that in 680 a.h. (1281 a.d.)
a battle was fought between the Guhayna and the Rufa'a in the
desert of 'Aidhab. The two tribes mentioned have been close neigh- bours for many generations, not only in Africa but also in Arabia:
Burckhardt, writing in 1814, says^:
While I was at Shendy an Arabian came from Souakin, who was of the
tribe of Refaay {^^j), which is related to the great tribe of Djeheyne
(i^jych.), near Yembo; he told me that he had heard that there were descendants of his own tribe of Refaay settled to the south of Sennaar, and that he intended to visit them... as they had always manifested kind- ness to their relatives in the Hedjaz, especially to such as had undertaken the journey for the purpose of saluting them.
The Rufa'a of the Sudan themselves now claim to be distinct from the Guhayna in origin, though admitting that much inter- marriage has been taking place for centuries, and perfunctorily claim
descent from a Une of Sayyids. This however may partly be due to
the fact that the 'Arakiin, many of whom are "holy men," claim to be AsHRAF, and the Rufa'a are placed in the dilemma of having either
to repudiate the claim of the 'Arakiin to be Ashraf or deny the fact
that the 'Arakiin are a branch of the Rufa'a. They have chosen the obvious course of saying that the Rufa'a are all Ashraf^. The fact of
the matter is that soi-disant Ashraf have intermarried with them;
but, generally speaking, they are a composite tribe containing more
^ See A 2, XXXV, An, lviii, D 6, xxxv.
^ Vol. II, p. 172, quoting MS. Arab 672, p. 421.
* Nubia, p. 323. * See later sub 'Arakim.