TRADITIONAL URBANISM IN THE NORTH CENTRAL SUDAN

Abstract

ABSTRACT The traditional Muslim cities of the north central Sudan (from c. 1520 until 1898) can be connected with the familiar model or “archetype'’of the Muslim city. They functioned as trading centers and had in common with the Muslim cities of the Middle East certain morphological features such as irregular streets. Islam in north central Sudanese cities was to some extent popular, not orthodox, in nature. Teaching institutions were sometimes more important than mosques, and urban morphology was dominated by tombs of holy men. Islam in Sudanese cities was in some respects only a veneer over a Black African base. Sudanese cities often were centered on a palace, they had low urban intensity, they were divided into village-like residential districts where agriculture dominated, and they were associated with an African, not Middle Eastern, technological system. Notes 1On the “Yoruba city,” see A. L. Mabogunje, Yoruba Towns: Based on a lecture entitled “Problems of preindustrial urbanization in West Africa” given before the Philosophical Society on 12 April 1961 (Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1962); and idem., Urbanization in Nigeria (London: University of London Press, 1968), especially pp. 74–106, 186–237; on the “Muslim city,” see Xavier de Planhol, Le monde islamique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1957), translated as The World of Islam (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1959), pp. 1–41; G. E. von Grunebaum, “Structure of the Muslim Town,” in Islam: Essays in the Nature and Growth of a Cultural Tradition (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1961), pp. 141–58; idem., “The Sacred Character of Islamic Cities,” in ‘Abd al-Rahmän Badawí, ed., Mélanges Taha Husain, Offerts par ses Amis et ses disciples à l'occasion de son 70iéme anniversairel Melanges ilä tähä husain fi ‘íd míäd al-sab‘ín, diräsã muhdä min asdiqä’i-hi wa talamídhi-hi (Cairo: DÅ al-Ma‘Åif, 1961), pp. 25–37; and Ira M. Lapidus, Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967). The “Muslim city” is very much like the “Middle Eastern city” the latter concept emphasizes the regional distinctness of this archetype. On the “Middle Eastern City,” see Ira M. Lapidus, ed., Middle Eastern Cities: A Symposium on Ancient, Islamic, and Contemporary Middle Eastern Urbanism (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969); and L. Carl Brown, ed., From Madina to Metropolis: Heritage and Change in the Near Eastern City (Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1973); on the “medieval city,” see Henri Pirenne, Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1925): and Fritz Rörig, Die europäische Stadt im Mittelalter (Göttingen: Vanderhoek & Ruprecht, 1955), translated as The Medieval Town (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967); on the “colonial city,” see T. G. McGee, The Southeast Asian City: A Social Geography of the Primate Cities of Southeast Asia (New York: Praeger, 1967), pp. 42–45, and 52–73. On the “preindustrial city,” see Gideon Sjoberg, The Preindustrial City: Past and Present (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1960); and, on the “ceremonial center,” see Paul Wheatley, Pivot of the Four Quarters: A Preliminary Inquiry into the Origins and Character of the Ancient Chinese City (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1971), especially pp. 316–30. Wheatley seems to use the phrase “ideal type” in the same sense as I use “urban archetype.” The lists above are, of course, far from exhaustive. 2David Harvey, Social Justice and the City (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), pp. 196–284; and Henri Lafebvre, La rèvolution urbaine (Paris: Gallimard, 1970), especially pp. 7–8. 3Urban archetypes logically involve a classification system, and an identification of a city with a particular archetype involves classifying that city. As would be true of any classification system, there are inevitably some rough edges left when urban archetypes are set up. These rough edges have inspired a considerable literature. For example, many people have questioned some aspects of the standard conception of Middle Eastern Muslim urbanism, among them Ira M. Lapidus, “Traditional Muslim Cities: Structure and Change,” in Brown, op. cit., footnote 1, pp. 51–59; and Paul Ward English, City and Village in Iran: Settlement and Economy in the Kirman Basin (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), pp. 112–33. 4Wheatley, op. cit., footnote 1; Horace Miner, The Primitive City of Timbuctoo (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953); and Paul Ward English, “The Preindustrial City of Herat, Afghanistan,” paper presented at the meetings of the Association of American Geographers, Washington, D.C., 1968. 5Examples of such a situation are described in: Ann E. Larimore, “The Africanization of Colonial Cities in East Africa,” paper presented at the meetings of the Association of American Geographers, Washington, D.C., 1968; and Ernst C. Griffin and Larry R. Ford, “Tijuana: Landscape of a Culture Hybrid,”Geographical Review, Vol. 66 (1976), pp. 435 47. 6The academic literature on these cities includes the following: El-Sayed el-Bushra, “Towns in the Sudan in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,”Sudan Notes and Records, Vol. 52 (1971), pp. 63 70; Jean-Paul Lebeuf, Archéologie tchadienne: Les Sao du Cameroun et du Tchad (Paris: Hermann, 1962), especially pp. 75–87; Mabogunje, op. cit., footnote 1 (Urbanization), especially pp. 44–73; Miner, op. cit., footnote 4; and Christopher Winters, Cities of the Pondo: The Geography of Urbanism in the Interior Niger Delta of Mali, unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, 1973. With the exception of the latter, these works do not really deal with the classification of the cities of the Südän. Two works on Umm Durmän that do suggest a broad affiliation for the city are: Karol Krótki, “The Socio-Economic Evolution of the Inhabitants of a Desert City: the City of Omdurman,” in Brown, op. cit., footnote 1, pp. 150–63; and M. W. Kuhn, Markets and Trade in Omdurman Sudan, unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, 1970. The first piece implies a Middle Eastern affiliation for Umm Durmän; in the second the author identifies the market in Umm Durmän as an “African market.” 7In this paper, the tag “medieval” is used rather loosely to refer to the period running from the beginning of Islamicization to the coming of formal colonialism. The term “north central Sudan” (sometimes shortened simply to “Sudan”) refers to the flat area stretching for a considerable distance on either side of the Nile approximately between al-Rusayris in the South and Wädi Halfä in the North. The area's western and eastern boundaries are, more or less, the contemporary Kordofän-DÅ für and Sudan-Ethiopia borders, respectively. The ethnically complicated regions of DÅ für, the Nüba Mountains, the southern Funj, and the Red Sea coast are not considered part of the “north central Sudan.” 8The standard text on Meroë is P. L. Shinnie, Meroe, A Civilization of the Sudan (London: Thames and Hudson, 1967). The layout of Meroitic cities is discussed throughout but especially on pp. 62–98. A recent work that considers the place of Meroë in the context of Africa is B. G. Haycock, “The place of Napatan-Meroitic culture in the history of Africa,” in Yüsuf Fadl Hasan, ed., Sudan in Africa: Studies presented to the First International Conference Sponsored by the Sudan Research Unit, 7–12 February 1968 (Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 1968), pp. 26–41. 9Wheatley, op. cit., footnote 1, pp. 229–30; and Yi-Fu Tuan, Topophilia (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1974), p. 88. 10The classical work on Christian Nubia is Ugo Monneret de Villard, Storia della Nubia Cristiana (Rome: Pont, institutum orientalum studiorum, 1938). There is a good section on the Nubians in O. G. S. Crawford, The Fung Kingdom of Sennar with a Geographical Account of the Middle Nile Region (Gloucester: John Bellows, Ltd., 1951), and there are recent updates on the subject in P. L. Shinnie, “The Culture of Medieval Nubia and its Impact on Africa,” in Hasan, op. cit., footnote 8, pp. 42–50; and in R. S. O'Fahey and J. L. Spaulding, Kingdoms of the Sudan (London: Methuen, 1974), pp. 15–24. 11Crawford, op. cit., footnote 10, pp. 28–29. 12Major works on the Funj state include Crawford, op. cit., footnote 10, and O'Fahey and Spaulding, op. cit., footnote 10. Recent analyses of the complicated and controversial subject of Funj origins can be found in Yüsuf Fadl Hasan, The Arabs and the Sudan (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1967; reprinted Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 1973), pp. 174–76 and elsewhere; and J. C. Spaulding, “The Funj: A Reconsideration,”Journal of African History, Vol. XVIII/1 (1972), pp. 39 53. 13Among the travellers to the Funj sultanate who left some written record of what they saw were (with date of travels): Reubeni (1522–1523) [in S. Hillelson, “David Reubeni, an early visitor to Sennar,”Sudan Notes and Records, Vol. 16 (1933), pp. 55 66], Poncet and Brevedent (1699) [Charles Poncet, A voyage to Ethiopia made in the years 1698, 1699 and 1700, …, reproduced in John Pinkerton, A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and Travels in all Parts of the World… (London: Longman, 1814); the sections on SinnÅ also appear in a slightly abbreviated but more felicitously translated version in Crawford, op. cit., footnote 10, pp. 319–21]; Krump (1701) [Theodoro Krump, Hoher und Fruchtbarer Palm-Baum (etc.) (Augsburg: 1710) is the original version; I have used the translation given in Crawford, op. cit., footnote 10, pp. 321–23 under the title “Krump's description of Sennar (1701)”]; Bruce (1772) [James Bruce, Travels to discover the source of the Nile in the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 (Dublin: William Sleater, 1790)], and Burckhardt (1818) [John Lewis Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia (London: J. Murray, 1819)]. Of great value also are the works of two travellers who arrived with the Turks: Cailliaud (1819–1822) [Frédéric Cailliaud, Voyage à Méroé, au fleuve Blanc dans le midi de royaume de Sennâr… (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1826–1827)] and also English (1821) [G. B. English, A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar, under the Command of his excellence Ismael Pasha… (Boston: Well and Lilly, 1823)]. There do exist some Sudanese records of the period which are useful in giving an idea of Funj life but which provide little if any direct information on the geography of Funj cities. The most important of these is Wad Dayf Alläh (or: Muhammad al-Nür ibn Dayf Alläh), Kitäb al-Tabaqã fí Khusüs al-Awliyä' wa-l-Salihín wa-l-‘Ulamä’ wa-l-Shu’arä’ fí-l-Südän. There is a recent edition, edited with an introduction by Yüsuf Fadl Hasan (Khartoum: DÅ al-Tibä a Jäm‘at al-Khartüm [University of Khartoum Press], 1971; second edition 1974). There is a partial translation in H. A. MacMichael, A History of the Arabs in the Sudan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922), Vol. II, pp. 217–323. 14Poncet, op. cit., footnote 13, p. 321 (in Crawford). 15Krump, op. cit., footnote 13, p. 321 (in Crawford). 16Poncet, op. cit., footnote 13, p. 319 (in Crawford). 17Burckhardt, op. cit., footnote 13, p. 277; and el-Sayed el-Bushra, op. cit., footnote 6, p. 68. 18The period of the Turkiyya is much less documented than that of either the Funj state or the Mahdiyya. There are some relatively brief descriptions of this period in P. M. Holt, A Modern History of the Sudan From the Funj Sultanate to the Present Day (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1961), pp. 35–74; and in Crawford, op. cit., footnote 10, pp. 262–86. There is a great deal of useful material also in Richard Hill, translator and editor, On the Frontiers of Islam: Two Manuscripts Concerning the Sudan under Turco-Egyptian Rule 1822–1845 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970). Another valuable source is Muhammad Ibrahím Abü Salím, TÅíkh al-Khartüm (Khartoum: DÅ al-Irshäd l-il-Tibä‘a wa-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzí‘, 1971). 19The fact that the Turco-Egyptian invaders were so destructive was unfortunate not just for the inhabitants of the Sudan at the time but also for future students of Sudanese culture. One of the things about Sudanese traditional urbanism that makes it hard to study is that few traces of earlier architecture remain. The major factor in the disappearance of traditional Sudanese urbanism is the disastrous history of the modern Sudan, starting with the long period of Funj decay and continuing with the enormous urban destruction wrought first by the Turks, later by the ansÅ (the followers of the Mahdi), and finally by the British, whose destructiveness was not the less for its stemming not from war exactly but from demands that certain older cities (among them SinnÅ, Barbar, and al-Dämir) be relocated on new sites and that certain quarters in various other cities (especially in Umm Durmän) be rebuilt so as to conform with Western sanitary standards. In all cases where the older city was completely abandoned, a few decades of normal rainfall have come close to dissolving it. Thus, Old SinnÅ (in early 1974) consisted of some bricks scattered among trees on a lovely slope along the Blue Nile. There was only one thing resembling a building, conceivably the ruins of something from old SinnÅ but more likely a later structure (Fig. 3). Probably more could be made of the ruins at Barbar where the rainfall is much less. The ruins of the old city are gradually being converted into a date grove and residential area. 20The Sudanese literature on the Mahdiyya includes the highly readable Babakr Badrí, TÅíkh Hayãi (Cairo?: Matba‘a Misr, 1959–61), the first (and most interesting) quarter of which has been translated by Yousef Bedri [Yüsuf Badrí] and George Scott as The Memoirs of Babikr Bedri (London: Oxford University Press, 1969). A good general Western source is P. M. Holt, The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1881–1898, A study of its origins, development, and overthrow (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958). 21See Clifford Geertz, Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968) for a witty and brilliant exposition on certain aspects of popular Islam in Morocco and in Indonesia. 22J. S. Trimingham, Islam in the Sudan (London: Oxford University Press, 1949); and Yusuf Badri, A Survey of Islamic Learning in the Funj State 910–1236 A.H. [1505–1820 A.D.], unpublished thesis, University of Oxford, 1970. 23It is not an accident that the major Sudanese work of the Funj period is the hagiographic Tabaqã [Wad Dayf Alläh, op. cit., footnote 13]. 24Singular forms of these words are, respectively, ‘áim, feki (this is a Sudanese colloquial word), and shaykh. 25von Grunebaum, op. cit. footnote 1, pp. op. cit., footnote pp. and and Trimingham, op. cit., footnote pp. op. cit., footnote p. op. cit., footnote pp. that was for the Badri, op. cit., footnote pp. especially p. 88. op. cit., footnote 13, Vol. p. The are the major along this part of the Nile. op. cit., footnote 13, pp. some of the major of the Funj have been in Muhammad Ibrahím Abü Salím, ed., Funj (Khartoum: Matba‘a 1967). op. cit., footnote pp. op. cit. footnote p. op. cit., footnote pp. come from Trimingham, op. cit., footnote The of were by from the SinnÅ an important Salím, op. cit., footnote pp. and Richard “The of the in the Urbanization of with to Two and in A. and Sudan in African Vol. 6, (1971), pp. The latter in some the of as a and also from The in this have been to its at the of the Blue and but can also be to the and of its As cit., footnote pp. the a great as the of a often being on like the which Bruce cit., footnote in were by to have or to have been associated in some other with and something like of these are not to with any The is complicated by the for Sudanese to be in time and op. cit., footnote 13, p. Planhol, op. cit., footnote 1, pp. the English and Spaulding, op. cit., footnote 10, pp. wa 1 pp. and idem., fi pp. The author the to the of and of the quarter of the The of is and on see C. “The History of and the of Notes and Records, Vol. 1 pp. 1 in Vol. 1 pp. On the see Trimingham, op. cit., footnote pp. and Holt, op. cit., footnote pp. The latter work the important of the in Sudanese the when the to it (and into is a good of the of the Mahdiyya in Holt, op. cit., footnote pp. Salím, op. cit., footnote pp. followers of the from various of the One major of followers were the from the West (the the to the Another major consisted of of the various of the North. In any all the at first at were Western literature has that a to the of the was more than a to but this is considered by Abü at an cit., footnote p. is that the of Umm Durmän was also in that many of the of which the city was were from The idea of a from Wheatley, op. cit., footnote 1, pp. of is is a very good written from an of the of the of Yüsuf (and of in in B. A Village in the Sudan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. is that the of as of has cities when original has been is one include in the Sudan involves and The of the of often an is associated with it is often considered the of The are, in and men. has descriptions of and of the cit., footnote pp. in the in of the of the in Umm Durmän one of the great in the area (Fig. Wheatley, City as at University London (London: H. Lewis & Ltd., 1969). op. cit. footnote op. cit., footnote pp. le le S. M. L. 1949); idem., in the of the translated by University of Press, and idem., La à (Paris: that in Morocco is but this is not really by Le more which provide much information on the of at the associated with the of see especially La pp. Grunebaum, op. cit., footnote 1 and de Planhol, op. cit., footnote in p. and elsewhere; W. B. and J. C. West Africa (London: & pp. and The Cities of Africa (Boston: and Company, 1959), pp. other see de Planhol, op. cit., footnote 1, p. and Spaulding, op. cit., footnote 10, pp. [in with and the of an Economy University of Press, 1966), pp. G. Yoruba A of the of (London: University of London Press, C. W. The of A of and A. pp. and La au royaume de du au (Paris: pp. and Spaulding, op. cit., footnote 10, pp. and Spaulding, op. cit., footnote 10, pp. op. cit., footnote pp. the was not a was is a colloquial for it functioned as a The from is be that urban is in of in any to Muslim cities. In to de cit., footnote 1, pp. the is the are on as In some Islamic cities there have been I have the of Sudanese cities by Sudanese to a of in The fact is that and a are a of cities in all the Islamic from which the Sudan its and its is that it not the idea of the of the which in extent to the city from to the of ruins which one in this part of the city. in this area at to about the same in as it had been in the de urbaine et (Cairo: Imprimerie E. & H. pp. and Cities (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. that the cities are are from Mabogunje, op. cit. (Urbanization), footnote 1, pp. is discussed at in Crawford, op. cit., footnote pp. The are Cailliaud, op. cit., footnote 13, Vol. II, p. and English, op. cit., footnote 13, pp. op. cit., footnote 13, Vol. pp. and and from to the Kingdoms of the Nile being a to Africa (London: & p. op. cit., footnote 13, Vol. II, pp. if that SinnÅ really have the of a with a of A an area of if op. cit., footnote 13, Vol. II, p. op. cit., footnote 13, Vol. p. and Vol. II, p. was and had or and or was a and a about in and had a of to it had a very its have been op. cit., footnote 6, pp. and various for Mahdist Umm Durmän and of are discussed at in of the History of Notes and Records, Vol. pp. (especially pp. The of Umm were made by of the among them The of area from who that Umm Durmän was English long and over Umm Durmän was The Geography of and Sudan, unpublished thesis, University of p. These are on the subject of urban agriculture in Yoruba cities and its see William among the of Vol. pp. and and op. cit., footnote pp. and for example, op. cit., footnote pp. and and op. cit., footnote pp. and C. Le in op. cit., footnote p. Voyage de a (Paris: p. and L. G. Voyage du Niger au de par le de et le (Paris: urban in the latter work that African cities were made of of these have been reproduced in and op. cit., footnote pp. and op. cit., footnote p. and C. à de de royaume de de de 1953); and Mabogunje, op. cit., footnote 1 op. cit., footnote 13, pp. op. cit., footnote 13, p. Voyage de à par de (Paris: p. op. cit., footnote 13, Vol. II, pp. of the in and in SinnÅ have been by the urban that in the of the are a of words that have been used in the Sudan to refer to sections of cities. them are and As is colloquial for it would appear to be a more common for in much of the Sudan than classical is also used for of cities in a of West in the Khartoum and it implies a certain and a is the classical for and is used in the Sudan in the same sense in is given by Burckhardt as the for in Barbar and is sometimes used in this sense is a colloquial only and is used especially in cities to refer to quarters in a of on the of but is also has For example, trading of the in were op. cit., footnote p. Grunebaum, op. cit. footnote 1, pp. is a of some aspects of the African technological in The Cultural of Black translated by R. (London: Oxford University Press, pp. and there are in so far as I there has a really on the op. cit., footnote pp. Winters, op. cit., footnote 6, pp. Mabogunje, op. cit., footnote 1 pp. op. cit., footnote pp. and Richard for the History of Vol. 12 pp. p. Of the works by and do not deal with as but the include descriptions of and so from which an idea of the technological found in the cities in can be op. cit., footnote p. op. cit., footnote p. is of the of over and Sudanese were so the which had of Sudanese cities was often of and of about Wad is it was true Sudanese city” in that it was from a distance as it was cit., footnote p. de who the Nile in the early of the market at Barbar that had more de voyage à dans et edited by Shinnie, Sudan p. In like the author of one of of Wad in the that as a is and op. cit., p. described the of as and cit., footnote p. are some descriptions of such in Burckhardt, op. cit., footnote 13, p. ed., pp. and op. cit., footnote p. There is in Cailliaud, op. cit., footnote (Fig. and in de op. cit., footnote C. Notes and Records, Vol. pp. 1 in particular p. Salím, op. cit., footnote pp. op. cit., footnote p. Salím, op. cit., footnote p. not that the idea of a its from contemporary in city The in the would have been where more or less the set by in a considerable to and in L. of the City (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), pp. Salím, op. cit., footnote p. and