[18] In the 15th century one of these Bedouins, whom Sudanese traditions refer to as Abdallah Jammah, is recorded to have created a tribal federation and to have subsequently destroyed what was left of Alodia.

[citation needed] In the 14th century a Muslim Funj trader named al-Hajj Faraj al-Funi was involved in the Red Sea trade.

[23] Anti-Funj propaganda from the later period of the kingdom referred to the Funj as "pagans from the White Nile" and "barbarians" who had originated from the "primitive southern swamps".

He, who "ruled over black people and white"[27] between the region south of the Nile confluence to as far north as Dongola,[26] owned large herds of various types of animals and commanded many captains on horseback.

[27] Two years later, Ottoman admiral Selman Reis mentioned Amara Dunqas and his kingdom, calling it weak and easily conquerable.

[31] The borders of Funj were raided by Ahmed Gurey during the war taking many slaves before stopping near the Taka mountain range near modern-day Kassala.

[35] Fourteen years later they had pushed as far south as the third cataract of the Nile and subsequently attempted to conquer Dongola, but, in 1585, were crushed by the Funj at the battle of Hannik.

The successors of Ajib, the Abdallab, would receive everything north of the confluence of Blue and White Nile, which they would rule as vassal kings of Sennar.

[46] In 1618-1619 Bahr Negash Gebre Mariam, ruler of the Medri Bahri, helped Emperor Susneyos in a military campaign against the Sennar Sultanate.

The Bahr Negash was successful in capturing Queen Fatima, which he sent back to Emperor Susenyos' palace in Danqaz (Gorgora) and she renewed submission to the Ethiopian Empire.

[49] A rich present by Susenyos, which he perhaps sent in the belief that the successors of Abd al-Qadir II would honour the submission of the latter, was rudely answered with two lame horses and first raids of Ethiopian posts.

[56] Traveller James Bruce noted that Iyasu II, plundered his way back to Ethiopia, allowing him to display his campaign as a success.

[61] He attempted to create a new power base by purging the previous ruling clan, stripping the nobility of their land and instead empowering clients from the western and southern periphery of his realm.

One of these clients was Muhammad Abu Likaylik, a Hamaj (a generic Sudannese term applied to the pre-Funj, non-Arabic or semi-Arabized people of the Gezira and Ethiopian-Sudanese borderlands)[62] from east of Fazughli who was granted land immediately south of Sennar in 1747/1748.

[70] In the second half of the 18th century Sennar lost the Tigre in what is now Eritrea to the rising naib ("deputy") of Massawa,[71] while after 1791 Taka around the Sudanese Mareb River made itself independent.

Regent Muhammad Adlan, who rose to power in 1808 and whose father had been assassinated by a warlord of that period, was able to put an end to these wars and managed to stabilize the kingdom for another 13 years.

Realizing that the Turks were about to conquer his domain, Muhammad Adlan prepared to resist and ordered to muster the army at the Nile confluence, but he fell to a plot near Sennar in early 1821.

One of the murderers, a man named Daf'Allah, rode back to the capital to prepare Sultan Badi VII's submission ceremony to the Turks.

Below the king stood the chief minister, the amin, and the jundi, who supervised the market and acted as commander of the state police and intelligence service.

[81] It was under king Badi II when Sennar became the fixed capital of the state and when written documents concerning administrative matters appeared, with the oldest known one dating to 1654.

[85] The Sultan rarely led armies into battle and instead appointed a commander for the duration of the campaign, called amin jaysh al-sultan.

[86] At its peak the Funj Sultanate was probably able to field about 5,000 horsemen, while in 1772 James Bruce estimated that lightly armed slave warriors fighting as infantry amounted to about 14,000 men.

[89] The weaponry of the Funj warriors consisted of thrusting lances, throwing knives, javelins, hide shields and, most importantly, long broadswords which could be wielded with two hands.

[92] 40 years later Johann Ludwig Burckhardt noted that Mek Nimr, the now independent lord of Shendi, maintained a small force of slaves armed with muskets bought or stolen from Egyptian merchants.

[12] The monarchy they established was divine, similar to that of many other African states:[96] The Funj Sultan had hundreds of wives[97] and spent most of his reign within the palace, secluded from his subjects[98] and maintaining contact only with a handful of officials.

[103] Pork and beer were consumed as staple food throughout much of the kingdom,[96] the death of an important individual would be mourned by "communal dancing, self-mutilation and rolling in the ashes of the feast-fire".

[126] In the Christian period, Nubian languages had been spoken between the region from Aswan in the north to an undetermined point south of the confluence of the Blue and White Nile.

[135] During the reign of sultan Badi III in the late 17th and early 18th century the prosperous and cosmopolitan capital of Sennar was described as "close to being the greatest trading city" in all Africa.

Important revenues came from customs dues levied on the caravan routers leading to Egypt and the Red Sea ports and on the pilgrimage traffic from the Western Sudan.

The thriving trade created a wealthy class of educated and literate merchants, who read widely about Islam and became much concerned about the lack of orthodoxy in the kingdom.