The Sudan
INTRODUCTION
Dr. George Gretton, Author and broadcaster introduced the famous British writer Anthony Sylvester to the Sudan and told him thatKhartoum was the only city in the world he knew where one could give the taxi driver a handful of coins in full confidence that he would only take the proper fare. According to Sylvester, the Sudanese were exceptionally honest people who combined natural dignity with refreshing sense of humour. Mr. Sylvester found the Sudan a very rewarding subject of inquiry.
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From the distance you see the pyramids of Meroe rising in the desert. The hot sun and the glaring light make the sand look ochre… This is the Sudan at its most beautiful: Thirty-four kings, eight reigning queens and three princes each have their own grave here. With its 255 pyramids, double the pyramids of Egypt, the Nubian Nile valley of Sudan is considered as one of the most precious human heritage and it is known as the paradise of archaeologists. Herodotus first wrote about Nubian culture in 430 B.C. The well-known British writer Basil Davidson has once described it as one of the largest archaeological sites in the world.
The Nubian kingdom of Kush re-emerged around 1000 BC, as a great power in the Middle Nile. Between 712-657 BC, Sudanese kings conquered and ruled Egypt, as the 25th Dynasty.
“All the tombs at Meroë have been plundered, most infamously by Italian explorer Giuseppe Ferlini (1800-1870) who smashed the tops off 40 pyramids in a quest for treasure in the 1820s. Ferlini found only one collection of gold. His finds were later sold, and remain at the museums in Munich and Berlin. His aim was not to study the pyramids.”
نَحنُ ابْنَاء مُلوك في الزَمَان...
أفْسَحَ المَجْدُ لهم خَيْر مَكًان
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Many western travellers who visited or crossed the Sudan in their trips round Africa have described the peoples of the Sudan by words such as “fantastic, so gentle, incredibly honest, accepting foreigners, generous and so incredibly friendly – even the officials”. One of the travellers wrote in his dairy that “the Sudanese customs officers who processed my papers offered me lunch which was delicious. Never, I have been treated so well by immigration customs official. In my two short days I have been there I have already become aware how generous the Sudanese people are.”
A visitor wrote:” The people round me come to ask if I would like to stay at their house for the night. This hospitality made the Sudan one of the nicest parts of Africa.”
Another one said: I lived in Sudan for about a year. Looking back, it was possibly the best (and certainly most interesting!) time of my life. Sudan has gotten under my skin in a way that no other place has quite managed, and it's a country I will always feel deeply attached to, and indebted to for giving me such a wonderful experience. He then told a story saying:” I always remember a journey sat on the roof of a truck across Southern Kordofan. It was undoubtedly the hardest trip of my life - the sheer discomfort, the unbearable heat, lack of water, and the frustration at the pace over roads that were no more than mud tracks (we covered under 100 kms in about 12 hours). We stopped for a meal about mid-day and the driver insisted that as I was his guest he would buy my meal and drinks for the journey. The meal and drinks cost far more than I had paid for my ride - far from ripping me off, he actually finished up out of pocket...Writing about the Sudan is extremely difficult. I eagerly read pretty much every book I can find about the country (not that there's very many!) but none has managed to convey just what it's like to be there. It's a country that really has to be experienced first hand.” (virtual Tourist: mafi-Moya, 2004)
Yet there is also someone who gave another completely different description to the land.
Ewart Grogan the first man to walk from Cairo to the Cape, said of the Southern Sudan: “ For God-forsaken, dry-sucked, fly-blown wilderness, commend me to the Upper Nile; a desolation of desolation, an infernal region, a howling waste of weed, mosquitoes, flies and fever... I have passed through it, and now have no fear of the hereafter.” of the Northern Sudan, G.W. Steevens, a war correspondent with Kitchener’s army wrote:” Nothing grows green...For beasts it has tarantulas and scorpions and serpents, devouring white ants, and every kind of loathsome bug that flies or crawls.”: overhead the pitiless furnace of the sun, under foot the never-easing treadmill of the sand .Dust in the throat, tuneless singing in the ears, searing flame in the eye.
P.M. Holt and M. Daly wrote in their book: A Short History of the Sudan, that “amid … the imponderable there is one constant, the character of the Sudanese people. That it has survived the test of the past is perhaps the best reason for hope in the future.
This very character of the Sudanese is the treasure in the Sudan: North and South both. It is very unique that only those who have been to the Sudan know exactly what it means. A traveller in this huge continent–state promptly feels that such sphere of very generous hospitality and sincere friendly approach has never been experienced. The people are very simple very kind and very generous said a correspondent of a foreign magazine in Khartoum. Yet this huge continent-state embraces many paradoxes.
أبدا ما هنت يا سوداننا يوما علينا بالذي اصبح شمسا في يدينا وغناء عاصفا تعدو به الريح فتختال الهوينى
(Never our Sudan begrudges to us what appears to be sunshine for us, and a pleasing melody sowed merely by the breeze: So you march on alluring, swanky and swagger, o our lovely country!)
(Mahmoud Al-Faitouri Poems)
N a m e
The Sudan or Bilad as-Sudan بلاد السودان meaning the land of Blacks is a name applied by medieval Arabic writers to territory south to the Sahara. Early Egyptian called their land: Hat-ka-Ptah(the word from which the Latin name Egypt is driven). They gave to the territories south to them the name Tanhisu, or the land of Blacks. The Assyrians and Babylonians called it Kus and Mat Kusi, while in Hebrew the name is Kush, which reveals black coloured or dark skin. The Greek translation of the word is: aithiops( burned face), “aitho” (I burn) and “opsis” (face or appearance). For medieval Arab writers the translation was“bilad as-Sudan”. Under this generic term the Arabic writers bumped all dark skinned peoples of the area from Atlantic to the Red Sea, including Abyssinians, Beja, Nubians, Zaghawa, Takrur, and others. The land has got many other names. References to these names are to be found in Egyptian inscriptions and also in the works of Greek and Roman authors as well as in the Bible. Kush, Nubia, Maqarra, Alwa formed the earliest Sudanese kingdoms followed by the Funji, Fur and Kordofan sultanates. In 1821 the Khedive of Egypt Mohammed Ali Pasha conquered the kingdoms and the Sultanates of the Sudan and the name Sudan acquired a political meaning. It became specific term to specific area conquered and shall be conquered by the Khedive. The Mahddiya State, which stretched deep in equatorial Africa and to the lands of Beja in Eritrea, had used the same name. During the condominium the country was called the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. On Sunday the first of January 1956 emerged the official name: the Republic of the Sudan. After the coup of 1969 the name was changed to the Democratic Republic of Sudan. Again the previous title was revived. The Arab equivalent is Jumhuriat Al-Sudan. The word “The” is meant to distinguish the political entity name of Sudan from the old geographical and historical concept of word which includes the whole Sahil Region or Africa South to the Shara. Mali which was called French Sudan - beside Chad and Niger - changed the name Sudan officially short after its independence.
من نخلاتك يا حلفا..
ومن غابات ورا تركاكا..
ومن دارفور الحرة نبيلة..
وكل قبيلة على التاكا...
عزتنا في وحدتنا
Tourist Map of Sudan
Pyramids near Meroe, Northern Sudan: Sudanese Pyramids looks like the unfinished pyramid on the American one dollar bill, (or vise versa) Meroe Pyramids appear as unfinished pyramids, as their tops were chopped off.
American dollar seal
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Sphinx of Taharqa king of Cush,found near Kawa, Northern Sudan.(London: British Museum.King Tahraqa is mentioned in the Bible(2 Kings 19:9, Isiah 37:9)
The British at the river bank of Atbara 1942( courtesy to Brian Harrington Spier)
Sudanese young men in 1929
Sir Winston Churchill and Adelrahman Al_Mahdi in London. Churchill lived in the Sudan in 1889. His book The River War, was about his memorries there.
Sudanese in the first century.
The Rashaida tribe in Eastern Sudan, the last immigrants to Bilad-as-Sudan.
A Topatha tribesman from South East Sudan gives the colorful ethnicity of Bilad-as-Sudan its specific flavour.
Innocent Smile from Kordofan, mid-west Sudan
A girl from Khartoum(courtesy)
A young man from Umbororo Fulani tribe who found in South-East Sudan a new homeland in the late 20th century
A Nubian Girl in the Nile, Halfa, Northern Sudan
Um-Kiki Music in the Ingasna Hills, Southern Blue Nile, Sudan
A group of Halanga dancers, Kassala, Eastern Sudan
Sudan is known for its distinctive culture. The Nuba are the most culturally vivid and physically diverse ethnic group inhabiting central Sudan. A 'Kambala’ dancer is distinguished by the cow-horns tulban on his head
The Sudanese, Tayeb Salih ( 1920-2009), one of the best known Arabic novelists of the 20th century. His “Season of Migration to the North “ written in 1966, is considered as one of 100 best novels in that century.
An old man from Jabel Barkal, Northern Sudan (courtsey)
A Sudanese Sufi dervish, Hamad el-Niel, Omdurman.
Sudan is one of the first African countries to join the FIFA (in 1947). Falcons of Jidiane, Sudanese National Team in one of its jubilant scenes in 2008.
President J.F.Kennedy and Mrs. Jaqueline Kennedy with the Sudanede President Ibrahim Abboud
Sudan's first medal in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
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The Sudanese National Flag
The present flag was raised for the first time on the 20th of May 1970. It was chosen in a public contest won by an artist named Abdel-Rahman Al-Jaa'li. The flag consists three equal horizontal rectangles and ends on the side of the staff with a triangle of two equal sides. The length of the base of the triangle is the width of the flag and the length of its vertical height is one-third the length of the flag. The colours of the rectangles from top to bottom are red, white and black respectively and the colour of the triangle is green. The peak of the triangle lies at the middle of the white rectangle.
The meaning of the colours was given as follows: red stands for martyrs' blood; white for peace, unity and good–heartedness of the Sudanese personality; black refers to the name of the country Bilad as-Sudan or the land of blacks. It refers also to the African identity of the Sudan. Green symbolizes the fertility of the land (as a granary of the world), the welfare. Green represents also Islam, the religion of the majority. The four colours were used by the Mahdiya State separately, while the white colour was raised by mutineers of Revolutionary Officers named: the White Brigade Society, which was calling for the British withdrawal from Sudan and unity with liberated Egypt. The flag follows the general stream of the pan-Arab movement, which use the banners of the Omayyad (white) Abbasid (black) the Fatimid (green) Hashemite dynasties (red) and was given a national Sudanese interpretation to those colours.
Before 1956 the Sudanese independence movements have never thought of a national flag to be used by all.( In 1955, a white flag with the word Sudan in the middle was raised in Bandnug,Indonesia, representing Sudan's participation in the Asian-African Conference) Therefore a difference of opinion occurred about the colours of the new banner. At the end three colours appeared to attract the majority: Blue depicts the Nile, Yellow for the desert and green for agriculture. Later, it was clear that this tricolor design and its symbolic meaning does not reflect the ambitions of the newly born Republic at its best. When General Numeiri sized power in 1996 he thrust to change the shape and colours of the national flag. A Network Group was formed to look after the design of a new national flag through public contest.
The National Anthem of the Sudan:
It was written in the fifties to be an anthem for "Sudan Defence Force". Which was established by the Anglo Egyptian Condominium and latter was transformed to the Sudan Armed Forces. The author is Ahmed Mohamed Salih (1896-1971) who won the contest of writing a song of praise for the newly then established Armed Force. The composer is Ahmed Murjan (1905-1974). The lyrics and the music were adopted to be the national anthem of the Sudan in 1956.
In the 1970s an attempt has been done to use another text and music ( Ummat al-Amjad )as a national anthem. Yet it appears that
Ummat al-Amjad was a pan Arab patriotic song written in 1967 by the Egyptian poet Mustapha Abdel-Rahman.
The National anthem; officially called As-Salam Al-Jamhouri, meaning the Republican Anthem. It is sometimes called An-Nashid Al-watani, Literally means the National Anthem. Its Couplets might be translated to English as follows:
We're the soldiers of God;
the soldiers of the homeland.
When the herald at calamity calls
We never fail,
Death we defy, in adversity, 'n sacrifice;
Glory we buy,with the highest price.
This.. land .. is ours.
So..let our Sudan
live like a banner
higher and higher.
showing the way,among the nations
O, sons of Sudan,
this is.. ye standard
Shoulder the burden and shield ye land
The last couplets which is not included in the National Anthem says:
We’re the fighting jungle lions,
who don’t fear death or scuffle.
Keeping the Sudan in our hearts
and Sacrifice,
as from the North or the South.
By a bitter struggle,
a firm persistence
and sprit of pounding iron,
we defeat the devil.
Drive out the aggressor,
as falcons in air or lions in the Lair,
shoving the death away,
fighting enmity out
and repulsing the inequality.
The Lyrics in Arabic:
Nahnu jundul’lah.
Jundul’watan.
In da’ a Daiel’fida Lam nakhun.
Natehad’dal maut. Indal mihan.
Neshtari l’Majd Bi Aghla thaman.
Hazihil Ardu Lana.
Falyaish Sudanuna,
Alaman Baynal Umam.
Ya Benis’sudan, Haza ramzukum;
Yahmilil iba, Wayahmi Ardakum.
The text in Arabic:
نحن جند الله...جند الوطن
أن دعا داع الفداء لم نخن
نتحدى الموت عند المحن
نشتري المجد بأغلى ثمن
هذه الأرض لنا
فليعش سوداننا
علما بين الأمم
يا بني السودان هذا رمزكم
يحمل العبء ويحمي أرضكم
أما باقي القصيدة هو:
نحن أسود الغاب أبناء الحروب
لا نهاب الموت أو نخشى الخطوب
نحفظ السودان في هذي القلوب
نفتديه من شمال أو جنوب
بالكفاح المُرُّ والعزم المتين
وقلوب من حديد لا تلين
نهزم الشرَّ ونجلي الغاصبين
كنسورٍ الجوِّ أو أُسْد العرين
ندفعُ الرّدَى
نصدُّ من عدا
نردُّ من ظلم
Click here for the music sheet of the National Anthem
Click here to listen to the National Anthem
Click to listen Ummat al-Amjad
coat of arm
Secretary bird
The Secretary Bird is officially called in Sudan saqur al-jidyan صقر الجديان ( the fawns falcon or the falcon of Jidyane-small deer-). It lives in the savannas region of Sudan and Central African Republic. It also lives in South Africa. One of the most distinctive attractions of the African savannas, as G R Mc Lachlan wrote, is the sight of a secretary bird striding majestically across the fields; its stiff-legged gait reminiscent of a man walking on stilts. It has been chosen as a coat of Arms in South Africa after the fall of the Apartheid. In Sudan the Secretary Bird replaced the rhino as the national coat of Arms during the Numeri’s regime(1969-1985).
The Secretary Bird or Sagittarius Serpentarius is about 122 cm tall. Its name is derived from the fancied resemblance between the long lax feathers of its crest when raised to the quill pens worn behind a secretary’s ear in the last century. A modern theory is that the name comes from the Arabic saqur ettair - the Eagle of the birds- meaning hunter-bird translated into French as secrétaire.It hunts on snakes and other reptiles that is why the scientific name Sagittarius serpentarius was given to, It refers firstly to the bird’s resemblance to an archer and secondly to its preference for snakes.
The Secretary Bird, as a national emblem in the Sudan is featured in the middle white strip of the Presidential Flag. It is the main object on the Presidential Seal as well as official seals of Departments of the Government including Embassies. It appears heavily in the Sudanese military insignia.
The Secretary Bird head is turned to the right, with its distinctive crest clearly visible and its wings spread out to the right and left side with a black native leather shield in the middle. An unfolded scroll above its head, between the outstretched wings displays the national motto in Arabic which reads: an-Nasru lana النصر لنا (Victory is Ours). Another scroll at the end of the emblem beneath the shield bears the official name of Sudan in Arabic: Jumhuriyat as-Sudan جمهورية السودان ( Republic of the Sudan)
The Secretary Bird was chosen to replace the earlier Sudanese state emblem a rhinoceros enclosed by two palm-trees with dates, and a scroll reading: Jumhuriyat as-Sudan ( Republic of the Sudan) as the only caption. The rhinoceros was criticized as being an animal linked with stupid stubbornness while the Secretary Bird, is seen as a distinctive Sudanese variant of falcons seen in many republics system states including the United States, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa, representing vigilance, military might, and proud of the nation.
To see the bird in its natural image:
click here
The Secretary bird in the South African State emblem
Map of Sudan
Sudan weergeven op een grotere kaart
Ref:
Google maps
Sudan Today: University Press of Africa.
The Arabs and the Sudan: Yusuf Fadl Hassan.
Sudan Under Nimeiri: Anthony Sylvester.
Omdurman: Philip Ziegler.
A History of the Sudan: P.M. Holt& M.W. Daly..
The Road To Khartoum: Charles Chenevix Trench..
Sudan: Bernard Streck.
National Geographic Society 1982.
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