2 - Lords of Mountain and Savanna

Summary

Study of Darfur before the nineteenth century is hampered by a paucity of sources and the difficult nature of those that are available. Since the Sudan's independence in 1956, however, great strides have been made in locating, collecting, describing, and interpreting documentary sources. The work of several Sudanese and European institutions and scholars has been particularly important. In some cases that work has had the effect of pointing out the vast amount of further research, not least in archeology, that could, with the requisite interest and finance, be undertaken. Nevertheless, the study of Darfur's history would have been set back immeasurably had not the process of identification and collection taken place before the upheavals of the early twenty-first century.

Through the collection and analysis of oral traditions, critical examination of the few and relatively late Arab and European travelers' accounts, and, most recently, the detailed study of documents from the Fur sultanate, historians have been able to provide at least a plausible picture, in broad strokes, of the Fur sultanate's early history and a more detailed description of certain aspects of its administration. More can be deduced through reasonable comparative analysis of Darfur and other Muslim states of the Sudanic belt and, indeed, through what is known of long-distance trade (and the products it carried and left behind). Still, it remains the case that much of what has been written about the history of the region before the eighteenth century is based on conjecture, however well informed, and lies open to revision.