The Hamaj Regency (Arabic: وصاية ٱلهمج wiṣāyat ul-Hamaj) was a political order in modern-day central Sudan from 1762 to 1821.
During this period the ruling family of the Funj Sultanate of Sennar continued to reign, while actual power was exercised by the regents.
[4] According to the Funj Chronicle, a slave called Hamaj settled in Sennar along with his extended family, where they prospered and 'increased greatly until they had the power and the prestige in the kingdom.
Badi placed his military forces under the command of the Hamaj general Muhammad Abu Likayik, whom he had appointed as shaykh (possibly, governor) of Kordofan in 1747.
When news of Badi's increasingly arbitrary rule reached the Funj armies in Kordofan, they agreed to depose him under the leadership of Abu Likayik.
Hasan fled to the Ethiopian border, leaving the murdered regent's brother Ali wad Adlan to lead negotiations for capitulation.
Probably on 12 June, the last Funj sultan Badi VII offered his submission to Ismail in person, and the following day the Egyptian army entered Sennar unopposed.
The descriptions of the town they found are a sad testament to the ruin to which the endless wars and strife of the Hamaj had reduced Sennar - the royal palace was derelict, and the mosque covered in graffiti.
[14] Idris Muhammad Adlan Abu Likaylik was a Hamaj chieftain who was lord of the Funj mountains near the Ethiopian border.
He was then appointed shaykh of the Funj mountains, where he remained in office until 1851 when the Governor-General Abdul Latif Pasha removed him and replaced him with his nephew Adlan.
[15] Thereafter, as the Egyptians steadily modernised local government, Hamaj clan members played little influence in Sudanese public life.