__NOTOC__ The Tunjur (or Tungur) people are a Sunni Muslim

ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

living in eastern

Chad Chad (; ar, تشاد , ; french: Tchad, ), officially the Republic of Chad, '; ) is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic ...

and western

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

. In the 21st century, their number has been estimated at 175.000 people.

History

Based on linguistic and archaeological evidence, the ethnic ancestry of the Tunjur people has been argued by contemporary archaeologist

Claude Rilly Claude Rilly (born 1960) is a French linguist, Egyptologist, and archaeologist at the CNRS who primarily specializes in Meroitic and Nilo-Saharan languages. He is also the Director of the French Archaeological Mission in Sedeinga, Sudan. Lingui ...

to go back to a

Nubia Nubia () ( Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sud ...

n Christian past. Thus, Rilly claims that the name Tunjur goes back to the town of Dongola (Tungul or Old Dongola, where Tungur name is derived from Tungul, the old name of Dongola) in Nubia. According to their own

oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and Culture, cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Traditio ...

s and other scholars, they are of Arab descent, whose ancestors migrated from the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plat ...

to central Sudan either by way of North Africa and

Tunis ''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois , population_note = , population_urban = , population_metro = 2658816 , population_density_km2 = , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 ...

or by way of

. Thus, the 19th century German explorer

Gustav Nachtigal Gustav Nachtigal (; born 23 February 1834 – 20 April 1885) was a German military surgeon and explorer of Central and West Africa. He is further known as the German Empire's consul-general for Tunisia and Commissioner for West Africa. His missio ...

claimed they resemble Arabs in features and behaviour, but this impression has been refuted by modern scholars. Although a minority, the Tunjur became the ruling class of

Darfur Darfur ( ; ar, دار فور, Dār Fūr, lit=Realm of the Fur) is a region of western Sudan. ''Dār'' is an Arabic word meaning "home f – the region was named Dardaju ( ar, دار داجو, Dār Dājū, links=no) while ruled by the Daju ...

and Wadai in the 13th century by peacefully taking over power from the Daju. In the 16th century, they were overthrown by an Arab group that founded the

Keira dynasty The Keira dynasty were the rulers of the Sultanate of Darfur from the seventeenth century until 1916. Originally the Keira clan were perhaps regional rulers in the Tunjur state, with Sulayman traditionally seen as the founder of the Darfur state. ...

, and later merged with the

Fur people The Fur ( Fur: ''fòòrà'', Arabic: فور ''Fūr'') are an ethnic group predominantly inhabiting western Sudan. They are concentrated in the Darfur region, where they are the largest ethnic group.Gettleman, Jeffrey, "Chaos in Darfur on rise as ...

. According to the local legends of the Fur people, Shau Dorshid, the last ruler of the Tunjur, was “driven out by his own people because he compelled his subjects to dig wells in the high rocky regions and to undertake the ardeous and useless task of levelling the Mail mountain peak, on the summit of which he wanted to establish his residence."Nachtigal/Fisher, ''Sahara'', III, 361/IV, 276. His capital was at the site of

Ain Farah Ain Farah is an archaeological site in Darfur in western Sudan. It was at one time the capital of the last Tunjur ruler, Shau Dorshid. It comprises large-scale area of stone and brick walls. It has been visited or described many times. Ain Farah ...

, where specimens of Christian

iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...

were found. About the middle of the 17th century, the Tunjur people were expelled from the Islamic Wadai empire by Abd-el-Kerim of the

Maba people The Maba, Burgu or Bargo people are a minority ethnic group found primarily in the mountainous Ouaddaï region of eastern Chad and adjacent areas of Sudan. Their population is estimated to be about 300,000 in Chad. Other estimates place the total ...

, and the Mabas controlled the slave supply caravans to the north. The Tunjur then migrated west to their current location. Thereafter, they converted to Maliki

fiqh ''Fiqh'' (; ar, فقه ) is Islamic jurisprudence. Muhammad-> Companions-> Followers-> Fiqh. The commands and prohibitions chosen by God were revealed through the agency of the Prophet in both the Quran and the Sunnah (words, deeds, and e ...

of Sunni Islam.

Society

The Tunjur are farmers and live closely associated with the Fur. Their own Tunjur language has become extinct, and they now speak

Chadian Arabic Chadian Arabic ( ar, لهجة تشادية), also known as Shuwa Arabic, Baggara Arabic, Western Sudanic Arabic, or West Sudanic Arabic (WSA), is a variety of Arabic and the first language of 1.6 million people, both town dwellers and nomadic c ...

, Fur, or

Bari Bari ( , ; nap, label= Barese, Bare ; lat, Barium) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, southern Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Ital ...

as their first language.

Contemporary issues

Following the

Darfur conflict The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, is a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups be ...

in February 2003, and like the Fur and the

Zaghawa Zaghawa may refer to: * Zaghawa people * Zaghawa language Zaghawa is a Saharan language spoken by the Zaghawa people of east-central Chad (in the Sahel) and northwestern Sudan (Darfur). The people who speak this language call it Beria, from ''B ...

, many Tunjur also have been affected by fighting and

persecution Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these ter ...

. A number of Tunjur have taken part in the fight against the Sudanese government under the banners of the

Sudan Liberation Movement The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army ( ar, حركة تحرير السودان ''Ḥarakat Taḥrīr Al-Sūdān''; abbreviated SLM, SLA, or SLM/A) is a Sudanese rebel group active in Darfur, Sudan. It was founded as the Darfur Liberation FrontFlin ...

(SLM).

References

;Bibliography * Arkell, A. J. "A History of Darfur. Part II: The Tunjur etc.", ''Sudan Notes and Records'', 32, 2 (1951), 207-238. * Balfour Paul, H. G. 1955. ''History and Antiquities of Darfur.'' Khartoum, Sudan Antiquities Service. * Braukämper, Ulrich: ''Migration und ethnischer Wandel'', Stuttgart, 1992. * Fuchs, Peter: "The Arab origin of the Tunjur'','' in: A. Rouand (ed.), ''Les orientalistes sont des aventuriers,'' Saint-Maur, 1999, 235-9. * * Lange, Dierk
“Abwanderung der assyrischen ''tamkāru'' nach Nubien, Darfur und ins Tschadseegebiet“
in: Bronislaw Nowak et al. (eds.), ''Europejczycy Afrykanie Inni: Studia ofiarowane Profesorowi Michalowi Tymowskiemu'', Warzawa 2011, 199-226. * Nachtigal, Gustav, transl. H. Fisher, ''Sahara and Sudan'', vol. IV (vol. III, 1889), London 1971.
Nave, Ari (2010). Tunjur. In Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Kwame Anthony Appiah (eds.) ''Encyclopedia of Africa.'' Oxford University Press.

O'Fahey, R. S. The Tunjur: a central Sudanic mystery. ''Sudan Notes and Records'', vol. 61 (1980), pp. 47-60
* O'Fahey, R. S. ''The Darfur Sultanate: A History'', London 2008. {{authority control Ethnic groups in Sudan Ethnic groups in Chad Darfur Muslim communities in Africa

History

Society

Contemporary issues

See also

References