The Darfur Sultanate

Although Darfur is not Kanem-Borno, it is a part of a broader array of societies and polities that developed in the Sudanic Belt. Moreover, the Keira sultans of Darfur seem to owe something to the ancient civilization of Kanem-Borno. Indeed, if O'Fahey's excellent The Darfur Sultanate: A History, is any reliable indicator, Darfur seems to have been an easternmost extension of the "Central Sudan" region. The ancient use of Maghrebi-styled Arabic script in some of the early extant documents plus the presence of Kanuri words (goni, mayram) and people (oral traditions of a branch of the Sayfawa dynasty in the region, plus Borno faqihs and traders active in Darfur) do suggest some degree of influence from Borno. 

While O'Fahey seems to reject the theory of a Sayfawa colony in Darfur in the 1400s or 1500s as an unproven theory of Arkell, Darfur appears to have been, like Bagirmi and Wadai, at least partly influenced by Kanem-Borno and likely received some of its earliest Islamic influences from the west. Early medieval references to what is likely today's Darfur, particularly the Tajuwiyyin (probably the Daju, who may have established the first known kingdom or polity) and the subsequent Tunjur state, Uri, and the Darfur Sultanate as it existed under the Keira from the 17th century to 1916 definitely enjoyed cultural and economic ties to Kanem-Borno. Later, particularly after the conquest of Kordofan (making the kingdom as large as Nigeria for decades), Darfur's relations with the Nilotic Sudan and Egypt were unsurprisingly strengthened, and placing Darfur as a bridge of sorts between the Eastern and Central Sudan. In fact, one of the sultans, Muhammad al-Husayn, was of Ethiopian origin through his mother and merchants from Egypt and the Nilotic Sudan appear to have played a major role in the development of Kobbei as a city and economic link between the Nile Valley and Darfur. Fulani Islamic scholars, Borno faqihs, Bagirmi slaves and mercenaries, and even a Mauritian Shinqiti could become influential in the court or towns and settlements like Manawashi. 

As for the history of the Keira and their kingdom, O'Fahey mainly draws on al-Tunisi, Nachtigal, a number of charters and court records, letters, oral traditions, and external European and Middle Eastern documents that shed light on the history of the region or its relations with the outside world. Some pleasant surprises include Arabic local sources from the Tunjur state that preceded the sultanate, which was already partly Islamic, as well as a rich body of land charters that O'Fahey exploits to reconstruct land tenure (mostly usufructuary and entirely dependent on the will of the sultan), rural social structure, and the role of centralizing mechanisms in state administration. The richest source, besides oral traditions, appear to be the writings of al-Tunisi and Nachtigal for their detailed portraits of the sultanate in the 19th century. By this time, the sultanate was no longer making new conquests, but did appear to have gradually pushed south through slave raiding (although always requiring passage through lands controlled by Baqqara nomads) and incorporated a plethora of ethnic groups: Fur, Masalit, Meidob, Birged, Zaghawa, Fartit, and others. 

According to O'Fahey, Islam became one of the tools of the centralizing process as the Darfur sultanate transformed from warbands of the 17th century to one in need of more effective centralization in the 18th century after new conquests essentially ceased. The recipients of land grants and new administrative posts, often including Islamic holymen from the east or west, brought skilled and loyal bureaucrats, generals, and merchants into serving the state apparatus while simultaneously weakening the traditional titleholders. Naturally, this process was uneven and pre-Islamic religious and political influences continued to shape the kingdom. Islam did gradually become more influential on the Keira royal court, and several kings sponsored the construction of mosques, established land grants to religious scholars (like the mahrams and mallamtis of Borno), and engaged in the larger Muslim world to establish Darfur as a legitimate member of the Dar al-Islam. 

Yet, like the sultans of Agadez, the Darfur sultans faced severe limits to how much authority they could effectively yield. The low population density of Darfur probably placed limits on how much taxation and exploitation fief holders could get away with on the peasantry. Nomadic populations to the north and south controlled the access points of Darfur's major trans-Saharan trade commodities (slaves, ivory, gum arabic). In order to reach the slave raiding areas to the south and southwest, the kingdom's bands had to pass through lands controlled by nomads only loosely under the control of the sultans. Then, trans-Saharan caravans going to Egypt from Kobbei had to pass through desert or Sahelian landscapes under the control of the Zaghawa or other nomadic populations. It seems, perhaps like the Sayfawa dynasty, the Keira sultans engaged in some marital alliances with subject populations to facilitate trade and political incorporation of non-Fur peoples, but the demographic and ecological barriers imposed limits on how much authority the Keira could yield. If one adds the factor of conflicts over succession to the throne and the failure to adapt in time to new military technology, it is no surprise that the Keira were defeated by al-Zubayr so easily. Needless to say, Rabih, who served under al-Zubayr, would later go on to conquer Borno with the military tactics and armaments al-Zubayr used so effectively against the cavalry of Darfur.

Perhaps for our purposes, the best way to think about Darfur is in terms of its "Sudanic" dimensions as a crossroads of the Sudanic belt. In many respects, it brings to mind Borno and the Funj with regards to the land grants, mounted warrior elite soldiers, reliance on the slave trade (though O'Fahey thinks most slaves taken in raids by the Darfur state were used locally), tension between Islam and pre-Islamic practice, and centralizing administrative tendencies restricted by various factors. Unlike the sultans in Agadez, the Keira sultans were not elected by nomads determined to prevent the sultan from becoming too powerful, but obstacles to their centralization could be found in other ways. Like the Sayfawa dynasty in Borno, the Keira had to find a way to balance the sometimes conflictual subsistence economies of their subject populations while also supporting markets, long-distance trade, security, and, to the extent possible, cementing their relations with the larger (Islamic) world, even France. Darfur appears to have done this through supporting African pilgrims en route to the Holy Land, as well as engaging in diplomatic relations with the Ottomans, Egypt, and other states. One sultan, Muhammad Tayrab, even went so far as to order an expensive Arabic dictionary produced by an Indian scholar. Other sultans received honorific titles from Constantinople. These Sudanic states resemble, to a certain extent, "feudal" societies of Europe and Asia with a "Sudanic" state structure of private and communal land tenure, partly literate bureaucracies, monarchs with elective councils, and a constant struggle for harmonizing countervailing forces.