The first of the Funj monarchs acknowledged king of the whole of the allied tribes, of which the Hameg were next in importance to the Funj, was Amara Dunkas, who reigned c. 1484-1526. Dur ing the reign of Adlan, c. 1596-1603, the fame of Sennar attracted learned men to his court from such distant places as Cairo and Baghdad. Adlan's great-grandson Badi Abu Daku attacked the Shilluk negroes and raided Kordofan. This monarch built the great mosque at Sennar, almost the only building in the town to survive the ravages of the dervishes in the 19th century. In the early part of the i8th century there was war between the Sennari and the Abyssinians, in which the last named were defeated with great slaughter, a victory over the "infidels" which became celebrated throughout the Mohammedan world. Towards the end of the i8th century the Hameg wrested power from the Funj and the kingdom fell into decay, many of the tributary princes refusing to acknowledge the king of Sennar. The disorders resulting from this decline continued up to the time of the conquest of the coun try by the Egyptians.
From the Egyptian Conquest to the Rise of the Mandi. —The conquest of Nubia was undertaken in 1820 by order of Mehemet Ali, the pasha of Egypt, and was accomplished in the two years following. His leading motive was, probably, the desire to obtain possession of the mines of gold and precious stones which he believed the Sudan contained. Mehemet Ali also wished to crush the remnant of the Mamelukes, who in 1812 had estab lished themselves at Dongola, and to keep busy the Albanians and Turks in his army, whose fidelity was doubtful.
Mehemet Ali gave the command of the army sent to Nubia to his son Ismail, who at the head of some 4,000 men left Wadi Halfa in October 1820. Following the Nile route he occupied Dongola without opposition, the Mamelukes fleeing before him. (Some of them went to Darfur and Wadai, others made their way to the Red Sea. This was the final dispersal of the Mame lukes.) With the nomad Shagia, who dominated the district Ismail had two sharp encounters, one near Korti, the other higher up the river, and in both fights Ismail was successful. Thereafter the Shagia furnished useful auxiliary cavalry to the Egyptians. Ismail remained in the Dongola province till February 1821, when he crossed the Bayuda Desert and received the submission of the meks (kings) of Berber, Shendi and Halfaya, nominal vassals of the king of Sennar. Continuing his march south Ismail reached the confluence of the White and Blue Niles and established a camp at Ras Khartum. (This camp developed into the city of Khartum.) At this time Badi, the king of Sennar, from whom all real power had been wrested by his leading councillors, determined to submit to the Egyptians, and as Ismail advanced up the Blue Nile he was met at Wad Medani by Badi who declared that he recognized Mehemet Ali as master of his kingdom. Ismail and
Badi entered the town of Sennar together on June 12, 1821, and in this peaceable manner the Egyptians became rulers of the ancient empire of the Funj. In search of the gold-mines reported to exist farther south Ismail penetrated into the moun tainous region of Fazokl, where the negroes offered a stout re sistance. In Feb. 1822 Ismail set out on his return to Dongola, having received reports of risings against Egyptian authority. The Egyptian soldiery had behaved with barbarity. Ismail, Nair Mimr, the mek of Shendi, had been a sort of hostage, and enter tained hatred of the pasha. On Ismail's return to Shendi, Oct. 1822, he demanded of the mek i,000 slaves to be supplied in two days. The mek, promising compliance, invited Ismail and his chief officers to a feast in his house, around which he had piled heaps of straw. Whilst the Egyptians were feasting the mek set fire to the straw and Ismail and all his companions were burnt to death.
Ismail's death was speedily avenged. A second Egyptian army, also about 4,000 strong, had followed that of Ismail's up the Nile, and striking south-west from Debba, had wrested, after a sharp campaign, the province of Kordofan (1821) from the sultan of Darfur. This army was commanded by Mohammed Bey, the Def terdar, son-in-law of Mohammed Ali. Hearing of Ismail's murder the Defterdar marched to Shendi, defeated the forces of the mek, and took terrible revenge upon the inhabitants of Metemma and Shendi, most of the inhabitants, including women and children, being burnt alive. Nair Mimr escaped to the Abyssinian frontier, where he maintained his independence.
Character of Egyptian Rule.—Having conquered Nubia, Sennar and Kordofan the Egyptians set up a civil Government, placing at the head of the administration a governor-general with practically unlimited power. Khurshid pasha (governor-general 1826-39) gained a great reputation both for rectitude and vigour, but, with rare exceptions, his successors did not conceive that the welfare of the people was any part of the task of government. About this period Mohammed Ali leased from the sultan of Turkey the Red sea ports of Suakin and Massawa, and thus got into his hands the trade routes of the eastern Sudan. The pasha of Egypt practically monopolized the trade of the country except that in slaves, for which border lands were raided annually. From the negro population the army was so largely recruited that in a few years the only non-Sudanese in it were officers. The Egyp tian rule proved harmful to the country. The governors-general and the leading officials were nearly all Turks, Albanians or Cir cassians, and, with rare exceptions, the welfare of the various peoples of the Sudan formed no part of their conception of gov ernment.