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Darfuris:
The Builders of Al-Khalawi*
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By
Imam El-Leithy,
IOL Correspondent
Translated by Abdelazim R. Abdelazim
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25/08/2004
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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 hafiz1 youth being held in a
football 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.
View
& listen to Video Clips From Darfur:
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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.
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Who
Unmuzzled the Rifle?
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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.
*
The
Arabic original of this article appeared in islamonline.net (Arabic
Section).
1-
Those who have successfully completed their memorization of the whole Qur’an.
2-
Annual alms-giving.
3-
Egypt’s major religious institution.
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