Sudan (region)
{{Short description|Geographical region to the south of the Sahara}}
{{About|the geographical region to the south of the Sahara|the geopolitical region in Northeast Africa|the Sudans|the two neighboring countries in Northeast Africa|Sudan|and|South Sudan}}
{{Infobox ecoregion
|name = Sudan
بِلَادُ السُّوْدَان
|image = SudanRegionGambia.jpg
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|caption = An open hay landscape in the northern Gambia
|map = AT0722 map.png
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|map_caption = West Sudanian savanna
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|border = Sahara
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|rivers = Chari, Niger, and the White Nile
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Sudan is the geographical region to the south of the Sahara, stretching from Western Africa to Central and Eastern Africa. The name derives from the Arabic {{transliteration|ar|bilād as-sūdān}} ({{lang|ar|{{Script|Arab|بلاد السودان}}}}) and {{transliteration|ar|arḍ as-sūdān}} ({{lang|ar|{{Script|Arab|أَرْض السودان}}}}), both meaning "the land of the Blacks", referring to West Africa and northern Central Africa.{{citation | author = International Association for the History of Religions | title = Numen | publisher = EJ Brill | place = Leiden | year = 1959 | page = 131 | quote = West Africa may be taken as the country stretching from Senegal in the west, to the Cameroons in the east; sometimes it has been called the central and western Sudan, the Bilad as-Sūdan, 'Land of the Blacks', of the Arabs}}.
History
According to some modern historians, of all the regions of Africa, western Sudan "is the one that has seen the longest development of agriculture, of markets and long-distance trade, and of complex political systems." It is also the first region "south of the Sahara where African Islam took root and flowered."Klein 1998, p. 1.
= Middle Ages =
Its medieval history is marked by the caravan trade.{{cite book |title=Encyclopaedia of Islam IX |pages=752, 758 }} The sultanates of eastern Sudan were Darfur, Bagirmi, Sennar and Wadai. In central Sudan, Kanem–Bornu Empire and the Hausa Kingdoms. To the west were Wagadou, Manden, Songhay and the Mossi. {{cite book |title=Encyclopedia of African History and Culture, volume II |year=2005 |publisher=New York: Facts on File, 2005 |page=211 |isbn=0-8160-5270-0 }}{{cite book |last=Gale|title=New Encyclopedia of Africa, volume 4 |publisher=Farmington Hills |pages=752, 758 |isbn=978-0-684-31458-7 }}
= Slave trade =
Early on in the first millennium, many people from the Sudan were used as "a steady stream of slaves for the Mediterranean world" in the Saharan slave trade. With the arrival of the Portuguese in the fifteenth century, "people were directed to the Atlantic slave trade," totaling over a thousand years for the Saharan and four centuries for the Atlantic trades. As a result, slavery critically shaped the institutions and systems of the Sudan. The Portuguese first arrived at Senegambia and found that slavery was "well established" in the region, used to "feed the courts of coastal kings as it was used in the medieval empires of the interior." Between the process of capture, enslavement, and "incorporation into a new community, the slave had neither rights nor any social identity." As a result, the identity of people who were enslaved "came from membership in a corporate group, usually based on kinship."Klein 1998, p. 1-2.
See also
Notes
{{Reflist}}
References
- Klein, Martin A. (1998). Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa. Cambridge University Press.
- Reader's Digest: Atlas of the World (1991), Rand-McNally, {{ISBN|0-276-42001-2}}.
{{Regions of Africa}}
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Category:Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands
Category:Geography of Burkina Faso