Darfuris: The Builders of Al-Khalawi

By Imam El-Leithy
Translated By R. Abdelazim

Let peace prevail,
Cleanse your conscience, keep prosperity alive,
The Moura Hill now wears a green shawl,
Pick your sickles, drop your weapons, bow;
Our Sudan is happy with her faithful youth.

That was the song chanted by the Darfuri girls who had been escorted by their mothers to attend the graduation of a new class of Qur'an hafiz 1 youth being held in afootball playground in Al-Fasher city, northern Darfur.

All Darfuris have been used to this lifestyle since they voluntarily embraced Islam in the third Hijri century. Their efforts have focused on learning the Qur'an by heart and reciting its verses. Darfur has always been well known for producing large numbers of educated Qur’an hafiz scholars.

A Darfuri, not long ago, used to cultivate the land and teach religious principles across the whole Sudan in khalawi (religious classrooms) which successive Darfuri sultans were in a habit of building so as to maintain their reputation of righteousness.

The girls danced and sang in successive patterns to celebrate the graduation of 1,000 Qur’an hafiz males and females. The scene—in my opinion—is but field evidence that refutes the false claims of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and rape.

The playground, crowded with girls, women, children, and local administration officials, included boys and girls from the African Zaghawa, Masalit, and Fur tribes mingling with their peers from the Arab Rozayqat and Mahamid tribes.

Historical Snapshots of Darfuri Sultans

Islam reached the Sudan in AH 31 after the Baqt Treaty had been signed by both `Abdullah ibn Abi As-Sarh and the King of An-Noba, the northernmost part of Sudan, in Dongola. During the next 300 years, Islam gradually spread among the people of Darfur—more rapidly than to those of An-Noba—where the first Islamic sultanate (the Dayyo Sultanate) had been established in the third Hijri century.

The Dayyo Sultanate was also an African tribe. Although that sultanate cherished the basic African traditions and heritage of magic, drums, and dances, it also introduced the Islamic Shari`ah as an essential aspect of Darfuri life along with the Dali Law.

Serious crimes, like theft, murder, adultery, and so on, were adjudged by the Dali Law, which used to be interpreted and enforced by the sultanate’s trustee, known back then as Dali's Sheikh. Pursuant to that law, punishments were estimated in numbers of heads of cattle to be decided according to the degree of the offense. Murder, for example, was redeemed by a number of cows, while adultery was purged by a number of sheep.

The Sultanate's Grand Judge used to observe and enforce the Islamic Shari`ah on matters like marriage, divorce, zakah2, Hajj, jihad, inheritance, contracts, and other civil affairs.

Al-Hawakir Supported Islam

In 1445, the Islamic Kingdom of Fur was established. After 200 years, in 1640, that kingdom passed the leadership of Darfur over to the Arab Sultan Sulayman Sulun because his father had married a Darfuri princess from the Sultan's household. After that time the Arab civilization prospered in that sultanate.

However, Sultan `Abdur-Rahman Ar-Rashid was, in fact, the real factor behind that power transfer in the sultan’s court. He built Al-Fasher city in 1792 and brought scholars from Al-Azhar University3 and neighboring Arab countries so they might teach the Sudanese the principles of Islam.

During Ar-Rashid’s reign, the khalawi became widespread and were financially supported by the hawakir—arable land monopolized by the khalawi sheikhs so that they could support their students, other knowledge seekers, and the khalawi affairs. The sultan's regulations definitely forbade tax collectors from levying any kind of taxes from the hawakir.

When the Arabs took over the rule of Darfur, the titles of sultanate officials changed. The title "Trustee" replaced "Dali’s Sheikh," while the "Superintendent" and the "Tribe’s Sheikh" replaced other titles that had been used previously. Dali's Law was completely abolished in 1812 after Sultan Muhammad Al-Fadl executed Dali's Sheikh upon a clash between the two men in power. The rule of Darfur had thus become fully Arabic.

The most notable tradition cherished by the Darfuri sultans, until the fall of the sultanate in 1916, was the upbringing of the sons of the tribes' sheikhs inside of the sultan’s palace. When it was time for a tribe’s sheikh's son to take over after his father, as when his father died or became unable to look after the tribe’s affairs, that son left the sultan’s palace in a special procession in which the sultan appointed him as the new sheikh.

Throughout the various phases of its history, Darfur did not witness any discrimination between the Arabs and the Africans in the sultan’s court, neither during the African reign nor when the Arabs took over. Official appointments in high sultanate positions used to be made on the basis of individual competence and knowledge. No minister or high official was ever known by his tribe in Darfur.

Who Unmuzzled the Rifle?

Different stories have been told about the first Darfuri conflict that would have deserved external interference to be resolved. Conflicts were usually insignificant disputes between herdsmen and farmers.

According to Mahjoub Al-Zayn, manager of Darfur's Heritage Center, the first case in which conflict transcended its normal limits—yet an unarmed conflict—was recorded in 1968. It was a political, administrative, inter-Arab conflict between the pastoral Rozayqat and Ma’aliyya tribes in which the Ma'aliyya parties pledged to seek independence from the Rozayqat administration and requested that they have their own independent administration with a separate electoral system.

The rifle began to speak in Darfur only after the Libya-Chad war in the late 1980s, and the Chadian civil war that followed. Robbers have been called janjewid only after Chadian tribes immigrated to Darfur.

The term janjewid, originally borrowed from Chad, consists of three syllables: jan means "man"; je means "G-3 machine gun," very popular in Darfur; wid means "horse." The whole word therefore means “the man who rides a horse and carries a G-3 machine gun."

The Chadian tribes that had immigrated to Darfur changed the Darfuris' code of conduct and brought new behavior like armed robbery, plundering, and carrying heavy arms into the region. The original native Darfuri was armed simply with the old Enfield rifle, which was used to drive the wolves away from his sheep.

Darfur has always been known for the inherent tolerance of its Arab and African tribes alike. The migration from the South to the North during autumn was always seen as evidence of the harmony and love between the more than 85 Darfuri tribes. That movement had its own regulations that were observed by all. The journey made by the nomadic Bedouins had its own specified time, and permission was taken from arable land owners.

The 11 routes, known as marahil, taken by the pastoral tribes, had been predefined by the sultan. When the journey began, the traveling tribes used to send envoys to the villages they would pass by so that those villages could prepare to receive their guests and organize festivals for them on time.

Inter-tribal marriage and commercial exchange was popular during such journeys. The intimate relationship between those tribes reached its peak when they took the oath that they are but one family and that their relationship was a bond of blood, an event known as The Book Oath.

Such friendly scenes were sometimes disturbed by minor transgressions between one tribe and another, but soon such troubles were resolved via the watti’, rakuba, and the ajawid council. The watti’ was land on which all presented their problems; the rakuba was a very spacious straw cottage in which sessions were held; the ajawid were the tribes’ inspectors and sheikhs whose word and judgment were accepted by the guilty and satisfied the aggrieved.

Blood money used to be paid in the rakuba, but often the guilty was pardoned on the condition that the perpetrator’s tribe remember that act of pardon if the latter tribe happened to transgress against the first at a future time. Both tribes were said to hold a rakuba. Furthermore, the sinful tribe had to help the other tribe pay its blood money and solve its other problems.