A marginal oasis, with few palms and substandard water, it allowed the creation in 1811 of the last trans-Saharan caravan route.

[1] In 1934, Ma'tan as-Sarra was turned over as part of the Sarra Triangle to Fascist Italy by the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, who considered the area worthless sand and a cheap appeasement to Benito Mussolini's attempts at an empire.

[1] In 1972, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi felt that Jaafar Nimeiry of Sudan had betrayed the Arab cause by signing the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement ending the first Sudanese civil war.

[2] In July 1976, one thousand followers of Sudanese opposition leader Sadiq al-Mahdi left the oasis and stormed Khartoum after crossing northern Darfur and Kordofan.

Al-Mahdi's force was defeated only after a tank battalion struck into the city after three days of heavy fighting.