CHAPTER 9
The 'Abdbda^ and Kerrdrish
I The 'Ababda are a tribe of Upper Egypt, but as they have several
branches in the Sudan some brief account of them will be given.
As being neighbours of the Bisharin and having intermarried
with them they have naturally come to be considered as of the same
original stock, but the 'Ababda have very much more of the Arab in
their composition than have any of the Bega races^ and in fact prob-
ably represent the Arabs who were settled in the Thebaid before the
final Muhammadan conquest of the Sudan. The Ababda in Shendi
district told Burckhardt that they and the Ababda of Egypt were all
descended from " Selman, an Arab of the Beni Hilal^." There is no
reason compelling one to deny their connection with that tribe ; and
they appear also to have intermarried, as one would expect, with the AwLAD Kanz^.
Their northern limit is roughly the Kena-Kusayr road, and the
greater part of the tribe frequents the country east of Luxor Diraw and Aswan, and the northern Atbai^.
II The Ababda are divided into three main groups, the Ashabab,
the FuKARA and the Abudii'n or Shinatir^. The Ashabab is the
largest and most powerful of these divisions, and both it and the Abudiin-Shinatir group are practically confined to Egypt '^.
Of the FuKARA the best-known branch is the Milaykab, many
of whom are within the Sudan boundary, though there are others of them over the border and round Diraw^.
^ The word "'Ababda" is a plural formed from " 'Abadi." '"Abadi" also means a Nestorian Christian (see el Mas'udi, ed. Sprenger, pp. 247, 251).
" Cp. Crowfoot, Some Lacunae..., p. 5. Such 'Ababda as speak To-Bedowi have learnt it from the Bisharfn. Quatremere (11, 158) thought them probably "descendants of the ancient Bega."
•'' Nubia, p. 345.
* Burckhardt says {loc. cit. p. 145) of the Kenuz, i.e. the modern modified form of Awlad Kanz, "They frequently intermarry with the Arabs Ababde." Belzoni {Narrative..., pp. 304-313) says the 'Ababda "never intermarry with any of their own people."
^ Ibid. pp. 148 et seq. and map, and A. E. Sudan, p. 93. Belzoni (1815) speaks of them {loc. cit.) as extending from near Suez to " the Bishariin, on the coast of the Red Sea, below the latitude of 23°."
* Some call the Shinatir a section of the 'Abudii'n and others call the 'Abudiin
a section of the Shinatir. "Shinatir" in Himyaritic means earrings.
' Burckhardt (p. 149) mentions individuals of the 'Ashabab ("Ashabat") as having settled on the Nile in Nubia and intermarried with the inhabitants.
® Diraw is the nominal headquarters of 'Abd el 'Azim Bey el Khalifa, the best known of the 'Ababda sheikhs, but he frequently resides at Berber. Cp. Burckhardt,
pp. 211 and 345.