People
Even after the secession of the south in 2011, Sudan’s population still exhibited a diverse profile. The Sudanese people boast several major ethnic groups and hundreds of subgroups, and they speak numerous languages and dialects.
Ethnic groups
In many ways, the concept of ethnicity in Sudan is closely related to language and religion. The country is dominated by Muslims, most of whom speak Arabic and identify themselves as “Arabs.” They are for the most part ethnically mixed, and many of them are physically indistinguishable from those who do not consider themselves Arabs. Despite a common language and religion, the Arabs do not constitute a cohesive group: they are highly differentiated in their mode of livelihood and comprise city dwellers, village farmers, and pastoral nomads. The Arabs historically have been divided into tribes based on presumed descent from a common ancestor. The tribal system has largely disintegrated in urban areas and settled villages, however, and retains its strength only among the nomads of the plains who raise cattle, sheep, and camels. Each Arab tribe or cluster of tribes is in turn assigned to a larger tribal grouping, of which the two largest are the Jalayin and the Juhaynah. The Jalayin encompasses the sedentary agriculturalists along the middle Nile from Dongola south to Khartoum and includes such tribes as the Jalayin tribe proper, the Shāyqiyyah, and the Rubtab. The Juhaynah, by contrast, traditionally consisted of nomadic tribes, although some of them have now become settled. Among the major tribes in the Juhaynah grouping are the Shukriyah, the Kababish, and the Baqqārah. All three of these tribes herd camels or cattle on the semiarid plains of western, central, and eastern Sudan.
Besides Arabs, there are several Muslim but non-Arab groups in the country. The most notable of these are the Nubians, who live along the Nile in the far north and in southern Egypt. Most Nubians speak Arabic as a second language. The same applies to the Beja, who inhabit the Red Sea Hills. Although they adopted Islam, these pastoral nomads have retained their Bedawi language, which belongs to the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Another non-Arab Muslim people is the Fur; these sedentary agriculturalists live in or near the Marrah Mountains in the far west. North of the Fur are the Zaghawa, who are scattered in the border region between Sudan and Chad.
The vast majority of non-Muslim peoples in Sudan live in the south. One of the most prominent groups, the Nuba, live in the Nuba Mountains. The Nuba are hill cultivators who have tended to be isolated from adjacent peoples in the Nile valley. They speak various Eastern Sudanic languages, among them Midobi and Birked, that are collectively known as Hill Nubian. Another southern group is the Dinka, who live near the border with South Sudan. The capital, Khartoum, in the centre of Sudan, is also home to non-Muslim populations.
Languages
As alluded to above, there are many languages spoken in Sudan. Arabic is the primary language of much of the population and is the most common medium for the conduct of government, commerce, and urban life throughout the country. Both Arabic and English are official working languages of the country and were designated as such by the 2005 interim constitution.
Most languages spoken in Sudan belong to three families of African languages: Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, and Niger-Congo. The Afro-Asiatic languages, Arabic and the Bedawi language of the Beja, are the most widely spoken. The Nilo-Saharan languages include the many Nubian languages, spoken in various places across the country, the Zaghawa and Fur languages, spoken primarily in the west and southwest respectively, and the Dinka language, spoken in the south. The Niger-Congo family is represented by the numerous Kordofanian languages, spoken in southern Sudan, and other languages spoken by smaller ethnic groups. To surmount these language barriers, the vast majority of Sudanese have become multilingual, with Arabic and, to a lesser extent, English as second languages.
Religion of Sudan
The majority of Sudan’s population is Muslim, belonging overwhelmingly to the Sunni branch. Sunni Islam in Sudan, as in much of the rest of Africa, has been characterized by the formation of tarīqahs, or Muslim religious brotherhoods. The oldest of these tarīqahs is the Qādiriyyah, which was introduced to the Sudan region from the Middle East in the 16th century. Another major tarīqah is the Khatmiyyah, or Mīrghaniyyah, which was founded by Muḥammad ʿUthmān al-Mīrghanī in the early 19th century. Perhaps the most-powerful and best-organized tarīqah is the Mahdiyyah; its followers led a successful revolt against the Turco-Egyptian regime (1821–85) and established an independent state in the Sudan that lasted from 1884 to 1898. The Mahdiyyah and Khatmiyyah tarīqahs formed the basis for the political parties that emerged in the Sudan in the 1940s and have continued to play a dominant role in the nation’s politics in the postindependence period.
A small percentage of Sudan’s population follow traditional animist religions, particularly in the Nuba Mountains. Although these animists share some common elements of religious belief, each ethnic group has its own indigenous religion. Virtually all Sudan’s traditional African religions share the conception of a high spirit or divinity, usually a creator god. Two conceptions of the universe exist: the earthly and the heavenly, or the visible and the invisible. The heavenly world is seen as being populated by spiritual beings whose function is to serve as intermediaries or messengers of God; in the case of the Nilotes, these spirits are identified with their ancestors. The supreme deity is the object of rituals using music and dance.
Christians account for another small portion of the population. Christianity first came to the Sudan about the 6th century CE, and for centuries thereafter Christian churches flourished in the ancient kingdom of Nubia. After the establishment of Muslim rule in Egypt and later Arab migrations into the Sudan, Christianity declined in Nubia and was gradually replaced by Islam; the process was complete by the end of the 15th century. Christianity in Sudan today is a product of European missionary efforts that began in the second half of the 19th century. Most of those efforts were concentrated in the Nuba Mountains rather than among the Muslims of the north.
Settlement patterns
Rural settlements in Sudan are usually clustered along watercourses, because of water supply problems especially during the dry months. In the north, villages are often strung out along the rivers. The types of houses built vary from region to region. In the north and some central and southern areas, houses are made of sun-dried bricks and have flat-topped roofs, while farther south the people build round huts with thatched conical roofs made out of grass, millet stalks, and wooden poles, called tukuls. In central-southern and western Sudan, walls constructed of millet stalks often surround building compounds.
Though towns are few and widely scattered, about one-third of Sudan’s population can be considered urban. Urbanization has been more pronounced in areas of the country where trade is more highly developed. With few exceptions, all major cities and towns in Sudan lie along the Nile or one of its tributaries or along the coast of the Red Sea.
The largest urban area is that of the capital, Khartoum, and nearby Omdurman and Khartoum North, located roughly in the centre of the country. The easily defended site of Khartoum was adopted by the Egyptian-Ottoman government as the colonial capital of the Sudan in the 1830s. Today it is firmly established as the centre of both government and commerce in the country. Omdurman, formerly the capital of the Mahdist state in the Sudan, retains a more traditional atmosphere, while Khartoum North is an industrially oriented city. Other major cities and towns in Sudan include Nyala, in the southwest, Port Sudan, on the Red Sea coast in the northeast, and Ubayyid, in the south.
Because of the prevalence of pastoral livelihoods, the Sudanese population is highly mobile. About one-tenth of the population still follows a totally nomadic lifestyle.
