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32 (2000)

have been more limited territorially (p. 151)—“revived . . . the Mughal obsession with Central
Asia.” Shah Jahan actually made an attempt, holding Balkh for a while. Although he retained
some residual interest in Central Asia, Aurangzeb (1658–1707), the last of the eˆective
Mughal rulers, was much more concerned with the conquest of the Deccan.
Foltz also has useful chapters on cultural exchange (most of the tra¯c was to India), Mughal
connections with and courting of the Naqshbandiyya, and Central Asian travelers to India
(chap. 6). This is, perhaps, one of the most interesting sections of the book. He compares the
accounts and viewpoints of two 17th-century Central Asian men of letters, Mutribi al-Asamm
Samarqandi, who journeyed to India at the ripe old age of seventy, hoping to make a quick
fortune at the Mughal court and return home. The other was Mahmud ibn Amir Wali, who
appended an account of his journey as a young man to “exotic” India to his Bahr al-Asrar.
Mahmud had the young man’s eye and was genuinely interested in the very diˆerent Hindu
Indian world that he saw. Foltz likens him to a backpacking hippie, who was fascinated with
Indian women and was ever eager to see the next “wonder” far from the Mughal court.
All the major Muslim states of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Ottoman Empire, Safavid
Iran, Uzbek Central Asia, and Mughal India were based on Turkic conquest dynasties closely
working with an Iranian or Iranian-in˘uenced literary and bureaucratic class. Foltz’s study
would have gained considerably from some discussion of these shared elements. His discus-
sion of “Turkishness” (in chap. 2) is somewhat murky, perhaps re˘ecting the perambulations
of this term in a Mughal India that was increasingly Persianate in language and removed from
its Turkic roots in Central Asia. Although Foltz maintains the essential oneness of Muslim
Iran–Turan and Hindustan, his subjects and sources were constantly aware of the “otherness”
of non-Muslim India. This was a theme that might have been explored further. The Mughals
were something of a colonial society (the British Raj had much to build on), and this aspect
of Mughal rule is unexplored. Aside from Mutribi and Mahmud ibn Amir Wali, what other
sources do we have for Central Asian attitudes toward India? Was there any interest? How
did Central Asian rulers react to the “brain drain” of talent to India?
Although occasionally repetitious, this work is a useful exploration of themes that have
been generally acknowledged but never fully ˘eshed out. Written in a clear and direct style,
it can be assigned to undergraduates and should promote interesting class discussions.

P. M. HOLT, The Sudan of the Three Niles: The Funj Chronicle, 910–1288/1504–1871,
Islamic History and Civilization: Studies and Texts (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1999). Pp. 228.
$71.00 cloth.

REVIEWED BY HEATHER J. SHARKEY, Department of History, Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, Cambridge

P. M. Holt’s The Sudan of the Three Niles is an annotated translation of the Funj Chronicle,
a history of the Funj sultanate (1504–1821) based at Sennar, along the Blue Nile, and of the
Turco-Egyptian regime that succeeded it at Khartoum. Along with the Tabaqat of Wad Dayf
Allah (a biographical dictionary of Sudanese Muslim holy men compiled in the late 18th cen-
tury), the Funj Chronicle is the most important Arabic source on the northern riverain Sudan
in the Funj era, a period in which Islam was spreading widely and the region was developing
its pronounced Arab–Islamic identity.
The primary author of the Funj Chronicle was Shaykh Ahmad ibn al-Hajj Abi Ali (b. 1784–
85), who is generally known as Katib al-Shuna because of his service as granary clerk for the
Turco-Egyptian government. Having reached maturity in the late Funj era (the period of the
“Hamaj regency,” when Funj kings had lost eˆective power), Katib al-Shuna witnessed dramatic

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political and social upheaval. Re˘ecting that the days of the Funj kings had become mere
“anecdotes and homilies” (p. 77), Katib al-Shuna sought to record their history and to extract
moral guidance from it. He drew primarily on “tales in circulation” (p. 3) and, for the Hamaj
regency era, on ˜rsthand observation, together with two written sources—a Funj king list and
the Tabaqat. Although he ended his story in 1838, by which time the Turco-Egyptian system was
well established, a few other writers added to and revised his account, taking the record up to
1871.
The Funj Chronicle is therefore not one text but a series of texts. It has multiple authors
and multiple versions with slight variations, some surviving only in fragmentary form. Even
taking Katib al-Shuna’s account alone (which, judging from internal evidence, was written
over the span of two decades), the existence or survival of an “original” text is doubtful. Holt
points out that a later version of the chronicle by Shaykh Ahmad al-Hajj Muhammad Janqal
(who continued Katib al-Shuna’s story up to 1841– 42) includes passages that appear to be
antecedent to the oldest surviving copies, which are preserved in Cairo and Istanbul. On this
basis, Holt concludes that Katib al-Shuna, in reproducing his chronicle for Turco-Egyptian
authorities, may have edited his own, now-missing master copy.
Holt faces up to the challenges of these variant versions by comparing and, where appro-
priate, synthesizing them. He relies primarily on the printed version of the Cairo manuscript—
the closest thing to a core text—published by al-Shatir Busayli Abd al-Jalil as Makhtutat Katib
al-Shuna (Cairo, 1963). He supplements this text with manuscripts in Istanbul, Nottingham,
Vienna, and Paris, and with the printed rendition of the last recension (to 1871) published by
Makki Shubayka as Taårikh muluk al-Sudan (Khartoum, 1947).
The Sudan of the Three Niles has three main parts. The ˜rst is a fascinating introductory essay
in which Holt discusses the textual history and authorship of the Funj Chronicle. The second
is an annotated translation of an amalgamated prose text, indicating the source of inclusions
from manuscripts other than the Cairo version. (Holt omits extensive passages of poetry that
Katib al-Shuna included within his narrative, arguing that these verses are primarily of literary
rather than historical importance.) The third part includes ancillary materials—namely, appen-
dixes of supporting texts (e.g., introductions from the chronicle’s ˜rst and second recensions);
genealogical tables and king lists; a glossary; a bibliography; and indexes (for people, places,
and social groups).
The Funj Chronicle is above all a political history, detailing the rise and fall of rulers (the Funj
kings; later the Hamaj regents; and ˜nally the Turco-Egyptian governors); their wars; and their
foreign relations. It pays rich tribute to Su˜ holy men—their powers of erudition and miracle-
making—and in this regard re˘ects the growth of Islamic culture in the region. Scattered
details also yield insight into the history of environmental disaster (droughts, famines, ˘oods,
and earthquakes); endemic disease (plague, smallpox, guinea worm); urban life (consider
Arbaji, a ruined Funj city that Katib al-Shuna extols for its beautiful buildings, ˜ne cuisine,
and scholarship); clothing; population movements (e.g., the migrations of Nuba soldier–slaves
and West African pilgrims); and natural phenomena (especially eclipses and falling stars).
The Sudan of the Three Niles aims for a highly specialized audience. Those who are not
well versed in the details of Sudanese Funj and Turco-Egyptian history should read more
general works before attempting this one. The sparse bibliography points to two historical
overviews—O. G. S. Crawford’s The Fung Kingdom of Sennar (Gloucester, 1951) and Richard
Hill’s Egypt in the Sudan, 1820–1881 (London, 1959)—but surprisingly omits two important
works by Jay Spaulding: a very readable survey of the Funj in Kingdoms of the Sudan
(London, 1974; co-authored with R. S. O’Fahey), and a more specialized account of the 18th
century, The Heroic Age in Sinnar (East Lansing, MI, 1985). The bibliography also omits a
recent work concerned with the growth of Sudan’s Arab–Islamic identity in the Funj era: Neil
McHugh’s Holymen of the Blue Nile (Evanston, Ill., 1994).

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The Sudan of the Three Niles oˆers the ˜rst full English translation of the Funj chronicle.
(Previously, the only English rendition was a summary published in 1922.) It is also the ˜rst
study to scrutinize manuscripts of the chronicle that survive in European archives. Holt
therefore does historians a great service by presenting this rigorously researched, annotated
translation of the full text. With this translation, as with some of his earlier works—notably,
The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1881–1898 (Oxford, 1970)—Holt makes a major and lasting
contribution to the ˜eld of Sudanese history.

ENDRE STIANSEN AND MICHAEL KEVANE, ED., Kordofan Invaded: Peripheral Incorporation
and Social Transformation in Islamic Africa (Boston: Brill, 1998). Pp. 319. $94 cloth.

REVIEWED BY RICHARD LOBBAN, Department of Anthropology and African Studies, Rhode

Island College, Providence

The history of Sudan still re˘ects the country’s struggle to ˜nd its identity between Middle
Eastern and African studies. Even within Sudan, there are spheres of interest ranging from the
expanding ancient studies of Nubia to the protracted con˘ict between so-called Afro-Arab
northerners and Nilotic southerners. Lost in these expanding domains are the histories of east-
ern Sudan and Kordofan to the west. Even the historiography of Sennar and Darfur is far better
established than that of Kordofan. Thus, the very title of the book being reviewed suggests that
Kordofan is an “invaded” and “peripheral” area on the edge of the Islamic and African worlds.
Thus, this work is a welcome starting point in ˜lling in this considerable gap in Sudan studies.
Stiansen and Kevane have done noble service in this respect.
The fear in reviewing all edited books is that the contributed chapters will not match or have
su¯cient focus, or that some chapters will be stale. Happily, this is not the case. The eleven
chapters of this book represent the state of the art in Kordofan research. (The authors include
three howajiya women and three Sudanese men.) The latest thinking and the diversity in topics
allow for a fresh historical scope that is required to establish a milestone in focused Kordofan
studies. Still, much of the history of Kordofan is developed from the perspectives of the Keira
sultanates in Darfur and the Funj sultans in Sennar.
Stiansen and Kevane’s Introduction oˆers very up-to-date information about current poli-
tics in Sudan while placing the country in the context of very fragile African states. The map
on page 12 oˆers some impression of Kordofan, but anthropologists might like a clearer state-
ment of ethnic territory or diˆerentiation. The “invasions” of Kordofan by Islam; Furawi and
Sennar sultans and armies; Dinka; colonizers; and modern agrarian commerce are identi˜ed
as the subject matter of the book. However, the book is mainly limited to studying Kordofan
in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The chapter by Spaulding speaks of prehistory and ancient studies of Kordofan, but a good
bit could be said about the context in which Kordofan is found. Because Homo africanus has
now been found in Ethiopia and Chad, it is reasonable that this species also occupied Kor-
dofan, which lies in between. Late Paleolithic tools are well documented in Kharga Oasis,
Jebel Sahaba, and the Qadan assemblage. All of these sites lie on the ancient savannah routes
from Kordofan to the north, and such a route crosses the key east–west track through Wadi
Howar, through which the typical Khartoum Mesolithic wavy-line pottery passed between
Khartoum to the east and to Wanyanga to the west in Tibesti. Kordofani Kabbabish trading
gum arabic and livestock have also been linked to the north through Wadi Milk and a system
of wells in the western Bayuda to Debba and Korti and to oases such as Dunqul, Kurkur, and
Kharga, at least from Egyptian dynastic times. One also wonders about Napatan and Meroitic

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