Full Database on SUDAN

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Sudan
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Preface
Country Profile
Country
Geography
Society
Economy
Transportation
Government and Politics
National Security
Introduction
Chapter 1 - Historical Setting
Early History
Cush
Meroe
Christian Nubia
The Coming of Islam
The Arabs
The Decline of Christian Nubia
The Rule of the Kashif
The Funj
The Fur
The Turkiyah, 1821-85
The Mahdiyah, 1884-98
The Khalifa
Reconquest of Sudan
The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, 1899-1955
Britain's Southern Policy
Rise of Sudanese Nationalism
The Road to Independence
The South and the Unity of Sudan
Independent Sudan
The Politics of Independence
The Abbud Military Government, 1958-64
Return to Civilian Rule, 1964-69
The Nimeiri Era, 1969-85
Revolutionary Command Council
The Southern Problem
Political Developments
National Reconciliation
The Transitional Military Council
Sadiq Al Mahdi and Coalition Governments
Chapter 2 - The Society and its Environment
Physical Setting
Geographical Regions
Soils
Hydrology
Climate
Population
Ethnicity
Language
Ethnic Groups
The Muslim Peoples
Non-Muslim Peoples
Migration
Regionalism and Ethnicity
The Social Order
Northern Arabized Communities
Southern Communities
Urban and National Elites
Women and the Family
Religious Life
Islam: Tenets and Practice
Islamic Movements and Religious Orders
Christianity
Indigenous Religions
Education
Girls' Education
Education Reform
Health
Chapter 3 - The Economy
Economic Development
Foreign Aid
Prices, Employment, Wages, and Unions
Prices
Employment
Wages
Unions
Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, and Forestry
Land Use
Land Tenure
Irrigated Agriculture
Rainfed Agriculture
Livestock
Fisheries
Forestry
Manufacturing
Mining
Energy Sources and Supply
Electric Power
Petroleum Use and Domestic Resources
Transportation and Communications
Railroads
Roads
Inland Waterways
Civil Aviation
Marine Ports and Shipping
Pipelines
Communications
Finance
Banking
Islamic Banking
Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments
Foreign Trade
Balance of Payments
Chapter 4 - Government and Politics
Institutions of Government
The Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation
The Presidency
The Council of Ministers
Parliamentary Government
Constitutional Development
Regional and Local Administration
The Legal System
The Courts
Human Rights
Southern and Western Sudan
Southern Sudan
Western Sudan
Political Groups
Umma Party
Democratic Unionist Party
The Muslim Brotherhood
The Republican Brothers
Secular Political Parties
Sudanese People's Liberation Movement
Information Media
Newspapers
Radio and Television
Foreign Relations
Egypt
Libya
Chad
Relations with Other African States
Relations with Other Arab States
United States
Relations with Other Countries
Chapter 5 - National Security
The Military in National Life
Development of the Armed Forces
Role in Government
The Armed Forces in Sudanese Society
External Security Concerns
Civil Warfare in the South
First Civil War, 1955-72
Renewed Civil Warfare, 1983-
The Sudanese People's Armed Forces
Army
Air Force
Air Defense Command
Navy
Personnel
Training
Uniforms, Ranks, and Insignia
Defense Costs
Paramilitary Groups
Foreign Military Assistance
The Sudanese People's Liberation Army
State of Internal Security
Internal Security Agencies
The Sudan Police Force
Security Organizations
The Criminal Justice System
Incidence of Crime
The Prison System
Appendix. Tables here -->
Bibliography
Glossary

An interesting quote from Sudaneseonline Discussion Board! I was wondering why these 70,000 angels should not instead defending and stopiing me me from getting killed!

ثلاث ايات تجعل سبعين الف ملك يصلون عليك

http://www.sudaneseonline.com/cgibin/sdb/2bb.cgi?seq=msg&board=80&msg=1116782

عن معقل بن يسار رضي الله عنه عن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم قال "من قال حين يصبح ثلاث مرات"أعوذ بالله السميع العليم من الشيطان الرجيم" وقرأ ثلاث آيات من آخر سورة الحشر ،وكَّلَ اللهُ سبعين ألف مَلَكٍ يصلّون عليه حتى يمسي،وإن مات في ذلك اليوم مات شهيداً، ومن قالها حين ُيمسي كان بتلك المنزلة

أخرجه الترمذي

The Role of Islam in African Slavery

The Role of Islam in African Slavery
Part 1: Obtaining slaves on the African continent.

Slavery has been rife throughout all of ancient history. Most, if not all, ancient civilizations practiced this institution and it is described (and defended) in early writings of the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Egyptians. It was also practiced by early societies in central America and Africa.

See Bernard Lewis's work Race and Slavery in the Middle East for a detailed chapter of the origins and practices of slavery.

The Qur'an prescribes a humanitarian approach to slavery -- free men could not be enslaved, and those faithful to foreign religions could live as protected persons, dhimmis, under Muslim rule (as long as they maintained payment of taxes called Kharaj and Jizya). However, the spread of the Islamic Empire resulted in a much harsher interpretation of the law. For example, if a dhimmis was unable to pay the taxes they could be enslaved, and people from outside the borders of the Islamic Empire were considered an acceptable source of slaves.

Although the law required owners to treat slaves well and provide medical treatment, a slave had no right to be heard in court (testimony was forbidden by slaves), had no right to property, could marry only with permission of their owner, and was considered to be a chattel, that is the (moveable) property, of the slave owner. Conversion to Islam did not automatically give a slave freedom nor did it confer freedom to their children. Whilst highly educated slaves and those in the military did win their freedom, those used for basic duties rarely achieved freedom. In addition, the recorded mortality rate was high -- this was still significant even as late as the nineteenth century and was remarked upon by western travellers in North Africa and Egypt.
Slaves were obtained through conquest, tribute from vassal states (in the first such treaty, Nubia was required to provide hundreds of male and female slaves), offspring (children of slaves were also slaves, but since many slaves were castrated this was not as common as it had been in the Roman empire), and purchase. The latter method provided the majority of slaves, and at the borders of the Islamic Empire vast number of new slaves were castrated ready for sale (Islamic law did not allow mutilation of slaves, so it was done before they crossed the border). The majority of these slaves came from Europe and Africa -- there were always enterprising locals ready to kidnap or capture their fellow countrymen.

Black Africans were transported to the Islamic empire across the Sahara to Morocco and Tunisia from West Africa, from Chad to Libya, along the Nile from East Africa, and up the coast of East Africa to the Persian Gulf. This trade had been well entrenched for over 600 years before Europeans arrived, and had driven the rapid expansion of Islam across North Africa.

By the time of the Ottoman Empire, the majority of slaves were obtained by raiding in Africa. Russian expansion had put an end to the source of "exceptionally beautiful" female and "brave" male slaves from the Caucasians -- the women were highly prised in the harem, the men in the military. The great trade networks across north Africa were as much to do with the safe transportation of slaves as other goods. An analysis of prices at various slave markets shows that eunuchs fetched higher prices than other males, encouraging the castration of slaves before export.

Documentation suggests that slaves throughout Islamic world were mainly used for menial domestic and commercial purposes. Eunuchs were especially prised for bodyguards and confidential servants; women as concubines and menials. A Muslim slave owner was entitled by law to use slaves for sexual pleasure.

As primary source material becomes available to Western scholars, the bias towards urban slaves is being questioned. Records also show that thousands of slaves were used in gangs for agriculture and mining. Large landowners and rulers used thousands of such slaves, usually in dire conditions: "of the Saharan salt mines it is said that no slave lived there for more than five years.

Part 2: Using slaves on the African continent.

The most favoured of all Islamic slaves seems to have been the military slave -- although performers were the most privileged. By the ninth century slave armies were in use across the whole of the Islamic Empire. The early slave armies tended to be white, taken from Russia and eastern Europe. However, the first independent Muslim ruler of Egypt relied on black slaves and at his death is said to have left 24,000 (white) Mamaluks and 45,000 Nubian military slaves.

In north Africa the source of black slaves from Nubia and Sudan were too convenient to ignore. At the time of the Fatimid defeat, in the twelfth century, black troops formed the majority of the army. By the fifteenth century black military slaves were being favoured with the use in battle of firearms (the Mamaluks refused to use such dishonourable weapons). Slave troops in Tunisia in the seventeenth century even included cavalry, and the Sultan of Morocco is recorded as having an army of 250,000 black slaves.

Even as late as the mid-nineteenth century, Egyptian rulers actively recruited black slaves into their army -- for example, they were included in the Egyptian expeditionary force sent by Sa'id Pasha to Mexico in support of the French in 1863.
The transatlantic slave trade sent Arab slavers into overdrive, here was a new market which could be exploited. When the Europeans abolished slavery in the 1800's, the taking of slaves in Africa continued. The eradication of such practices was cited as a major justification by the Europeans for the colonisation of Africa. Certainly Britain had a significant fleet of ships patrolling the coasts against such slave traders.

Britannia.com's historical survey of slavery points out that "The European colonization movement of the second half of the 19th century put an end to slavery in many parts of Africa..." and that "the British turned their attention back to Africa. They moved onto the continent, took control of those governments that were thriving on slavery, and attempted to abolish the institution." Further "in the 1870's British missionaries moved into Malawi, the place of origin of the Indian Ocean Islamic slave trade, in an attempt to interdict it at its source... In Dahomey the French abolition of slavery resulted in the cessation of ceremonial human sacrifice."

Unfortunately this was not enough for "some parts of Africa and much of the Islamic world retained slavery at the end of World War I. For this reason the League of Nations and later the United Nations took the final extinction of slavery to be one of their obligations. The League had considerable success in Africa, with the assistance of the colonial powers and by the late 1930's slavery was abolished in Liberia and Ethiopia". The problem was such that "After World War II the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights ... proclaimed the immorality and the illegality of slavery.

Slavery was abolished in most Islamic countries,although it persisted in Saudi Arabia into the 1960's. It finally was made illegal in the Arabian Peninsula in 1962."

re-posted from http://africanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa040201a.htm