Nubia’s Relationship With Ancient Egypt
During the seventh century, the Christian Church in the Nubian countries (Nobatia, Makurra, and ‘Alwah) sided more with the Coptic Church. This made church ties with Egypt stronger. Following the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641, they dispatched two armed expeditions into Nubia, reaching as far as Dongola, the capital of Makurra.
Neither strategy proved effective, leading to the creation of the baqt, a type of peace treaty, between 651 and 652. This lets the Nubian states keep their freedom. The baqt seems to have been a peace treaty and a swap of goods from Egypt and slaves from Nubia.
Texts from the ninth and tenth centuries talk about wheat, drink (wine), horses, and cloth or clothes as some of the most important things. Up until the rule of Cyriacus of Makurra, relations with Islamic Egypt were mostly good. According to tradition, he entered Egypt in 747 and 748 to free the Alexandrian patriarch from the emir’s jail.
Because of the political backing of the patriarchate, this invasion may have been important in some way because of the patriarchate’s political backing. Later in Cyriacus’s reign, in 758, the Nubians didn’t pay the baqt, which caused a short-term rift in ties. Around the year 820, the Nubians stopped paying the baqt again. Caliph al-Mu’tasim instructed King Zacharias II of Makurra to pay the baqt and all of its past-due sums for fourteen years in 834.
In 835 and 836, Zacharias’s son George went to Baghdad and was able to reach an agreement with the Caliph. Both sides agreed to forgive the debts of the Baqt and refrain from attacking each other. Egypt and Nubia continued to get along peacefully in the first half of the tenth century. From this point on, burials and tombstones show that Muslims lived in Lower Nubia.
But in the second half of the century, between 956 and 962, the Nubians launched two major offensives. They then kept control of a portion of Upper Egypt until the eleventh century. In 969, the Fatimids took over Egypt. During most of their time in power, they had good relationships with the Nubian Kingdoms. The Makurran rulers were even able to get involved in some Egyptian affairs.
One king, most likely Solomon, helped the patriarch of Alexandria one time and worked with Egypt’s rulers by turning over Kanz ed-Dowla, the leader of an Arab-Beja tribe that had rebelled and run away to Nubia.
Both secondary sources and first-hand historical data show that Egypt traded a lot with Makurra and some with ‘Alwah during this time. Indeed, Soba, the capital of ‘Alwah, saw the construction of a Muslim quarter. In 1171, Salah al-Din got rid of the Fatimids.
In the same year, the king of Makurra attacked Egypt and took Aswan. He then moved north, either to steal things or to help the Fatimids, but the Makourran army had to leave. The following year, Salah ed-Din’s brother Shams ed-Dowla came to Nubia.
They appear to have achieved two main goals: first, to punish them, and second, to seize control of the country, which they could use as a base if forced to leave Egypt. In the end, Shams ed-Dowla came to the conclusion that Nubia wasn’t right for this, and neither Salah al-Din nor his Ayyubid successors tried to take over Makurra. Makurra had good ties with Egypt’s later Ayyubid rulers, but those did not last long after the Mamluks took over in 1250.
‘Alwah, or maybe its northernmost principality, el-Abwab, seems to have had better relationships with the Mamluks and sometimes helped them fight Makurra. But it’s clear that things started to go wrong at this point, which led to the fall of both Christian countries. One of these has to do with how the Mamluks treated the Egyptian nomadic groups badly.
Many people relocated to Nubia or fled there under duress. Some tribes also sent their members to Nubia to support the troops stationed there between the late 1300s and early 1400s. Over the next three hundred years, they seem to have had many marriages with Nubians.
Adams (1977, p. 458) says that the Mamluks had an effect that “tipped the balance of power in favor of the growing Islamic element in the population.” When the political and religious institutions in the Christian states started to fall apart, this balance became very important.
In 1268, King David removed his uncle Abu’l Izz Murtashkar, who had become a Muslim, from power and took over as king of Makurra. In 1272, David struck the port of Aydhab, which hurt Egypt’s sea trade routes. He then destroyed Aswan. The Mamluk Sultan Baybars launched an assault in 1276, removing David from power and putting Shakanda, who was also a nephew of Abu’l Izz Murtashkar, in charge.
Shakanda was supposed to swear allegiance to Baybars in exchange for his help and the province of Maris (Nobatia) being given to him, but these terms don’t seem to have been followed. A number of Mamluk nominees held the throne of Makurra after that point.
Typically, they held power for a brief period before facing death or removal. From before 1304 to 1311, this happened to Kings Amay from 1311 to 1316 and 1323, and to Saif ed-Din Abdallah Barshambu from 1316 to 1317 or 1319. The last-named king was a Muslim. In 1317, he turned the throne hall of the palace at Old Dongola into a mosque, but it doesn’t look like he did much else to convert the state to Islam.
In 1365, Egypt got involved with Nubian matters again when an embassy from the two rulers of a split Makurra came to ask for help fighting some nomad tribes. It was the sultan’s army and the Nubian army working together that beat them. Then, the king of Makurra moved his palace to Daw in Lower Nubia.
The consecration of a bishop of Ibrim in 1372 marked the most recent known connection between Nubia and the patriarch of Alexandria. Trade dropped by a lot. As late as 1397, a king of “Nubia” tried to find safety in Cairo, but it looks like the kingdoms of Makurra and ‘Alwah were no longer together. Egypt and these Nubian states stopped having official formal ties at the turn of the century.
Also Read: How the Arabians Conquered and took over the Great Kingdom Of Egypt
