Sudanese Arab

The Sudanese Arabs are the Arabic-speaking Muslim peoples of Nubia, formed from Nubian and Beja communities and Bedouin migrants. From the fourteenth century Juhayna tribes moved south from Egypt as the Christian Nubian kingdoms weakened: Makuria collapsed by about 1365, and in the fifteenth century Abdallah Jammah's Abdallabi federation overran what remained of Alodia.

The nomads carried Islam and Arabic into the Bayuda Desert, Butana and Kordofan, where camel-keeping tribes such as the Kababish took shape. In 1504 the Funj founded the Sultanate of Sennar; its rulers adopted Islam and settled Sufi holy men across the country, speeding Arabization and the rise of Sudanese tribes.

Arabic became the language of government and learning in Sennar and Darfur, while retaining Nubian, Beja and Fur words. The Hamaj coup of 1762 began Sennar's decline, ending in the Turco-Egyptian conquest of 1821.