The Entry of Islam into Sudan — A Peaceful, Gradual Transition Over Centuries
When Islam appeared in the seventh century AD, the land of Nubia south of Egypt was divided into three Christian kingdoms: Nobatia in the north, with its capital at Faras; Makuria in the centre, with its capital at Old Dongola; and Alodia in the south, with its capital at Soba, near present-day Khartoum. These kingdoms had embraced Christianity in the sixth century, between 543 and 580, and built churches and cathedrals decorated with wall paintings, according to the scholarly guide to the history of medieval Nubia issued by the academic "Medieval Nubia" project.
The Arabs conquered Egypt between 640 and 642, then tried to enter Nubia twice, in 642 and in 652, and were repulsed both times. Nubian archers became famous in Arab sources by the title "archers of the pupils of the eyes" for their skill in striking the eyes with arrows. The campaign of 652, led by Abdullah ibn Sa'd ibn Abi al-Sarh against the Kingdom of Makuria and its king Qalidurut, ended not with a military conquest but with an agreement known as the "Baqt", a name researchers believe is derived from a word meaning agreement or barter.
The Baqt stipulated — according to what later Arab sources transmitted about it, as no original copy of it survives and accounts of its terms differ — mutual non-aggression, freedom of trade and safe travel for the subjects of both sides, protection of visitors, maintenance of a mosque for Muslims in Dongola, and an annual exchange in which Makuria would provide a number of captives, the most famous account of which is 360, in return for wheat, lentils and goods sent by Egypt. The agreement remained in force, with intermittent breaches by both sides, for about seven centuries, until historians counted it among the longest-known agreements in history, and through it Christian Nubia remained independent and Islam was not imposed on it, according to the same academic guide and EBSCO research summaries.
After the Baqt, Islam did not spread by a political decision or in a single generation, but seeped in slowly through trade, migration and intermarriage. Arab traders and migrants settled east of the Nile and in the Red Sea ports and intermarried with the people of the country, among them the Beja, then came a decisive later stage with the sheikhs of the Sufi orders and teachers of the Qur'an, who moved among the villages and founded khalwas and mosques. A peer-reviewed study published in 2025 in the academic journal Religions describes Sudan as a rare case in which Islam spread peacefully and gradually through traders and Sufis, and in which the Sufi orders' adaptation to local cultures instead of rejecting them accelerated its voluntary acceptance among the people.
Among the surviving material evidence of this long transformation is the throne hall of the kings of Makuria in Old Dongola: a two-storey building rising about 12 metres, built in the ninth century as an official hall for the kings, then converted in 1317 into a mosque that continued to serve worshippers for more than six centuries until it was closed in the late 1960s. The University of Warsaw, whose archaeological mission works at the site, describes it as the oldest preserved mosque in Sudan. At such a slow pace, over centuries of coexistence, trade and education, Islam became the religion of most of northern and central Sudan, while the Christian kingdoms themselves remained standing until the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
📚 Sources: The academic guide "Medieval Nubia" (medievalnubia.info) — the history of Nubia and the Baqt treaty; the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Warsaw (PCMA) — the project to restore the oldest preserved mosque in Old Dongola and its conversion in 1317; the study "From the Margins to the Centre: Sufi Dynamics and the Localisation of Islam in Sudan", the peer-reviewed academic journal Religions, 2025; EBSCO Research Starters — the Baqt treaty between Christian Nubia and Muslim Egypt. — Editorial Team
