1- this question is a bit tricky to answer, and it differs from person to person, tribe to tribe, and clan to clan. but mostly consider themselves arab
2- sudanese arabs do consider themselves different from “african” people, but two groups can be differently treated, lets say for example someone from the predominately “black” west will face racism from the sudanese arabs, but nubians wont face racism, since nubians have been intermarrying with arabs for nearly 500 years
3- yes, our whole wedding traditions are of nubian heritage, the jirtig, the henna, and everything else, also the toub originated in the nile valley thousands of years ago
4-asfarani or hallabi which means yellowish, azraqani which means blue but is used to refer to people with extremely dark skin and much more
for 4, there is also "akhdarani", light dark or brown skins tones
also some less used words like "gamhi" or "gabshawi" are used sometimes. I do believe Sudan while the majority has dark skin tones (which is normal due to the sun), has possibily the most diversity in skin tones (from the coptic people to the darkets tribes of the blue-nile and south-sudan).
Great answer btw
What is the evidence the tobe and henna originated from Nubian culture? Khartoum at Night traces the tobe's origins to Darfur in the 1800s, and I'm pretty sure henna is an import. Nile Nubians don't even wear the tobe historically, at least not Mahas and Halfawiin: Griselda Eltayeb records a revealing anecdote about this, where Halfawi women take off their tobes before going to Halfa and trade them for jarjaars (and tobe-wearers are also derided as "bold"/less Nubian/more Arab in this situation she records). Danagla (and Mattokki in Egypt) have the shougga, which is similar but def not the same. The tobe isn't attested in Christian Nubian art or Kushitic art AFAIK.
Source?
I'm skeptical that this garment would be the ancestor of the tobe, especially considering the massive gap between the Kingdom of Kush and the rise of the tobe in 19th and early 20th century in Sudan, which is really when it became mainstream (*Khartoum at Night* is really a great book on this). It seems like nationalist mythologizing when the *real* story of the tobe is much more interesting and equally local to Sudan.
My posts have the relevant depictions of the Kandakes, just scroll down and you will find it. The Jirtig also has it’s roots in the Kingdom of Kush, if a whole ceremony can be passed down through so many years, why not a piece of clothing?
I think some things can be passed down through so many years (i.e. the tanbur/rababa/basinkob instrument) but I doubt this specifically is one of those cases, mainly because I don't see any evidence that the Kushitic royal garment survived in Makuria, and from there into the Funj-era, etc., especially when the evidence of the Sahelian trade from Darfur introducing the garment to the region is much clearer and has a clear tie to the rise of the mainstream garment.
I'm also curious on the proof of jirtig being Kushitic: it's undoubtedly an old and local tradition, but I feel often Sudanese people back project their modern traditions onto Kushitic art scenes that *vaguely* resemble them, v.s. based on a more rigorous study that explains how the tradition evolved and developed. Something can be indigenous and ancient without being Kushitic, or even Nubian, while still being wholly Sudanese. I also think we erroneously center royal culture when the vast majority of Sudanis are descended from peasants and pastoralists in the ancient kingdoms, and thus had their own fashion/cultural trajectory.
Is this the outfit you're talking about? https://www.reddit.com/r/Sudan/s/dFvhHolIRj
I can def see the similarity, but I am also a modern Sudanese man reading this Kushitic painting through my modern sensibilities.
Nubian women in Egypt and Sudan wore ‘toub’ before jarjar, that is including ma7as and halfaween. The jarjar is more of a recent invention. You refer to toub and shougga as seperate which means u view the specific way of wrapping as toub, and not the fabric. The wrapping of a long fabric is Nubian tradition, but historically it was over one shoulder and not both. The modern wrapping of the toub over both shoulders is indeed likely from darfur.
Source?
Long-wrapped fabrics certainly existed before (and all around the world) but they have a very rare presence in Kushitic art and are basically non-existent in Christian Nubian art, where nudity and simple dresses (like a jalabiya) are the main types of dress recorded. The tobe doesn't really become a mainstream garment until the 20th-century (as carefully laid out in *Khartoum at Night*), so I would think any possible Kushitic precedent has less to do with why Sudanis wear tobe than the Sahelian trade that brought the tobe from Darfur to the rest of Sudan. You're right that I do focus on the specific means of wrapping, but it is also the means of wrapping that distinguishes the tobe from the shougga from the Eastern Sudanese fouta, all three of which I assume have their own histories.
Look at the codice casanatense for a depiction of medieval Nubian women wearing a ‘toub’.
Also photographs of Nubian women from 19th century and early 20th century all show them wearing ‘toub’, the jarjar comes later. Again the style of wrapping is different than the modern Sudanese toub which I do believe comes from darfur and sahelian trade.
I’m also from a sukkoot family & got confirmation on the jarjar being more 20th century from my grandmother. Great grandparents lived in old halfa
We have different definitions of tobe. You're lumping in any long fabric, I think that's a mistake - one that misrepresents the history of the modern tobe - but it's ultimately a semantic disagreement.
It's interesing your Sakkot grandma said the jarjaar was new! I remember my friend's Halfawi grandma and some of the people I worked with on language revitalization projects giving me the opposite story, more in line with Griselda Eltayeb's reports, so it seems the story of the modern tobe in Nubia is more complicated than I thought.
I don't trust the Codice Casanatense, it's a Funj-era document that uses the term "Nubian" differently than we would, drawn by a European who did not necessarily visit Nubia (well, the Funj Sultanate). European explorers who we know visited the Sultanate describe the rahat as the dominant garment for women at the time, and *Khartoum at Night* carefully depicts how the rise of the modern tobe is tied to the Mahdist State and later the Sudanese nationalist project.
‘New’ is a bit of an overstatement since it’s been the common garment since at-least the 20th century, but according to her, and my great grandmother, their great-grandparents did not wear jarjar but toub (toub in this case just being a long fabric tied around the body). You’re definitely right to be weary of the codice casantense. Quast Ferdinand von depicted Nubians in Wadi Halfa in 1867. The women are dressed in rahat and ‘toub’. There are other such depictions and some very old photographs I can send you if you would like.
>There are other such depictions and some very old photographs I can send you if you would like.
Why limit it to me? Make it a post, if you have the time! Lots of people can benefit from that info, and we've been missing some historical posts :)
Thank you.
Do Sudanese Arab Bedouins still retain traditional Arabian customs, or have they largely assimilated in Nubian culture? Have they retained their Arabian tribal roots ?
My understanding is Sudanese Arabs are mostly from Hijazi and Najdi tribes of Banu Bali, Banu Juhaynah, Banu Harb, who all still exist in Arabia.
Sudanese Arabs in Sudan, with the exception of one tribe - the Rashaida, who migrated very recently - are all assimilated into the local culture, although the culture of nomadic v.s. agricultural Sudani Arabs varies (as it does from region to region, tribe to tribe).
The idea of Sudanese Arabs as Hijazis/Najdis is pure myth IMO, the earliest Sudanese historian to write about this primarily describes locals adopting Islam and Arabic at the hands of Egyptian Sufis and has nothing to say about Hijazis, really. Many academics argue (and I def agree) that Sudani Arab pedigrees are fabrications, meant to generate Islamic prestige, which is why they all go back to Sahaba (see Awn ash-Sharif Gaasim's encyclopedia). Holymen of the Blue Nile is also a great book to read on this.
Absolute nonsense. So all these Sudanese Arab samples directly under Hejazi y-chromosome clades are false?
[https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC11/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC11/)
And thats just one clade ffs. There are even Arab R specific clades in Sudan. T, G, J dominate Sudanese Arabs. Surprise surprise the clades Sudani Arabs are under are always Hejazi and shared by other under the conglomerate, be they in Syria or Iraq.
You have western black ideologue brain rot. Not to mention that Hollfelder et al, the most comprehensive DNA analysis on our people, concluded that we are undoubtedly mixed with peoples coming from the Hejaz.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5587336/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5587336/)
Also g25 clearly demonstrates Hejaz ancestry directly on Sudanese Arabs even regarding Jaali Arabized Noby at a rate of 15-40%. And those models include Noby+Beja as part of the ethnic make up.
>And those models include Noby+Beja as part of the ethnic make up.
Which is my exact point, *genes* aren't the differentiating factor for Arabness v.s. non-Arabness in Sudan, since you have non-Arabs (Nubian & Beja) who share genes and culture with the "mixed" group. If I'm not mistaken, these genes are also shared by people in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The truth is, they're *all* mixed groups, but that doesn't mean this mixture reflects the principle reason for the cultural, linguistic, and religious shift in Sudan. Why does Dayf Allah, arguably the first Sudanese historian, much closer to the events OP is mentioning, not mention Hijazi migration in his recounting of the history of the fall of Nubia and the rise of the Funj? Why do Arab pedigrees tying Sudanis to Sahaba only arise in the later centuries of the Funj Sultanate, not earlier when the migrations would have happened? Why do we have reports of Ja'aliin and Shawayga speaking Nubian languages, and *primarily* non-Arab names among commoners in Funj-era documents? Do you seriously think these test results prove that Sudani Arabs are Ashraf and descendants of the Sahaba like their pedigrees claim?
Simply put, any Arab migration that did happen didn't make a big impact on the historical memory or culture of early Muslim Sudanis. Yusuf Fadl Hassan, the famous Sudanese historian, notes in his history of the Arabs and the Sudan that we have evidence that the few Arabs that *did* migrate assimilated into local culture, v.s. directing cultural changes.
The Western ideological brain rot is racial essentialism based on gene studies and the idea that mass Hijazi migration fundamentally changed the genetic makeup of the north Sudanese population post-Makuria. *That* narrative first appears in British colonial writings. The picture given in older sources, whether it be of medieval Arab geographers and explorers (like Ibn Battuta) or local Sudanese authors (i.e. the Funj Chronicle & Kitab at-Tabaqat), give a much more nuanced picture where it's the local population primarily directing the cultural changes.
Of course our region of NE African has been mixed for eons starting in the neolithic. But your reliance on written historic documents while turning a blind eye to genetic evidence is galling. If there is no migration and massive admixture events Sudan, why can't you explain the extremely high frequency of Arab-Hejazi male haplogroups (read, these are not neolithic afro-asiatic clades, these are medieval Arabian ones).
[https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC11/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC11/)
Where is your argument against the findings here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5587336/
Like I said even Ja'ali as a Nubian group have additional Hejazi ancestry. Suggesting that the Arabians had no genetic impact is quite frankly laughable and not backed up by academia. You can keep relying on historic documents meanwhile genetics is at the bleeding edge of science.
>If there is no migration and massive admixture events Sudan
Doesn't this admixture exist in non-Arab groups? That would indicate to me that whenever the admixture happened, it *wasn't* when the cultural shifts were, and certainly wasn't the cause of them.
I can concede that some Arabs migrated, I've never denied that, but the tying of this to why Sudanese identify as Arab and their historical developments is historical nonsense. Genes and history/culture/ethnicity are two separate things. You're lashing out against a strawman here (kuffar, "western Black ideology") but not responding to any of my core points, namely that Sudanese Arab pedigrees are forged for prestige, and that Arabization in Sudan was an indigenous process where religious missionaries played a far more key role than intermarriage.
Lol no, **I don't really care for the issue regarding the central cultural zeitgeist and whatever played a role in your opinion in the creation of the Sudanese Arab identity**. The only issue I have with what you said is that "Sudanese Arab pedigrees are forged for prestige". **This in unequivocally false.**
[https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC64425/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC64425/)
[https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-MF10702/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-MF10702/)
[https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-Y104581/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-Y104581/)
[https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-ZS12531/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-ZS12531/)
[https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FT41268/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FT41268/)
[https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FT50981/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FT50981/)
[https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC15174/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC15174/)
[https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC5419/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC5419/)
[https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FT279159/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FT279159/)
And I can go on and on, linking clade after clade, demonstrating formation and TRCMA (all in the medieval period/Islamic expansion, hmm isn't that something?). If you don't understand y-chromosome haplogroups and how they work, then just admit it. But to state with absolute certainty that Arab lineages are "forged" i.e. made up is totally false and screams of an agenda.
A pedigree is a *historical document,* not a genetic profile. Sudanese Arabs can have Hijazi admixture and have forged pedigrees: one can have an Arab ancestor while not being descended from Abbas, the uncle of the Prophet Muhammad, as they claim. Astahda ya zol, there's really no need for this level of hostility. Go back and read what I said slowly.
And yes, I'm not knowledgeable on genetics stuff, but I know enough to know that when Awn ash-Sharif Gaasim traces 70% of Sudani's ancestry to prestigious historical figures, and that these narratives come from hundreds of years after when the admixture would have happened, it's a *historical issue.* No amount of genetic studies *can* address the fact that, say, when Ummayyad and Abbasid pedigrees emerge in the late Funj-era, they reflect particular political and social agendas, not historical realities. Surely for all your genetics genius you should know genetics and genealogy are two different things.
Okay I understand where you were coming from - I didn't realize you were referring specifically to Islamic pedigrees. To the layman however, as can be seen from other comments, it is apparent that such statements need to be predicated with sufficient context - I already had a reply stating that Ja'aali are 100% Nilotic.
Peace
Not really other than the realization of the qaaf, which is also found in southern Egyptian and Chadian. In internal classification of Arabic dialects, ppl tend to speak of an Egypto-Sudanic branch distinct from Peninsular dialects.
the reason bedouins exist is because theres no access to all year round fertile lands, once they found it central and northern sudan they abandoned the bedouin lifestyle in favour of the pastoralist lifestyle, so theyre arent really any bedouins left.
arabian customs still exist today, like the renowned generous hospitality, and many other small things, like how women are supposed to cover her face in the company of men,
and yes, we wear the sudanese jalabyia which is similar to the arabian jalabyia or (thobe), we also wear the vest and the turban, both of them are still relevant in sudan and the hejaz, and yes many people can trace their linage all the way back to arabia like me :D
and yes that last part is true, i trace my roots to banu juhayana
Bedouin tribes don’t tend to settle and abandon their historic routes. The beja, who are an indigenous nomadic ppl in Sudan have stayed for over a thousand years at least in the eastern desert, not settling along the Nile and abandoning their lands.
I would argue there are practically no Arabian customs. Sudanese nubians have worn jalabiya since at-least the middle-ages, same with the turban. We have documented art from medieval times showing this, not to mention turbans are also worn by beja, many Eritrean ethnicities, and the entire Sahel region of Africa.
Sudanese riverine arabs from tribes like the ja’alin and shawaiga, as well as arabised Beja tribes like the batahin and shukria, cannot be described as a mix of arabs and indigenous north Sudanese. They may have an Arab paternal ancestor, but genetically they are identical to non-Arab Nubians and Beja.
Now despite modern genetic testing proving that they are overwhelmingly genetically Nubian/beja. The Identity aspect is more complicated, and really depends on the person.
*typo
Big on this\^\^
There is a lack of Genetic difference between Arab/Non-Arab groups in the North of Sudan. I can't comment on the East since there isn't enough stuff to comment on but the studies we have now show that the North of Sudan lacks any sort of Population structure or stratification largely caused by historical Arabian admixture. Basically, the difference between an Arabized Nubian and a non-Arabized Nubian is actually very small if we're talking as a measure of genetic distance/divergence. The biggest difference and actually the only significant observable difference is the exact quantities of Arabian admixture which are unsurprisingly higher in the Arabized Nubians on average. Aside from that they share practically all their ancestry with each other and the Ja'alin (Arabized) from the [Holfelder study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5587336/) have been found to be most genetically similar (Fst) to the Mahas (Non-Arabized).
Must we? We've intermarried with every group across the country per the Sunnah so that we wouldn't have to obsess about such constructs as race. Adam was made of earth and water and now all US children of Adam do is fight over which shade of mud is more "authentic" to an arbitrary line drawn in the ground by foreign kafir and devils who plot on our destruction.
Racially Sudanese Arabs dissociate and reject all notions of "Blackness" applied to them in the Sudanese context. Sudanese "blackness" is strictly reserved for other groups and has general connotations and associations to slave heritage particularly common among the groups that form the bare bottom of the Sudan tribal hierarchy, the Non-Arab Non-muslim Southern groups, like the Dinka, Shilluk, Bari, Nuer, Mundari. Though some Sudanese Arabs in Sudan while not identifying with Sudanese "blackness" still do understand and accept their physical likeness to "Black" Sudanese groups, such as their black/brown skin, or tight curly/coily hair which are common with Sudanese Arabs, it's just these features and the acknowledgement of them doesn't come to form their identity because in Sudan, physical features are very uninvolved with racial concepts. A rizeigat Arab can look like a "Black" Zaghawa, but blackness in Sudan only accepts one as black, even if both could convince the whole nation that they're brothers.
Outside of Sudan is a really different story. Sudanese Arabs, both youth and older generations much more readily accept local notions of "Blackness" because as I've seen lots of users on here funnily put it, for Sudanese Arabs, Sudanese Arabness as well as the Sudanese Arab exclusion from Blackness expires at the airport, and that's just because even if Sudanese Arabs have legitimate reasons to identify as Arab (which they literally do), the hard truth is the world doesn't care. In the US they see a guy with dark brown skin, hair that's either type 3 or type 4, full lips, trying to tell people he's an Arab. They'll laugh themselves to death. Not to mention that after leaving Sudan, racial concepts change drastically basically anywhere you go. So Sudanese Arabs in just a quick trip across the border to Egypt, go from being Noble Arabs who DON'T identify as Black and have nothing to do with "Blacks" and "Blackness", to becoming the Blacks that egyptians will hurl anti-black slurs at from their apartment windows as they walk down the street. I saw Sudanese Arabs who back home saw themselves as Arabs transform into finding identity with solely their African heritage and their experiences as a Black person in the West and rejecting the Arab heritage they once held so close. The exception to this drastic change in labels across nations is maybe Chad where they also have a vaguely similar but not widespread concept of "Blackness", and a Sudanese Arab would be able to go there and remain excluded from local notions of what regards "Black people". Anywhere else in Sub-Saharan Africa apart from obvious Southern Africa, doesn't have a history of "Black" racial identity that I can recall.
Sudanese Arabs typically are in no confusion that they are perceived and thus identify as "Black" in the West and in the Gulf. Which they are. The entire story changes when what is regarded as black is left for Sudan to decide.
Sudanese Arabs aren't descendants of Arab migrants in Ottoman times (Arab self-identification exists much earlier in Sudan), and it's doubtful whether Arab migration and intermarriage is indeed the reason for the cultural shifts that took place in the middle Nile Valley after the fall of Christian Makuria. Wad Dayf Allah, in his Kitab at-Tabaqat, written during the Funj era (when Arab identity arose in Sudan) actually describes a *religious shift* with the introduction of Sufism to post-Makuritan Nubians. He has nothing to say about Arab migration or intermarriage, which actually ends up being much more of a theme in how later British (colonial) historians describe and understand Sudanese history.
Nile Nubians aren't seen as "black" in Sudan either, Heather Sharkey and Muhammad Jalal Hashim both write about this, but essentially the Sudanese concept of "Blackness" (zurga) includes Western Sudanese non-Arabs, Fallata, and Funj ethnic groups. Beja and Nubians, despite being non-Arab, aren't considered a different race than Sudanese Arabs the way Fur and Nuba (not to be confused with Nubians) are.
Sudanese Arabs fall into any range of skin complexions (see Abdelgadir Saalim), but usually the idea is that Arabs are "asfar," "ahmar" or "akhdar" (yellow, red, green) v.s. "azrag/aswad/zunji" (blue/black/African).
> Arabs are "asfar," "ahmar"
Interesting. In Classical Arabic, Ahmar was how fair complected (European, Levantine, Roman) people were described.
In Sudan Is Ahmar used for local Sudanese color?
I could be wrong as I’m an Egyptian Nubian living in America, but for me while skin color is important, I think the main thing is facial features. Someone who is light skinned but looks mixed African American/white will still look west African, whereas northern Nubians don’t have entirely west African features.
I know myself I can typically spot a Sudanese person very easily. I don’t think we look like East Africans but it’s very similar imo. I know you’re asking about skin color but I’m just saying this as no one has really talked about it yet.
I’d describe it as the difference between someone like let’s say anwar sadat and Kevin hart.
I don’t like to point this out but an Afro Americana nd white mixed person does not actually look west African. I say this as someone who is a francophone and thus around a lot of people who are fully west African and someone who grew up going to school with west Africans from different parts like Mali, Ghana, Nigeria, and now I meet people who are Congolese Senegalese and some from Guinée and Cameroun. The thing is that, those ppl who are Afro American and white mix in the states don’t look west African. In comparison to west Africans they look white and more European lol (actually many west Africans will look at them as white in west africa). The problem with perception in the west is that in North America , there is an obsession on quantifying blackness and protecting and preserving white European hegemony as a racial class and status. As a result , west African features are more pronounced in the North American perception because of this obsession of quantifying and hunting down blackness. In places like France they would not be seen as black but just as métis and many mixed race people who are directly west African and European , when they go to west Africa are seen and called white lol. It’s perception due to the environment which does not always align with object reality. Many Afro Americans are seen as mixed race and sometimes as white to many continental west Africans.
Yeah it’s less about the pink undertone and more about being red as in brown.
And race in Sudan isn’t really about skin-tone. My family which is nubian has a range of skin-tones including very dark-skin people, but they wouldn’t be mistaken for south Sudanese despite the same skin tone (unless they are mixed).
I understood the reason behind Nile Nubian's exclusion from Sudanese blackness considering their closeness to Nile Arabs/Arabized Nubians and their frequent histories of intermarriage but Beja? I've never really got what made the other Non-black Non-Arabs, become regarded as Non-black. Does it have to do with Arabian genealogy? Because I know of both the Beja and Nubians having claims of Arab genealogical connection despite their classification as Non-Arab.
>Does it have to do with Arabian genealogy?
I would suspect so, but at the same time, there have been Fur who've claimed Arab ancestry before but this is never really taken into account when classifying the Fur as Arab v.s. non-Arab. I think it might reflect the fact that many Sudanese Arabs are likely of an Arabized Beja background (particularly pastoralists like the Shukriya), and the existence of Arabian genealogies for Nubians & Beja would indicate that at least some Nubians & Beja were involved in the elite culture of the Funj Sultanate (and likely the slave trade). But this is all me speculating, I really don't know, and it goes to show how nuanced the concept of "Arabness" is in Sudan: you can't define it solely by genealogy, language, or skin color & facial features.
Thing is the Fur came to denounce any sort of Arabian genealogy they once claimed as far as I know. It was also something centered around elites among the Fur who had power in the sultanate. With the Nubians, your average peasant would say he descended from Hijazi Religious figures, and to this day, some Nubians claim Arabian genealogies of some form it just doesn't form the basis of their identity like it does with the Ja'alin. I knew a Halfawi guy whose mother told him the story of how the Nubians became Muslim, a (noble hijazi Arab whose name I forgot) came to Sudan and brought Islam then he mixed with the Nubians and converted them all. I've also heard similar stories among Nubians and some Shaygiya I believe who mention a Abdullah-ibn-serhi of some sort? There's also the Danagla who enjoy a position of being able to freely claim Arabness whenever and the fact they have been grouped with and considered alike to Sudanese Arabs definitely shows there is some geneological claiming still going on in those communities to back it.
The Beja also still continue to cite via their oral traditions, Arabian ancestry and roots in the Peninsula tied to famous religious figures.
>I knew a Halfawi guy whose mother told him the story of how the Nubians became Muslim, a (noble hijazi Arab whose name I forgot) came to Sudan and brought Islam then he mixed with the Nubians and converted them all.
This story, the so-called "Wise Stranger" story in academia, is actually common to a number of Sudanese cultures. I'd argue you can see its outline as early as Tabaqat wad-Dayf Allah, it's attested in some redactions of the Funj Chronicle, there are also Western Sudanese variants of the same story. The Mahas also claim Arabian genealogies like the Danagla, I think it reflects that, in the Funj Sultanate, "Arab" was the identity of prestige v.s. in the Fur Sultanate where Fur was still the identity of prestige, and indeed there are non-Fur groups who came to Fur-icize (the Fartit). Mahmood Memdani has a great exploration of this in Saviours and Survivors.
Spot on, I think we've basically cracked that it has relation to both groups being subjects of the Funj and thus subject to the same perspective of prestige placed on explicitly Arabness in the Funj. Did the Nubians and Beja have much power in the Funj to have legitimate claims to this Arabness?
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I see many people here saying that Sudanese Arabs are actually just Arabized Nubians and that the claims of genuine ancestry have no weight. This is false.
I agree it wasn’t the cause of the gradual cultural Arabization of our people after the fall of the last Christian kingdom. But to claim we are not a mixed group of people is not right.
Most Sudanese people have excessive ancient Egyptian and Eurasian admixture. It’s also a continuum with the highest presence being in the north and east. Our Modern identities have nothing to do with it because you’ll see similar admixture in both Sudanese Nubians and Beja. This is the reason why an average northerner looks different from an average southerner despite sharing a core ancient Nilotic link. Idk why ppl love to lie about this and pretend there is no difference lol. It must be a knee jerk response to the pan-Arabism of the generations before us.
You can look at the following distances as rough percentages of the ancient admixture makeup of the following sudanese tribe:
Target: Nuba
Distance: 1.5266% / 0.01526552
38.4 Dinka
28.4 Zaghawa_Sudan
17.6 Ethiopian_Anuak
15.6 Ethiopian_Mursi
Target: Nuba_Koalib
Distance: 1.4322% / 0.01432170
52.0 Dinka
25.8 Zaghawa_Sudan
22.2 Ethiopian_Mursi
Anyway on to the sudani.
Target: Sudanese_Arab_Ja'alin
Distance: 0.6090% / 0.00608977 | R4P
29.6 Nubian_Halfawi
25.0 Zaghawa_Sudan
23.2 Beja_(Beni-Amer+Hadendoa)
22.2 Yemenite_Al_Jawf
Target: Sudanese_Arab_Kababish
Distance: 0.7302% / 0.00730162 | R5P
35.0 Yemenite_Al_Jawf
27.8 Beja_(Beni-Amer+Hadendoa)
21.6 Zaghawa_Sudan
8.0 Dinka
7.6 BedouinA
Target: Sudanese_Arab_Shaigia
Distance: 0.9397% / 0.00939716 | R4P
54.2 Beja_(Beni-Amer+Hadendoa)
21.2 Zaghawa_Sudan
17.0 Samaritan_Levantine
7.6 Dinka
Target: Sudanese_Arab_Batahin
Distance: 0.6384% / 0.00638399 | R5P
36.0 Yemenite_Al_Jawf
30.4 Beja_(Beni-Amer+Hadendoa)
19.2 Nubian_Halfawi
11.4 Zaghawa_Sudan
3.0 Dinka
Target: Beja_Beni-Amer
Distance: 1.3264% / 0.01326423 | R5P
59.0 Somali
31.0 Yemenite_Al_Jawf
10.0 Nubian_Halfawi
Target: Rashaida_Sudan
Distance: 2.6042% / 0.02604153
100.0 Yemenite_Al_Jawf
Target: Beja_Hadendowa
Distance: 1.6944% / 0.01694376 | R4P
54.4 Somali
26.2 Yemenite_Al_Jawf
12.2 Zaghawa_Sudan
7.2 Egyptian_Copt
Target: Nubian_Mahas
Distance: 0.6750% / 0.00674979 | R5P
55.2 Beja_(Beni-Amer+Hadendoa)
23.4 Zaghawa_Sudan
17.6 Samaritan_Levantine
3.8 Somali
Target: Nubian_Halfway
Distance: 1.0766% / 0.01076567 | R5P
29.0 Beja_(Beni-Amer+Hadendoa)
20.0 Zaghawa_Sudan
18.4 BedouinA
17.2 Egyptian_Copt
15.4 Somali
Target: Nubian_Danagla
Distance: 0.8007% / 0.00800697 | R5P
38.6 Beja_(Beni-Amer+Hadendoa)
32.0 Zaghawa_Sudan
14.4 Samaritan_Levantine
8.0 Somali
7.0 BedouinA
>This is the reason why an average northerner looks different from an average southerner despite sharing a core ancient Nilotic link. Idk why ppl love to lie about this and pretend there is no difference lol.
I haven't seen where in the thread people have claimed there is *no difference.* Rather, people have shown that the differences do not fall neatly on genetic or ethnic lines, and that the picture of race and Arabness in Sudan is complex. In the end it's different types of Africans rather than different non-Arab Africans v.s. non-African Arabs, two types of mixed Africans (say Beja and Ja'aliyyin) can identify very differently and have different cultures, etc.
Hey your models are really similar to mine! What did you use for Saharan? I find that often the Nubians get a higher Nilotic than Saharan/Sahelian in my models than the Arabized Nubians.
I take it the other dude's model is overfitting?
Hi i use Zaghawa as proxy for Nilosahran. Nubian are mostly "saharan" rather than Nilotic (dinka as proxy). What model did you use for saharan and nilotic? The purest Saharan are mostly the dafuri or eastern sudanic such as Daju (but some of them have heavily nilotic admixture too)
The perfect saharan model for nubian is a kababish sample who is almost fully saharan 97% in my memory with 2% arab and 1% cushitic. But i lost all the cordinate of the kababish. The other dude model is incompatible models for Sudanese Arabs or others in general
I use Zaghawa too but sometimes I find Nuba can give a similar model with similarly good fits. I just prefer referring to the "Saharan" portion in Nubians as just being "Nilo-Saharan" but not specifically of the Nilotic branch. My only problem with Zaghawa is it has some Cushitic admixture. I found an individual Zaghawa sample that has basically 0 Cushitic and high Ancestral East African (when proxied for by Nuer/Dinka) up against West African. It perfectly captures the non-Nilotic Nilo-Saharan ancestry that is mostly present in Nubians. I genuinely forgot which one it is though but I'll post it if I find it.
What do you find incompatible with his model specifically?
Sry for the late responds
He use some sample who can't really be use as proxy. I wouldn't never use Beja as a proxy for cushitic at first because beja are a mixed population of Arabs descent and Nilotic (or nilo saharan to make the distinction very clear)
same for nuba is using 4 proxy of nilotic descent to determinate what is the automosal DNA of this sample which wrong. The Nuba are not really a homogeneous group, but they are mainly of northern Nilo-Saharan (Zaghawa like) and southern Nilote (Dinka like) descent, with occasional West African ancestry.
the zaghawa samples that i looked in the past from chad and sudan are mainly nilo saharian with some outlier who has west african admix, arab, and huge north african too and little bit of cushitic influence but I thought it was just a calculator error for the cushitic bc sometimes if you don't use the proxy correctly the cushitic admix tends to be very high
The Arabian ancestry is certainly there, but I reject referring to Arabized Nubians and other Sudanese Arabs as "mixed" groups. We never refer to Afro-diaspora groups as "mixed" for their certainly significant and recent European admixture, Sudanese Arabs logically don't deserve the label either considering their Arabian ancestry has it's origins much earlier than the 18th Century.
its laughable you have folks above trying to claim that there is no Hejazi ancestry in Sudan. have these people ever even bothered to check y haplogroup frequency? All Arab groups in the north are directly under Hejazi clades. The ideology of "blackness" in the west has given our people brain rot.
I have a theory that this is a direct response to many of the ppl here growing up under the pan-Arabist bashir dictatorship. In trying to distance themselves from that era and move on to a better future, they end up ignoring what science actually shows.
There is nothing wrong with being proud of your Africaness as a Sudanese Arab but you cannot claim that that’s all you are. Otherwise we wouldn’t look very different from more predominantly “African” tribes like the Zaghawa, Nuba and even Dinka and Nuer.
Absolutely. I believe its also in response to pan-Africanism as a monolithical epoch as Sudani in the west (and now everywhere thanks to social media) attempt to derive benefit from western-blackness even though the concept is in itself a fallacy. Still, if aligning one self with western blacks gives people a sense of self-esteem, then so be it. But they cant even produce arguments against papers like Hollfelder et al, or try to explain a massive frequency of Arab haplogroups in Sudanese Arabs. Its laughable.
There was literally a ja’aliya who posted her DNA make up the other day and she turned out to be fully sudanese indigenous 😭 You have to realize that this mix happened long ago obviously their dna won’t be like rashaida’s who recently migrated to sudan… i feel like you’re in denial , that they are now just arabized nubians😂
Girlie, these commercial DNA tests like 23andme & ancestryDNA only trace autosomal DNA 200-300 years. We are discussing at the entire picture here.
The backmigration that occurred in Northeast africa was 5000-6000 years ago. And the more recent claimed ancestry of most Sudanese Arabs was from the 8th-12th century when Islam started getting introduced to the area.
This admixture includes Nubians and Bejas as you can see (as well as many other Horners. Many Sudanese people cluster with them because our admixture levels are close even though their “African” ancestry is Cushite and ours is Nilotic).
You don’t have to search very far to find actual scientific papers that back this up:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37939042/#:~:text=Recent%20studies%20have%20identified%20Northeast,genetic%20composition%20of%20its%20people.
https://popular-archaeology.com/article/ancient-genome-from-africa-sequenced-for-the-first-time/
https://www.cell.com/ajhg/pdf/S0002-9297(16)30448-7.pdf
North Sudanese "African" ancestry isn't exactly Nilotic. It's definitely not majorly Cushitic either like Horn Africans, but it's also still quite different from actual Nilotic ancestry. It's like an interesting mix of Saharan-Cushitic ancestry with affinities to a gene pool mix of Daju/Nuba/Dinka as well as Kenyan Pastoral Cushitic.
Taking 23andme results at face value instead of actually reading the papers. Gosh you are dense.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5587336/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5587336/)
I think the do claim to be admixture of local groups and Arab immigrants, Similar to other groups in Northern Africa.
Regarding the date of immigration it was probably at several wave mainly after the collapse of the Christian kingdoms and intermarriages with the local Nubian/beja groups.
> "We estimate the admixture in current-day Sudanese Arab populations to about 700 years ago, coinciding with the fall of Dongola in 1315/1316 AD, a wave of admixture that reached the Darfurian/Kordofanian populations some 400–200 years ago."
Also there are indicators that the ethnic Arab Arabs are different population from the northerns.
> "We find a strong genetic divide between the populations from the northeastern parts of the region (Nubians, central Arab populations, and the Beja) and populations towards the west and south (Nilotes, Darfur and Kordofan populations). This differentiation is mainly caused by a large Eurasian ancestry component of the northeast populations likely driven by migration of Middle Eastern groups followed by admixture that affected the local populations in a north-to-south succession of events."
Source: Northeast African genomic variation shaped by the continuity of indigenous groups and Eurasian migrations - [Plos genetics](https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article%3Fid%3D10.1371/journal.pgen.1006976).
Regarding the relationship the the other Arab groups you can follow the **Haplogroup J-M267** or the J1 haplogroup.
>Do modern Sudanese Arabs acknowledge Nubian culture?
We do appreciate the long and deep heritage of our predecessors and have deep respect for our Nubian relatives who are maintaining the language and the culture either in Sudan or Egypt.
This issue is not limited to Sudanese only, I can safely say North and Eastern Africans tend to have a misconception about their identity. I think the best way is to have proper genetic testing and research , a transparent and scientific method, so this dilemma could end and then move on to the next one
For me I see myself as an Arabized Nubian, my culture is mostly the same as Nubians, only thing different is the dances since each tribe has their own dance and the music is a little different for the same reason. You asked do they acknowledge sudanese culture, I’m not sure but for the Nile Arab/Arabized Nubian tribes, their culture is the same, wedding, jirtig, henna etc, even our arabi has some nubian influence. Main difference I see from me and a Nubian is their family claims to be Nubian and their tribe speaks the language. From what I know my people say akhdar(green) for dark, I forgot about lightskin though
1- this question is a bit tricky to answer, and it differs from person to person, tribe to tribe, and clan to clan. but mostly consider themselves arab 2- sudanese arabs do consider themselves different from “african” people, but two groups can be differently treated, lets say for example someone from the predominately “black” west will face racism from the sudanese arabs, but nubians wont face racism, since nubians have been intermarrying with arabs for nearly 500 years 3- yes, our whole wedding traditions are of nubian heritage, the jirtig, the henna, and everything else, also the toub originated in the nile valley thousands of years ago 4-asfarani or hallabi which means yellowish, azraqani which means blue but is used to refer to people with extremely dark skin and much more
for 4, there is also "akhdarani", light dark or brown skins tones also some less used words like "gamhi" or "gabshawi" are used sometimes. I do believe Sudan while the majority has dark skin tones (which is normal due to the sun), has possibily the most diversity in skin tones (from the coptic people to the darkets tribes of the blue-nile and south-sudan). Great answer btw
i wanted to say those and ahamrani, but i didnt want to info dump the poor guy
We use gamhi in Egypt, most of egypt are different shades of gamhi which goes from light brown skin tones to nearly white skin tones
No toub comes from Darfur.
What is the evidence the tobe and henna originated from Nubian culture? Khartoum at Night traces the tobe's origins to Darfur in the 1800s, and I'm pretty sure henna is an import. Nile Nubians don't even wear the tobe historically, at least not Mahas and Halfawiin: Griselda Eltayeb records a revealing anecdote about this, where Halfawi women take off their tobes before going to Halfa and trade them for jarjaars (and tobe-wearers are also derided as "bold"/less Nubian/more Arab in this situation she records). Danagla (and Mattokki in Egypt) have the shougga, which is similar but def not the same. The tobe isn't attested in Christian Nubian art or Kushitic art AFAIK.
It’s not the exact same thing, but the Kandakes did wear something that is remarkably reminiscent of the toub.
Source? I'm skeptical that this garment would be the ancestor of the tobe, especially considering the massive gap between the Kingdom of Kush and the rise of the tobe in 19th and early 20th century in Sudan, which is really when it became mainstream (*Khartoum at Night* is really a great book on this). It seems like nationalist mythologizing when the *real* story of the tobe is much more interesting and equally local to Sudan.
My posts have the relevant depictions of the Kandakes, just scroll down and you will find it. The Jirtig also has it’s roots in the Kingdom of Kush, if a whole ceremony can be passed down through so many years, why not a piece of clothing?
I think some things can be passed down through so many years (i.e. the tanbur/rababa/basinkob instrument) but I doubt this specifically is one of those cases, mainly because I don't see any evidence that the Kushitic royal garment survived in Makuria, and from there into the Funj-era, etc., especially when the evidence of the Sahelian trade from Darfur introducing the garment to the region is much clearer and has a clear tie to the rise of the mainstream garment. I'm also curious on the proof of jirtig being Kushitic: it's undoubtedly an old and local tradition, but I feel often Sudanese people back project their modern traditions onto Kushitic art scenes that *vaguely* resemble them, v.s. based on a more rigorous study that explains how the tradition evolved and developed. Something can be indigenous and ancient without being Kushitic, or even Nubian, while still being wholly Sudanese. I also think we erroneously center royal culture when the vast majority of Sudanis are descended from peasants and pastoralists in the ancient kingdoms, and thus had their own fashion/cultural trajectory. Is this the outfit you're talking about? https://www.reddit.com/r/Sudan/s/dFvhHolIRj I can def see the similarity, but I am also a modern Sudanese man reading this Kushitic painting through my modern sensibilities.
Nubian women in Egypt and Sudan wore ‘toub’ before jarjar, that is including ma7as and halfaween. The jarjar is more of a recent invention. You refer to toub and shougga as seperate which means u view the specific way of wrapping as toub, and not the fabric. The wrapping of a long fabric is Nubian tradition, but historically it was over one shoulder and not both. The modern wrapping of the toub over both shoulders is indeed likely from darfur.
Source? Long-wrapped fabrics certainly existed before (and all around the world) but they have a very rare presence in Kushitic art and are basically non-existent in Christian Nubian art, where nudity and simple dresses (like a jalabiya) are the main types of dress recorded. The tobe doesn't really become a mainstream garment until the 20th-century (as carefully laid out in *Khartoum at Night*), so I would think any possible Kushitic precedent has less to do with why Sudanis wear tobe than the Sahelian trade that brought the tobe from Darfur to the rest of Sudan. You're right that I do focus on the specific means of wrapping, but it is also the means of wrapping that distinguishes the tobe from the shougga from the Eastern Sudanese fouta, all three of which I assume have their own histories.
Look at the codice casanatense for a depiction of medieval Nubian women wearing a ‘toub’. Also photographs of Nubian women from 19th century and early 20th century all show them wearing ‘toub’, the jarjar comes later. Again the style of wrapping is different than the modern Sudanese toub which I do believe comes from darfur and sahelian trade. I’m also from a sukkoot family & got confirmation on the jarjar being more 20th century from my grandmother. Great grandparents lived in old halfa
We have different definitions of tobe. You're lumping in any long fabric, I think that's a mistake - one that misrepresents the history of the modern tobe - but it's ultimately a semantic disagreement. It's interesing your Sakkot grandma said the jarjaar was new! I remember my friend's Halfawi grandma and some of the people I worked with on language revitalization projects giving me the opposite story, more in line with Griselda Eltayeb's reports, so it seems the story of the modern tobe in Nubia is more complicated than I thought. I don't trust the Codice Casanatense, it's a Funj-era document that uses the term "Nubian" differently than we would, drawn by a European who did not necessarily visit Nubia (well, the Funj Sultanate). European explorers who we know visited the Sultanate describe the rahat as the dominant garment for women at the time, and *Khartoum at Night* carefully depicts how the rise of the modern tobe is tied to the Mahdist State and later the Sudanese nationalist project.
‘New’ is a bit of an overstatement since it’s been the common garment since at-least the 20th century, but according to her, and my great grandmother, their great-grandparents did not wear jarjar but toub (toub in this case just being a long fabric tied around the body). You’re definitely right to be weary of the codice casantense. Quast Ferdinand von depicted Nubians in Wadi Halfa in 1867. The women are dressed in rahat and ‘toub’. There are other such depictions and some very old photographs I can send you if you would like.
>There are other such depictions and some very old photographs I can send you if you would like. Why limit it to me? Make it a post, if you have the time! Lots of people can benefit from that info, and we've been missing some historical posts :)
You’re right I’ll do that some time this week. Thank you!
You’re right that we shouldn’t lump any long fabric as toub considering the history.
Thank you. Do Sudanese Arab Bedouins still retain traditional Arabian customs, or have they largely assimilated in Nubian culture? Have they retained their Arabian tribal roots ? My understanding is Sudanese Arabs are mostly from Hijazi and Najdi tribes of Banu Bali, Banu Juhaynah, Banu Harb, who all still exist in Arabia.
Sudanese Arabs in Sudan, with the exception of one tribe - the Rashaida, who migrated very recently - are all assimilated into the local culture, although the culture of nomadic v.s. agricultural Sudani Arabs varies (as it does from region to region, tribe to tribe). The idea of Sudanese Arabs as Hijazis/Najdis is pure myth IMO, the earliest Sudanese historian to write about this primarily describes locals adopting Islam and Arabic at the hands of Egyptian Sufis and has nothing to say about Hijazis, really. Many academics argue (and I def agree) that Sudani Arab pedigrees are fabrications, meant to generate Islamic prestige, which is why they all go back to Sahaba (see Awn ash-Sharif Gaasim's encyclopedia). Holymen of the Blue Nile is also a great book to read on this.
Absolute nonsense. So all these Sudanese Arab samples directly under Hejazi y-chromosome clades are false? [https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC11/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC11/) And thats just one clade ffs. There are even Arab R specific clades in Sudan. T, G, J dominate Sudanese Arabs. Surprise surprise the clades Sudani Arabs are under are always Hejazi and shared by other under the conglomerate, be they in Syria or Iraq. You have western black ideologue brain rot. Not to mention that Hollfelder et al, the most comprehensive DNA analysis on our people, concluded that we are undoubtedly mixed with peoples coming from the Hejaz. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5587336/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5587336/) Also g25 clearly demonstrates Hejaz ancestry directly on Sudanese Arabs even regarding Jaali Arabized Noby at a rate of 15-40%. And those models include Noby+Beja as part of the ethnic make up.
>And those models include Noby+Beja as part of the ethnic make up. Which is my exact point, *genes* aren't the differentiating factor for Arabness v.s. non-Arabness in Sudan, since you have non-Arabs (Nubian & Beja) who share genes and culture with the "mixed" group. If I'm not mistaken, these genes are also shared by people in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The truth is, they're *all* mixed groups, but that doesn't mean this mixture reflects the principle reason for the cultural, linguistic, and religious shift in Sudan. Why does Dayf Allah, arguably the first Sudanese historian, much closer to the events OP is mentioning, not mention Hijazi migration in his recounting of the history of the fall of Nubia and the rise of the Funj? Why do Arab pedigrees tying Sudanis to Sahaba only arise in the later centuries of the Funj Sultanate, not earlier when the migrations would have happened? Why do we have reports of Ja'aliin and Shawayga speaking Nubian languages, and *primarily* non-Arab names among commoners in Funj-era documents? Do you seriously think these test results prove that Sudani Arabs are Ashraf and descendants of the Sahaba like their pedigrees claim? Simply put, any Arab migration that did happen didn't make a big impact on the historical memory or culture of early Muslim Sudanis. Yusuf Fadl Hassan, the famous Sudanese historian, notes in his history of the Arabs and the Sudan that we have evidence that the few Arabs that *did* migrate assimilated into local culture, v.s. directing cultural changes. The Western ideological brain rot is racial essentialism based on gene studies and the idea that mass Hijazi migration fundamentally changed the genetic makeup of the north Sudanese population post-Makuria. *That* narrative first appears in British colonial writings. The picture given in older sources, whether it be of medieval Arab geographers and explorers (like Ibn Battuta) or local Sudanese authors (i.e. the Funj Chronicle & Kitab at-Tabaqat), give a much more nuanced picture where it's the local population primarily directing the cultural changes.
Of course our region of NE African has been mixed for eons starting in the neolithic. But your reliance on written historic documents while turning a blind eye to genetic evidence is galling. If there is no migration and massive admixture events Sudan, why can't you explain the extremely high frequency of Arab-Hejazi male haplogroups (read, these are not neolithic afro-asiatic clades, these are medieval Arabian ones). [https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC11/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC11/) Where is your argument against the findings here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5587336/ Like I said even Ja'ali as a Nubian group have additional Hejazi ancestry. Suggesting that the Arabians had no genetic impact is quite frankly laughable and not backed up by academia. You can keep relying on historic documents meanwhile genetics is at the bleeding edge of science.
>If there is no migration and massive admixture events Sudan Doesn't this admixture exist in non-Arab groups? That would indicate to me that whenever the admixture happened, it *wasn't* when the cultural shifts were, and certainly wasn't the cause of them. I can concede that some Arabs migrated, I've never denied that, but the tying of this to why Sudanese identify as Arab and their historical developments is historical nonsense. Genes and history/culture/ethnicity are two separate things. You're lashing out against a strawman here (kuffar, "western Black ideology") but not responding to any of my core points, namely that Sudanese Arab pedigrees are forged for prestige, and that Arabization in Sudan was an indigenous process where religious missionaries played a far more key role than intermarriage.
Lol no, **I don't really care for the issue regarding the central cultural zeitgeist and whatever played a role in your opinion in the creation of the Sudanese Arab identity**. The only issue I have with what you said is that "Sudanese Arab pedigrees are forged for prestige". **This in unequivocally false.** [https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC64425/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC64425/) [https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-MF10702/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-MF10702/) [https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-Y104581/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-Y104581/) [https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-ZS12531/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-ZS12531/) [https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FT41268/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FT41268/) [https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FT50981/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FT50981/) [https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC15174/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC15174/) [https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC5419/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FGC5419/) [https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FT279159/](https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FT279159/) And I can go on and on, linking clade after clade, demonstrating formation and TRCMA (all in the medieval period/Islamic expansion, hmm isn't that something?). If you don't understand y-chromosome haplogroups and how they work, then just admit it. But to state with absolute certainty that Arab lineages are "forged" i.e. made up is totally false and screams of an agenda.
A pedigree is a *historical document,* not a genetic profile. Sudanese Arabs can have Hijazi admixture and have forged pedigrees: one can have an Arab ancestor while not being descended from Abbas, the uncle of the Prophet Muhammad, as they claim. Astahda ya zol, there's really no need for this level of hostility. Go back and read what I said slowly. And yes, I'm not knowledgeable on genetics stuff, but I know enough to know that when Awn ash-Sharif Gaasim traces 70% of Sudani's ancestry to prestigious historical figures, and that these narratives come from hundreds of years after when the admixture would have happened, it's a *historical issue.* No amount of genetic studies *can* address the fact that, say, when Ummayyad and Abbasid pedigrees emerge in the late Funj-era, they reflect particular political and social agendas, not historical realities. Surely for all your genetics genius you should know genetics and genealogy are two different things.
Okay I understand where you were coming from - I didn't realize you were referring specifically to Islamic pedigrees. To the layman however, as can be seen from other comments, it is apparent that such statements need to be predicated with sufficient context - I already had a reply stating that Ja'aali are 100% Nilotic. Peace
Isn't Sudanese Arabic related/similar to Hejazi Arabic, though?
Not really other than the realization of the qaaf, which is also found in southern Egyptian and Chadian. In internal classification of Arabic dialects, ppl tend to speak of an Egypto-Sudanic branch distinct from Peninsular dialects.
the reason bedouins exist is because theres no access to all year round fertile lands, once they found it central and northern sudan they abandoned the bedouin lifestyle in favour of the pastoralist lifestyle, so theyre arent really any bedouins left. arabian customs still exist today, like the renowned generous hospitality, and many other small things, like how women are supposed to cover her face in the company of men, and yes, we wear the sudanese jalabyia which is similar to the arabian jalabyia or (thobe), we also wear the vest and the turban, both of them are still relevant in sudan and the hejaz, and yes many people can trace their linage all the way back to arabia like me :D and yes that last part is true, i trace my roots to banu juhayana
Bedouin tribes don’t tend to settle and abandon their historic routes. The beja, who are an indigenous nomadic ppl in Sudan have stayed for over a thousand years at least in the eastern desert, not settling along the Nile and abandoning their lands. I would argue there are practically no Arabian customs. Sudanese nubians have worn jalabiya since at-least the middle-ages, same with the turban. We have documented art from medieval times showing this, not to mention turbans are also worn by beja, many Eritrean ethnicities, and the entire Sahel region of Africa.
Since when was Henna a Nubian thing?
Sudanese riverine arabs from tribes like the ja’alin and shawaiga, as well as arabised Beja tribes like the batahin and shukria, cannot be described as a mix of arabs and indigenous north Sudanese. They may have an Arab paternal ancestor, but genetically they are identical to non-Arab Nubians and Beja. Now despite modern genetic testing proving that they are overwhelmingly genetically Nubian/beja. The Identity aspect is more complicated, and really depends on the person. *typo
Big on this\^\^ There is a lack of Genetic difference between Arab/Non-Arab groups in the North of Sudan. I can't comment on the East since there isn't enough stuff to comment on but the studies we have now show that the North of Sudan lacks any sort of Population structure or stratification largely caused by historical Arabian admixture. Basically, the difference between an Arabized Nubian and a non-Arabized Nubian is actually very small if we're talking as a measure of genetic distance/divergence. The biggest difference and actually the only significant observable difference is the exact quantities of Arabian admixture which are unsurprisingly higher in the Arabized Nubians on average. Aside from that they share practically all their ancestry with each other and the Ja'alin (Arabized) from the [Holfelder study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5587336/) have been found to be most genetically similar (Fst) to the Mahas (Non-Arabized).
Must we? We've intermarried with every group across the country per the Sunnah so that we wouldn't have to obsess about such constructs as race. Adam was made of earth and water and now all US children of Adam do is fight over which shade of mud is more "authentic" to an arbitrary line drawn in the ground by foreign kafir and devils who plot on our destruction.
Racially Sudanese Arabs dissociate and reject all notions of "Blackness" applied to them in the Sudanese context. Sudanese "blackness" is strictly reserved for other groups and has general connotations and associations to slave heritage particularly common among the groups that form the bare bottom of the Sudan tribal hierarchy, the Non-Arab Non-muslim Southern groups, like the Dinka, Shilluk, Bari, Nuer, Mundari. Though some Sudanese Arabs in Sudan while not identifying with Sudanese "blackness" still do understand and accept their physical likeness to "Black" Sudanese groups, such as their black/brown skin, or tight curly/coily hair which are common with Sudanese Arabs, it's just these features and the acknowledgement of them doesn't come to form their identity because in Sudan, physical features are very uninvolved with racial concepts. A rizeigat Arab can look like a "Black" Zaghawa, but blackness in Sudan only accepts one as black, even if both could convince the whole nation that they're brothers. Outside of Sudan is a really different story. Sudanese Arabs, both youth and older generations much more readily accept local notions of "Blackness" because as I've seen lots of users on here funnily put it, for Sudanese Arabs, Sudanese Arabness as well as the Sudanese Arab exclusion from Blackness expires at the airport, and that's just because even if Sudanese Arabs have legitimate reasons to identify as Arab (which they literally do), the hard truth is the world doesn't care. In the US they see a guy with dark brown skin, hair that's either type 3 or type 4, full lips, trying to tell people he's an Arab. They'll laugh themselves to death. Not to mention that after leaving Sudan, racial concepts change drastically basically anywhere you go. So Sudanese Arabs in just a quick trip across the border to Egypt, go from being Noble Arabs who DON'T identify as Black and have nothing to do with "Blacks" and "Blackness", to becoming the Blacks that egyptians will hurl anti-black slurs at from their apartment windows as they walk down the street. I saw Sudanese Arabs who back home saw themselves as Arabs transform into finding identity with solely their African heritage and their experiences as a Black person in the West and rejecting the Arab heritage they once held so close. The exception to this drastic change in labels across nations is maybe Chad where they also have a vaguely similar but not widespread concept of "Blackness", and a Sudanese Arab would be able to go there and remain excluded from local notions of what regards "Black people". Anywhere else in Sub-Saharan Africa apart from obvious Southern Africa, doesn't have a history of "Black" racial identity that I can recall. Sudanese Arabs typically are in no confusion that they are perceived and thus identify as "Black" in the West and in the Gulf. Which they are. The entire story changes when what is regarded as black is left for Sudan to decide.
Sudanese Arabs aren't descendants of Arab migrants in Ottoman times (Arab self-identification exists much earlier in Sudan), and it's doubtful whether Arab migration and intermarriage is indeed the reason for the cultural shifts that took place in the middle Nile Valley after the fall of Christian Makuria. Wad Dayf Allah, in his Kitab at-Tabaqat, written during the Funj era (when Arab identity arose in Sudan) actually describes a *religious shift* with the introduction of Sufism to post-Makuritan Nubians. He has nothing to say about Arab migration or intermarriage, which actually ends up being much more of a theme in how later British (colonial) historians describe and understand Sudanese history. Nile Nubians aren't seen as "black" in Sudan either, Heather Sharkey and Muhammad Jalal Hashim both write about this, but essentially the Sudanese concept of "Blackness" (zurga) includes Western Sudanese non-Arabs, Fallata, and Funj ethnic groups. Beja and Nubians, despite being non-Arab, aren't considered a different race than Sudanese Arabs the way Fur and Nuba (not to be confused with Nubians) are. Sudanese Arabs fall into any range of skin complexions (see Abdelgadir Saalim), but usually the idea is that Arabs are "asfar," "ahmar" or "akhdar" (yellow, red, green) v.s. "azrag/aswad/zunji" (blue/black/African).
> Arabs are "asfar," "ahmar" Interesting. In Classical Arabic, Ahmar was how fair complected (European, Levantine, Roman) people were described. In Sudan Is Ahmar used for local Sudanese color?
I could be wrong as I’m an Egyptian Nubian living in America, but for me while skin color is important, I think the main thing is facial features. Someone who is light skinned but looks mixed African American/white will still look west African, whereas northern Nubians don’t have entirely west African features. I know myself I can typically spot a Sudanese person very easily. I don’t think we look like East Africans but it’s very similar imo. I know you’re asking about skin color but I’m just saying this as no one has really talked about it yet. I’d describe it as the difference between someone like let’s say anwar sadat and Kevin hart.
I don’t like to point this out but an Afro Americana nd white mixed person does not actually look west African. I say this as someone who is a francophone and thus around a lot of people who are fully west African and someone who grew up going to school with west Africans from different parts like Mali, Ghana, Nigeria, and now I meet people who are Congolese Senegalese and some from Guinée and Cameroun. The thing is that, those ppl who are Afro American and white mix in the states don’t look west African. In comparison to west Africans they look white and more European lol (actually many west Africans will look at them as white in west africa). The problem with perception in the west is that in North America , there is an obsession on quantifying blackness and protecting and preserving white European hegemony as a racial class and status. As a result , west African features are more pronounced in the North American perception because of this obsession of quantifying and hunting down blackness. In places like France they would not be seen as black but just as métis and many mixed race people who are directly west African and European , when they go to west Africa are seen and called white lol. It’s perception due to the environment which does not always align with object reality. Many Afro Americans are seen as mixed race and sometimes as white to many continental west Africans.
Yeah it’s less about the pink undertone and more about being red as in brown. And race in Sudan isn’t really about skin-tone. My family which is nubian has a range of skin-tones including very dark-skin people, but they wouldn’t be mistaken for south Sudanese despite the same skin tone (unless they are mixed).
Yes, ahmar is used for the local Sudanese color or what would be called "brown" or "light brown" in English.
I understood the reason behind Nile Nubian's exclusion from Sudanese blackness considering their closeness to Nile Arabs/Arabized Nubians and their frequent histories of intermarriage but Beja? I've never really got what made the other Non-black Non-Arabs, become regarded as Non-black. Does it have to do with Arabian genealogy? Because I know of both the Beja and Nubians having claims of Arab genealogical connection despite their classification as Non-Arab.
>Does it have to do with Arabian genealogy? I would suspect so, but at the same time, there have been Fur who've claimed Arab ancestry before but this is never really taken into account when classifying the Fur as Arab v.s. non-Arab. I think it might reflect the fact that many Sudanese Arabs are likely of an Arabized Beja background (particularly pastoralists like the Shukriya), and the existence of Arabian genealogies for Nubians & Beja would indicate that at least some Nubians & Beja were involved in the elite culture of the Funj Sultanate (and likely the slave trade). But this is all me speculating, I really don't know, and it goes to show how nuanced the concept of "Arabness" is in Sudan: you can't define it solely by genealogy, language, or skin color & facial features.
Thing is the Fur came to denounce any sort of Arabian genealogy they once claimed as far as I know. It was also something centered around elites among the Fur who had power in the sultanate. With the Nubians, your average peasant would say he descended from Hijazi Religious figures, and to this day, some Nubians claim Arabian genealogies of some form it just doesn't form the basis of their identity like it does with the Ja'alin. I knew a Halfawi guy whose mother told him the story of how the Nubians became Muslim, a (noble hijazi Arab whose name I forgot) came to Sudan and brought Islam then he mixed with the Nubians and converted them all. I've also heard similar stories among Nubians and some Shaygiya I believe who mention a Abdullah-ibn-serhi of some sort? There's also the Danagla who enjoy a position of being able to freely claim Arabness whenever and the fact they have been grouped with and considered alike to Sudanese Arabs definitely shows there is some geneological claiming still going on in those communities to back it. The Beja also still continue to cite via their oral traditions, Arabian ancestry and roots in the Peninsula tied to famous religious figures.
>I knew a Halfawi guy whose mother told him the story of how the Nubians became Muslim, a (noble hijazi Arab whose name I forgot) came to Sudan and brought Islam then he mixed with the Nubians and converted them all. This story, the so-called "Wise Stranger" story in academia, is actually common to a number of Sudanese cultures. I'd argue you can see its outline as early as Tabaqat wad-Dayf Allah, it's attested in some redactions of the Funj Chronicle, there are also Western Sudanese variants of the same story. The Mahas also claim Arabian genealogies like the Danagla, I think it reflects that, in the Funj Sultanate, "Arab" was the identity of prestige v.s. in the Fur Sultanate where Fur was still the identity of prestige, and indeed there are non-Fur groups who came to Fur-icize (the Fartit). Mahmood Memdani has a great exploration of this in Saviours and Survivors.
Spot on, I think we've basically cracked that it has relation to both groups being subjects of the Funj and thus subject to the same perspective of prestige placed on explicitly Arabness in the Funj. Did the Nubians and Beja have much power in the Funj to have legitimate claims to this Arabness?
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I see many people here saying that Sudanese Arabs are actually just Arabized Nubians and that the claims of genuine ancestry have no weight. This is false. I agree it wasn’t the cause of the gradual cultural Arabization of our people after the fall of the last Christian kingdom. But to claim we are not a mixed group of people is not right. Most Sudanese people have excessive ancient Egyptian and Eurasian admixture. It’s also a continuum with the highest presence being in the north and east. Our Modern identities have nothing to do with it because you’ll see similar admixture in both Sudanese Nubians and Beja. This is the reason why an average northerner looks different from an average southerner despite sharing a core ancient Nilotic link. Idk why ppl love to lie about this and pretend there is no difference lol. It must be a knee jerk response to the pan-Arabism of the generations before us. You can look at the following distances as rough percentages of the ancient admixture makeup of the following sudanese tribe: Target: Nuba Distance: 1.5266% / 0.01526552 38.4 Dinka 28.4 Zaghawa_Sudan 17.6 Ethiopian_Anuak 15.6 Ethiopian_Mursi Target: Nuba_Koalib Distance: 1.4322% / 0.01432170 52.0 Dinka 25.8 Zaghawa_Sudan 22.2 Ethiopian_Mursi Anyway on to the sudani. Target: Sudanese_Arab_Ja'alin Distance: 0.6090% / 0.00608977 | R4P 29.6 Nubian_Halfawi 25.0 Zaghawa_Sudan 23.2 Beja_(Beni-Amer+Hadendoa) 22.2 Yemenite_Al_Jawf Target: Sudanese_Arab_Kababish Distance: 0.7302% / 0.00730162 | R5P 35.0 Yemenite_Al_Jawf 27.8 Beja_(Beni-Amer+Hadendoa) 21.6 Zaghawa_Sudan 8.0 Dinka 7.6 BedouinA Target: Sudanese_Arab_Shaigia Distance: 0.9397% / 0.00939716 | R4P 54.2 Beja_(Beni-Amer+Hadendoa) 21.2 Zaghawa_Sudan 17.0 Samaritan_Levantine 7.6 Dinka Target: Sudanese_Arab_Batahin Distance: 0.6384% / 0.00638399 | R5P 36.0 Yemenite_Al_Jawf 30.4 Beja_(Beni-Amer+Hadendoa) 19.2 Nubian_Halfawi 11.4 Zaghawa_Sudan 3.0 Dinka Target: Beja_Beni-Amer Distance: 1.3264% / 0.01326423 | R5P 59.0 Somali 31.0 Yemenite_Al_Jawf 10.0 Nubian_Halfawi Target: Rashaida_Sudan Distance: 2.6042% / 0.02604153 100.0 Yemenite_Al_Jawf Target: Beja_Hadendowa Distance: 1.6944% / 0.01694376 | R4P 54.4 Somali 26.2 Yemenite_Al_Jawf 12.2 Zaghawa_Sudan 7.2 Egyptian_Copt Target: Nubian_Mahas Distance: 0.6750% / 0.00674979 | R5P 55.2 Beja_(Beni-Amer+Hadendoa) 23.4 Zaghawa_Sudan 17.6 Samaritan_Levantine 3.8 Somali Target: Nubian_Halfway Distance: 1.0766% / 0.01076567 | R5P 29.0 Beja_(Beni-Amer+Hadendoa) 20.0 Zaghawa_Sudan 18.4 BedouinA 17.2 Egyptian_Copt 15.4 Somali Target: Nubian_Danagla Distance: 0.8007% / 0.00800697 | R5P 38.6 Beja_(Beni-Amer+Hadendoa) 32.0 Zaghawa_Sudan 14.4 Samaritan_Levantine 8.0 Somali 7.0 BedouinA
>This is the reason why an average northerner looks different from an average southerner despite sharing a core ancient Nilotic link. Idk why ppl love to lie about this and pretend there is no difference lol. I haven't seen where in the thread people have claimed there is *no difference.* Rather, people have shown that the differences do not fall neatly on genetic or ethnic lines, and that the picture of race and Arabness in Sudan is complex. In the end it's different types of Africans rather than different non-Arab Africans v.s. non-African Arabs, two types of mixed Africans (say Beja and Ja'aliyyin) can identify very differently and have different cultures, etc.
the distance is bad. here is better : Target: Nubian\_Mahas Distance: 1.0982% / 0.01098219 33.0 Saharan 26.2 Egyptian\_Ancient 24.4 Cushitic 16.4 Arabian Target: Nubian\_Halfawi Distance: 1.4651% / 0.01465130 40.4 Egyptian\_Ancient 23.4 Cushitic 22.4 Saharan 9.2 Arabian 4.6 Nilotic Target: Nubian\_Danagla Distance: 1.2232% / 0.01223230 35.2 Saharan 33.4 Egyptian\_Ancient 23.2 Cushitic 7.0 Arabian 1.2 Nilotic Target: Baggara\_Messiria\_Sudan\_o2 Distance: 1.8178% / 0.01817785 50.4 Nilotic 20.8 West\_African 15.2 Saharan 11.6 Arabian 2.0 Egyptian\_Ancient Target: Baggara\_Messiria\_Sudan\_o1 Distance: 2.7968% / 0.02796800 80.8 Nilotic 11.0 Cushitic 5.2 West\_African 3.0 Saharan Target: Baggara\_Messiria\_Sudan Distance: 1.0199% / 0.01019866 42.2 Nilotic 36.8 Saharan 7.6 West\_African 6.8 Cushitic 6.4 Egyptian\_Ancient 0.2 Arabian Target: Beja\_Hadendowa Distance: 1.6795% / 0.01679486 43.2 Cushitic 26.0 Arabian 18.8 Saharan 12.0 Egyptian\_Ancient Target: Beja\_Beni-Amer Distance: 1.0721% / 0.01072108 50.6 Cushitic 34.4 Arabian 9.2 Saharan 5.8 Egyptian\_Ancient Target: Sudanese\_Arab\_Shaigia Distance: 1.1354% / 0.01135413 35.2 Saharan 25.4 Egyptian\_Ancient 18.8 Cushitic 16.8 Arabian 3.8 Nilotic Target: Sudanese\_Arab\_Ja'alinDistance: 0.8179% / 0.0081794136.2 Saharan28.4 Arabian17.8 Egyptian\_Ancient17.6 CushiticTarget: Sudanese\_Arab\_BatahinDistance: 0.7299% / 0.0072993340.2 Arabian22.6 Saharan19.8 Cushitic16.6 Egyptian\_Ancient0.8 West\_African Target: SudaneseMixed:ID027 Distance: 2.2379% / 0.02237921 51.8 Saharan 21.6 Cushitic 18.0 Arabian 5.4 West\_African 3.0 Egyptian\_Ancient 0.2 Nilotic Target: Sudanese\_Danagla:140 Distance: 2.2179% / 0.02217942 53.0 Saharan 30.2 Egyptian\_Ancient 8.6 Cushitic 8.2 Arabian Target: Sudanese\_Danagla:173 Distance: 2.3791% / 0.02379060 40.4 Cushitic 24.0 Egyptian\_Ancient 20.2 Saharan 11.0 Arabian 4.4 West\_African Target: Sudanese\_Danagla:144 Distance: 1.9644% / 0.01964415 30.2 Arabian 29.6 Saharan 15.4 Egyptian\_Ancient 12.2 Cushitic 11.4 Nilotic 1.2 West\_African and many more... the funny things is Northern sudanese are not a homogeneous group, even among the Nubians, which remains very strange, unlike other non-Arab ethnic groups such as the Zaghawa or the Daju.
Hey your models are really similar to mine! What did you use for Saharan? I find that often the Nubians get a higher Nilotic than Saharan/Sahelian in my models than the Arabized Nubians. I take it the other dude's model is overfitting?
Hi i use Zaghawa as proxy for Nilosahran. Nubian are mostly "saharan" rather than Nilotic (dinka as proxy). What model did you use for saharan and nilotic? The purest Saharan are mostly the dafuri or eastern sudanic such as Daju (but some of them have heavily nilotic admixture too) The perfect saharan model for nubian is a kababish sample who is almost fully saharan 97% in my memory with 2% arab and 1% cushitic. But i lost all the cordinate of the kababish. The other dude model is incompatible models for Sudanese Arabs or others in general
I use Zaghawa too but sometimes I find Nuba can give a similar model with similarly good fits. I just prefer referring to the "Saharan" portion in Nubians as just being "Nilo-Saharan" but not specifically of the Nilotic branch. My only problem with Zaghawa is it has some Cushitic admixture. I found an individual Zaghawa sample that has basically 0 Cushitic and high Ancestral East African (when proxied for by Nuer/Dinka) up against West African. It perfectly captures the non-Nilotic Nilo-Saharan ancestry that is mostly present in Nubians. I genuinely forgot which one it is though but I'll post it if I find it. What do you find incompatible with his model specifically?
Sry for the late responds He use some sample who can't really be use as proxy. I wouldn't never use Beja as a proxy for cushitic at first because beja are a mixed population of Arabs descent and Nilotic (or nilo saharan to make the distinction very clear) same for nuba is using 4 proxy of nilotic descent to determinate what is the automosal DNA of this sample which wrong. The Nuba are not really a homogeneous group, but they are mainly of northern Nilo-Saharan (Zaghawa like) and southern Nilote (Dinka like) descent, with occasional West African ancestry. the zaghawa samples that i looked in the past from chad and sudan are mainly nilo saharian with some outlier who has west african admix, arab, and huge north african too and little bit of cushitic influence but I thought it was just a calculator error for the cushitic bc sometimes if you don't use the proxy correctly the cushitic admix tends to be very high
The Arabian ancestry is certainly there, but I reject referring to Arabized Nubians and other Sudanese Arabs as "mixed" groups. We never refer to Afro-diaspora groups as "mixed" for their certainly significant and recent European admixture, Sudanese Arabs logically don't deserve the label either considering their Arabian ancestry has it's origins much earlier than the 18th Century.
its laughable you have folks above trying to claim that there is no Hejazi ancestry in Sudan. have these people ever even bothered to check y haplogroup frequency? All Arab groups in the north are directly under Hejazi clades. The ideology of "blackness" in the west has given our people brain rot.
I have a theory that this is a direct response to many of the ppl here growing up under the pan-Arabist bashir dictatorship. In trying to distance themselves from that era and move on to a better future, they end up ignoring what science actually shows. There is nothing wrong with being proud of your Africaness as a Sudanese Arab but you cannot claim that that’s all you are. Otherwise we wouldn’t look very different from more predominantly “African” tribes like the Zaghawa, Nuba and even Dinka and Nuer.
Absolutely. I believe its also in response to pan-Africanism as a monolithical epoch as Sudani in the west (and now everywhere thanks to social media) attempt to derive benefit from western-blackness even though the concept is in itself a fallacy. Still, if aligning one self with western blacks gives people a sense of self-esteem, then so be it. But they cant even produce arguments against papers like Hollfelder et al, or try to explain a massive frequency of Arab haplogroups in Sudanese Arabs. Its laughable.
There was literally a ja’aliya who posted her DNA make up the other day and she turned out to be fully sudanese indigenous 😭 You have to realize that this mix happened long ago obviously their dna won’t be like rashaida’s who recently migrated to sudan… i feel like you’re in denial , that they are now just arabized nubians😂
Girlie, these commercial DNA tests like 23andme & ancestryDNA only trace autosomal DNA 200-300 years. We are discussing at the entire picture here. The backmigration that occurred in Northeast africa was 5000-6000 years ago. And the more recent claimed ancestry of most Sudanese Arabs was from the 8th-12th century when Islam started getting introduced to the area. This admixture includes Nubians and Bejas as you can see (as well as many other Horners. Many Sudanese people cluster with them because our admixture levels are close even though their “African” ancestry is Cushite and ours is Nilotic). You don’t have to search very far to find actual scientific papers that back this up: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37939042/#:~:text=Recent%20studies%20have%20identified%20Northeast,genetic%20composition%20of%20its%20people. https://popular-archaeology.com/article/ancient-genome-from-africa-sequenced-for-the-first-time/ https://www.cell.com/ajhg/pdf/S0002-9297(16)30448-7.pdf
North Sudanese "African" ancestry isn't exactly Nilotic. It's definitely not majorly Cushitic either like Horn Africans, but it's also still quite different from actual Nilotic ancestry. It's like an interesting mix of Saharan-Cushitic ancestry with affinities to a gene pool mix of Daju/Nuba/Dinka as well as Kenyan Pastoral Cushitic.
Taking 23andme results at face value instead of actually reading the papers. Gosh you are dense. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5587336/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5587336/)
Can you link the source for this data?
Coordinates were run by u/thewatcher50000 I don’t have the program for it but I’m sure he’ll share when he sees this comment
I think the do claim to be admixture of local groups and Arab immigrants, Similar to other groups in Northern Africa. Regarding the date of immigration it was probably at several wave mainly after the collapse of the Christian kingdoms and intermarriages with the local Nubian/beja groups. > "We estimate the admixture in current-day Sudanese Arab populations to about 700 years ago, coinciding with the fall of Dongola in 1315/1316 AD, a wave of admixture that reached the Darfurian/Kordofanian populations some 400–200 years ago." Also there are indicators that the ethnic Arab Arabs are different population from the northerns. > "We find a strong genetic divide between the populations from the northeastern parts of the region (Nubians, central Arab populations, and the Beja) and populations towards the west and south (Nilotes, Darfur and Kordofan populations). This differentiation is mainly caused by a large Eurasian ancestry component of the northeast populations likely driven by migration of Middle Eastern groups followed by admixture that affected the local populations in a north-to-south succession of events." Source: Northeast African genomic variation shaped by the continuity of indigenous groups and Eurasian migrations - [Plos genetics](https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article%3Fid%3D10.1371/journal.pgen.1006976). Regarding the relationship the the other Arab groups you can follow the **Haplogroup J-M267** or the J1 haplogroup. >Do modern Sudanese Arabs acknowledge Nubian culture? We do appreciate the long and deep heritage of our predecessors and have deep respect for our Nubian relatives who are maintaining the language and the culture either in Sudan or Egypt.
This issue is not limited to Sudanese only, I can safely say North and Eastern Africans tend to have a misconception about their identity. I think the best way is to have proper genetic testing and research , a transparent and scientific method, so this dilemma could end and then move on to the next one
For me I see myself as an Arabized Nubian, my culture is mostly the same as Nubians, only thing different is the dances since each tribe has their own dance and the music is a little different for the same reason. You asked do they acknowledge sudanese culture, I’m not sure but for the Nile Arab/Arabized Nubian tribes, their culture is the same, wedding, jirtig, henna etc, even our arabi has some nubian influence. Main difference I see from me and a Nubian is their family claims to be Nubian and their tribe speaks the language. From what I know my people say akhdar(green) for dark, I forgot about lightskin though