Prehistory and Early History: Northern Sudan was inhabited by hunting and gathering peoples by at least 60,000 years ago. These peoples had given way to pastoralists and probably agriculturalists at least by the fourth millennium B.C. Sudan’s subsequent culture and history have largely revolved around relations to the north with Egypt and to the south with tropical Africa, the Nile River forming a “bridge” through the Sahara Desert between the two. The Ancient Egyptians sent military expeditions into Nubia, the region between the first and second Nile cataracts, and at times occupied Nubia as well as Cush, the land between the second and sixth cataracts, the population becoming partially Egyptianized. From the early eighth century to the mid-seventh century B. C., the Cushites conquered and ruled Egypt. By the early sixth century B.C., a Cushitic state, Meroe, had emerged that eventually extended southward almost to present-day Khartoum. Meroe maintained commercial relations with the Roman world, developed a distinctive culture and written language, and became the locale of an iron-working industry. It succumbed to invasion in the mid-fourth century A. D.

By the sixth century, three states had emerged as the political and cultural heirs of the Meroitic kingdom. All were ruled by warrior aristocracies who converted to Christianity, accepting the Monophysite rite of Egypt. The church encouraged literacy, the use of Greek in liturgy eventually giving way to the Nubian language. Arabic, however, gained importance after the seventh century, especially as a medium for commerce. With the disintegration of the Christian Nubian kingdoms by the fifteenth century, Islamic civilization and religion spread throughout northern and eastern Sudan. Pastoralists from Egypt filtered into the land, gradually giving rise to a new population composed of local Nubians and Muslim Arabs.

Islam and the Mahdi: The coming of Islam gradually changed the nature of Sudanese society and facilitated the division of Sudan into northern and southern halves, one Arab, the other, African. In the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Turks, governors of Egypt, claimed Nubia as a dependency but exerted little authority beyond the Nile. Meanwhile, in central Sudan, a new state called Funj arose with its capital at Sannar on the Blue Nile. The Funj checked the expansion of the Arabs, in the process becoming devout Muslims themselves. In the west, the Fur people formed the state of Darfur and similarly adopted Islam. Both states engaged in the slave trade with Egypt.

Early in the nineteenth century, the Egyptians sent another military expedition into Sudan, establishing a new administration known as the Turkiyah, or Turkish regime. The Egyptians divided Sudan into provinces, and in 1835 Khartoum became the seat of a governor general. They fostered the growth of Islamic law and institutions and organized and garrisoned the new provinces of Bahr al Ghazal, Equatoria, and Upper Nile, home to the Nilotic Dinka, Nuer, and Shilluk as well as the non–Nilotic Azande. In 1874 Egypt conquered and annexed Darfur. Slavery and the slave trade, age-old practices in Sudan, intensified during the nineteenth century. Annual raids for slaves resulted in the capture of thousands of black Sudanese, the destruction of the region’s stability and economy, and a deep hatred of Arabs among the Southerners.

In the early 1880s, an Islamic cleric, seeking to create a “purified” form of Islam and to throw off Ottoman rule from Egypt, took the title of “Mahdi” (“the rightly guided one”), and launched a revolt against the Ottomans as well as against the British, who in 1882 had assumed control of affairs in Egypt. By late 1885, the Mahdi’s forces, the Ansar, had driven the Egyptians out of Sudan. Mahdist control of central and northern Sudan lasted until an Anglo-Egyptian army defeated the Ansar in 1898. The next year, the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium in Sudan was proclaimed, which provided for joint overlordship but which in effect placed control in British hands.

Colonial Era: British authorities created a new administration in Sudan under a governor general and provincial governors. Some economic development occurred, but it was confined to the Nile Valley’s settled areas. In 1916 the British terminated Darfur’s independence by annexing that sultanate. The three southern provinces, Bahr al Ghazal, Equatoria, and Upper Nile, were separated from the North economically and politically to allow the South to develop in its own way, but in reality the region remained isolated and economically undeveloped. Western missionaries introduced Christianity, established mission schools, and provided some social services to the black population. Sudanese nationalism developed after World War I as an Arab and Muslim phenomenon with its support base in the northern provinces. The nationalists were divided between those who favored unification with Egypt and a pro-independence movement. The latter prevailed, and on January 1, 1956, Britain granted independence to Sudan.

Independence: Independent Sudan continued to be bedeviled by Southerners’ fears of domination by the North and of the imposition of an Islamic and Arabic-speaking administration. Discontent flared as early as 1955. Rebellion began in earnest in 1963 and lasted through the 1990s except for a decade of peace from 1972 to 1983. Peace negotiations repeatedly foundered over the issues of self-determination for the South and the application of sharia (Islamic law). Beginning in 1983, Colonel John Garang assumed leadership of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the main opposition force. The Northerners were headed after mid-1989 by Lieutenant General Umar Hassan Ahmad al Bashir and his ally, Hasan Abd Allah al Turabi, of the National Islamic Front party. The regime became increasingly Islamist, in keeping with al Turabi’s views, and remained so even after al Bashir ousted al Turabi from the government and imprisoned him in 2002. Sudan’s financial prospects improved dramatically in the late 1990s with the export of petroleum from oilfields in the South.

Negotiations between the regime and the SPLA produced results only after international mediation. In June 2002, both sides agreed that a referendum on self-determination for the South would be held within six years of a peace agreement and that in the interim the sharia would not apply to non-Muslim Southerners. Subsequent negotiations produced a cease-fire in much of the South, provisions governing national institutions, security arrangements, a formula for sharing oil revenues, and a federal governing structure. These negotiations, however, were overshadowed by a separate rebellion in Darfur that began in 2003 over alleged economic and political marginalization. The al Bashir regime sent Arab militias into Darfur, whose atrocities drew international condemnation, threats of sanctions from the United Nations, and, in late 2004, emplacement of cease-fire monitoring troops from the African Union.