the Emir Abdallah Ibn Sad Ibn Aly Sarh, to the chief of Nouba, and
all his people, valid for the great and the small among the Nouba,
from the limits of Assouan to those of Aloa. Aly Sarh establishes
safe conduct and peace between them, the neighbouring Moslims of
Upper Egypt, and the other Moslims, and all their tributaries. You
people of Nouba shall be in complete security, the security
of God and his prophet Mohammed, that we shall not attack you,
or wage war upon you, or make hostile incursions against you,
as long as you fulfil the conditions existing between us; which
are, that you shall enter our country merely to pass through it,
without remaining therein, and that we likewise shall only pass
through your country, without taking up our residence there. You
shall protect those Moslims, or their allies, who arrive in your
country and travel through it until they have left it. You shall
send back to the country of the Islam the run-away slaves of the
Moslims, who have come to you, and likewise the Moslim who is at
war with the Moslims, and has demanded your protection. You shall
expel him, and oblige him to return to the country of the Islam;
you shall not embrace his party, and prevent his being seized;
and you shall not put any obstacle to the business of a Moslim (in
your country); on the contrary, you shall favour him with respect
to it, until he quits the country.—You shall take care of the
mosque which the Moslims have built on the side of your town, and
not prevent any body from praying there; you shall keep it clean,
and light it, and honour it. Every year you shall pay three hundred
and sixty head of slaves to the chief of the Moslims, of the middle
sort of slaves of your country; none with bodily defects; males and
females, but no old men and women, and no children under age; these
you shall deliver into the hands of the governor of Assouan. No
Moslim shall be obliged to protect or defend you against enemies
that may attack you from Aloa, as far as Assouan. If you harbour
the slave of a Moslim, or kill a Moslim, or an ally, or attempt
to ruin the mosque built by the Moslims on the side of your town,
or withhold any part of the 360 head of slaves, then this peace
and pledged security shall be void, and we shall return to be
enemies, until God shall judge between us, and he is the best of
all judges. Upon these conditions we pledge to you, and engage to
you our promise and security, in the name of God and his Prophet;
and you stand pledged to us by those you hold most holy in your
faith, the Messiah and the Apostles, and all those you venerate in
your religion, and who are witnesses between you and ourselves.”
Omar Ibn Sharhabyl wrote (this) in the month of Ramadhan, in the
year 31 ———[126]
The Nouba had already paid this tribute to Amr Ibn el Aas, before
the rupture of the peace, and had presented him moreover with a
present of forty head of slaves; but this he refused to accept, and
returned the present to the chief (collector) of the Bakt, called
Samkous, who purchased for them wine and provisions to the same
value, which he sent to them.[127] Aly Sarh fulfilled his promise
to the Nouba, and sent them corn and barley, lentils, clothes,
and horses. This remained afterwards a regular custom. The Nouba
received the amount of it every year, when they paid their tribute,
and the number of forty slaves who had been offered to Amr Ibn el
Aas were now yearly taken by the governors of Egypt. Aly Kheleyfa
Homeyd Ibn Hesham el Baheyry relates, that the stipulated conditions
of peace with the Nouba consisted of three hundred and sixty head
of slaves to the Shade of the Moslims,[128] (في المسلمين)
and forty to the governor of Egypt, and that they should receive
in return one thousand Erdeybs of wheat, and their delegates three
hundred Erdeybs of it; the same quantity of barley was to be given,
and further, one thousand Kanyr of wine to the king, and three
hundred Kanyr of wine to the delegates, together with two mares
of the best kind, fit for princes.[129] Farther, of the different
stuffs of linen cloth one hundred pieces, and of the kind called
Kobaty four pieces to the king and three to the envoys, of the
kind called Baktery eight pieces, and of the Malam five pieces,
and moreover a fine Djebbe[130] to the king. Of the shirts called
Aly Baktar, ten pieces, and of the first quality of shirts likewise
ten, every one of which is equal to three of the common sort.
The Nouba regularly paid their Bakt every year, and received in
return the above menmentioned articles, until the times of the
Emir of the true Believers, El Motassem b’illah Aly Is-hak, the
son of Er-rasheid, when Zakarya Ibn Bahnas[131] was their king. At
that period the Nouba having perhaps been tardy in paying the Bakt,
and the Moslim governors of the frontier provinces having treated
them harshly, and withheld from them the supply of provisions,
Feyrakey the son of Zakarya refused his father to submit in
obedience to foreigners, and reproached him with weakness in paying
the tribute. His father then asked him what his advice was, and he
replied, to revolt against the Moslims, and make war with them. Our
forefathers, answered Zakarya, thought this a just measure; I am
afraid that the worst of the business will devolve upon you. We
shall prepare for this war against the Moslims, but I will send
you to their king as an envoy: you will know the state of their
affairs and your own. If you think that we are a match for them,
we shall go to war, and trust to God; if not, you will ask the king
for presents. Feyraky then set out for Bagdad; he passed through the
towns, and the country appeared to him very fine. In coming down,
he was joined by the king of the Bedja and his retinue. They met El
Motasem, and they were astonished to see in the Irak, besides what
they had already witnessed on the road; the quantity of soldiers,
and the flourishing state of the country. El Motasem received
Feyraky with politeness and kindness, and treated him with great
generosity. He accepted his presents, and returned them two-fold,
and told him to demand any favour he liked. Upon which he begged
that the prisoners[132] might be set free, which was granted
to him. Feyraky rose high in the opinion of Motasem; who made
him a present of the house at which he had alighted in the Irak,
and gave orders to purchase in every town on his way a house for
the accommodations of the messengers he might send, and wherein no
other travellers should be permitted to lodge. At Cairo two houses
were purchased for him; one at Djyze and another at Beni Wayl,[133]
and they received from the treasury of Cairo seven hundred Dinars, a
mare, a saddle, a bridle, a gilt sword, a rich habit, a silk turban,
a cloke, and a shirt of the finest sort, and pieces of stuff for
his delegates, which were not accounted for in the returns of the
tribute. They had further to receive two loads,[134] and from the
collector of the Bakt a suit of clothes, and had, in their turn,
to give to the latter, and to those who accompanied him, certain
articles. Whatever might be given to them (beyond these fixed
things) should be considered as presents, which they would return
in the same manner. Upon enquiry El Motasem found that what was
given to the Noubas by the Moslims exceeded the value of the Bakt;
he therefore refused to give them any more wine, or to send them
(the full amount of) the corn and the stuffs above mentioned; and
he re-established the Bakt to be sent at intervals of every three
years; and wrote to them a letter on that subject, which remained
in their hands. The king of the Noubas demanded justice from some
of the inhabitants of Assouan, who had purchased landed property
from his slaves.[135] El Motasem ordered inquiry to be made into
it at Assouan, where the tribunal of the judge was. But the slaves
being questioned, said, “We are his subjects, not his slaves,”
and thus his suit was rejected. He then demanded among other things,
that the military post at the Kaszer, which was situated within his
territory, should be removed to the frontier; but this request was
not granted. These stipulations continued to subsist between the
Noubas and Egypt, and the Bakt was paid, and the returns given
as Motasem had regulated them, until the Fatimites arrived in
Egypt.—Thus far goes the relation of the Nubian historian.
Abou Hassan el Masoudy[136] relates:—The Bakt is the annual tribute
of slaves which has been imposed upon the Noubas, and is received
from them and carried to Egypt. It consists in three hundred and
sixty five head of slaves to the public treasury, according to
the tenour of the articles of peace between the Noubas and the
Moslims. Besides these, the governor of Egypt receives forty head;
his representative, who resides at Assouan, and collects the Bakt,
twenty head; the governor of Assouan, who, together with him, is
present at the collecting of the Bakt, five head, and the twelve
trusty witnesses of the people of Assouan, who are to accompany
the governor on this business, twelve head; the whole, according
to the stipulations of the Bakt, when the Moslims and Noubas first
concluded their treaty.
El Beladiry, in his work entitled El Tetouhat,[137] says: “the
amount of the renewed tribute of the Noubas is four hundred slaves,
for which they take in return victuals, that is to say, grain. The
Emir of the true Believers, El Mohdy Mohammed Ibn Aly Djafar el
Mansour,[138] obliged them to pay three hundred and sixty head of
slaves, and a Giraffa. The mischievous and troublesome behaviour of
Daoud (David) the king of the Noubas, was principally manifested in
the year of the Hejira 674. After he had committed great excesses at
Aidab, he came with his army nearly as far as Assouan, and there
burnt many water wheels. The governor of Kous marched against
Daoud, but not meeting with him, laid hold of the Lord of the
Mountain, and numbers of Noubas, whom he carried before the Sultan
Daher Bybars el Bondokdary, at the Castle of Cairo, where their
bodies were severed in two. Shekendy,[139] the son of the King
of Nouba’s sister, then came to implore assistance against the
injustice which he had experienced from his uncle Daoud. The Sultan
ordered the Emir Shams-eddyn Ak Soukor el Farekany, the intendant
of his household,[140] with the Emir Djandar Emir Oz-eddyn Aybek el
Afram,[141] to march together with Shekendy against Daoud, with a
large army composed of the provincial horsemen,[142] and of the Arabs
of southern Egypt, and of lancers, bowmen, and fire-men.[143] They
left Cairo on the first of the month of Sheban. Upon their arrival
in Nouba the enemy met them, mounted upon camels, armed with lances,
and covered with black Dekadek.[144] Both parties fought bravely,
and the Noubas fled. El Afram now fell upon Kallat Addo,[145]
where he killed and took prisoners many of them. El Farakany
penetrated into the interior of Nouba by land and by the river,
killing or enslaving every body. He took an innumerable quantity
of cattle, and alighted at the island of Mykayl, at the top of the
cataracts;[146] from whence he obliged the Nouba ships to retreat,
while the Nouba themselves fled to the islands. He then wrote
a promise of safe conduct to Kamr el Doula,[147] the lieutenant
of Daoud, who swore allegiance to the Shekendy, and brought back
all the people of Merys, and the fugitives; after which El Afram
crossed over a shallow part of the river, to a tower built in the
water, which he besieged until he took it. Two hundred men were
killed there, and a brother of Daoud was taken prisoner; Daoud
fled, and was closely pursued for three days by the soldiers,
who killed and took prisoners a great number on the road, until
the people submitted. The mother and sister of Daoud were taken,
but he himself escaped. Shekendy was now confirmed in his stead,
and agreed to pay an annual personal tribute of three elephants,
three giraffas, five female Fahed, one hundred camels of good race,
and four hundred chosen cows,[148] and that the soil of Nouba
should thenceforward be divided into two parts;[149] one half for
the Sultan, and the other to be appropriated to the fertilizing and
guarding of the country; excepting the territory of the cataracts,
which was to belong entirely to the Sultan, on account of its
vicinity to Assouan: this alone was about one-fourth of Nouba.[150]
Farther, that the dates and the cotton of this part, as well as
the ancient customary duties, should be carried off, and that as
long as they should remain Christians, they should pay the Djezye,
or annual Om Dinar in cash, for every grown up person.[151] There
was a form of oath written out concerning these articles, by which
Shekendy bound himself, and there was another by which his subjects
swore. The two commanders destroyed the churches of Nouba,[152] and
carried away whatever they found in them. They seized about twenty of
the chiefs of Nouba, and liberated the Moslims of Assouan and Aidab,
who were captives in the hands of the Noubas. Shekendy was crowned,
and seated on the throne of his kingdom, after he had taken his
oath. He was obliged to send the property of Daoud, and that of all
those who were killed or taken captives, whether money or cattle,
to the Sultan, together with the usual Bakt. This consisted in an
annual payment of a giraffa and of four hundred slaves, of whom three
hundred and sixty were for the Khalif, and forty for his lieutenant
at Cairo, with the condition that he should send them in return,
upon the full receipt of the Bakt, one thousand Erdeybs of wheat
to the king of Nouba, and three hundred to his delegates.[153]
_Description of the Town of Assouan._[154]
It begins with some remarks on the etymology of the word Assouan,
which is said to mean a person in grief. Assouan lies on the
extremity of the territories of Sayd. It is one of the harbours
of this province, and divides Nouba from the country of Egypt. In
former times a great plenty of wheat, grain, fruits, vegetables,
and pot herbs, was found here, together with abundance of camels,
cows, and sheep, whose flesh is of peculiar good flavour and
fatness. The prices of provisions were always very low. Goods
and articles of trade were found here, that were transported to
the country of Nouba. To the east there is not any Moslim country
bordering on Assouan: to the south there is a mountain, in which are
the mines of emeralds, in an insulated barren country. At fifteen
days journey from Assouan are the gold mines.[155] To the westward
are the Oases. From Assouan a road leads to Aidab, from whence is the
passage to the Hedjaz, and Yemen, and India. Masoudy relates: Assouan
is inhabited by people of the Arabs Kahtan, Nezar Ibn Rabya, Modher,
and Arabs of Koreysh, most of them transplanted from the Hedjaz.[156]
The town has abundance of date trees; it is fertile and rich. The
date stone is put into the ground, and the tree grows out of it,
and after (a certain number of) years they eat the fruit.[157] The
people of Assouan possess many villages within the confines of Nouba,
the duties on which they pay to the king of Nouba. These villages
were bought from the Noubas in the time of the Islam, during the
reign of Beni Omeya and Beni Abbas. When El Mamoun arrived in Egypt,
the king of Nouba asked for his protection against these people of
Assouan, by means of emissaries whom he dispatched to Fostat. They
complained to El Mamoun, that some villages of Nouba had been sold
to their neighbours of Assouan; that these villages belonged to the
king of Nouba, and that those who sold them were the king’s slaves,
who possessed no property, and whose only business it was to take
care of the cultivation. Mamoun referred them to the governor of
Assouan, to the learned men, and Shikhs of that town. The people
of Assouan who had bought the villages, perceiving that they were
in danger of losing them, had recourse to a stratagem against the
king of Nouba. They proposed to the Noubas who had sold the villages,
when they appeared before the governor, to deny that they were slaves
of the king, and to say, “the same relation exists between us and
our king, O Moslims, as between you and your king. We owe him only
submission, and are bound only not to contravene his orders. If you,
therefore, are the slaves, and the property of your king, then we are
the same.” They spoke other similar things, to which they had been
prompted, and thus the sale was confirmed, and so it has remained
until our times. The possession of these villages, in the territory
of Merys in the country of Nouba, was transmitted by inheritance,
and the Noubas, the subjects of the king, now became divided into
two classes; the one, as we have stated, freemen, not slaves, and
the other part slaves.[158] The latter were those who did not dwell
in this territory of Merys, which is in the neighbourhood of Assouan.
Masoudy relates,[159] that the Noubas were divided into two
branches. The one dwelt on the two banks of the Nile; their territory
bordered upon the territory of the Copts of Upper Egypt, and extended
far up the river; they built, as the seat of their government, the
large city of Dóngola. The other race of the Noubas is called Aloa,
and they have built the large town of Serfeta.[160] The country
of Nouba, the territory of which borders upon the soil of Assouan,
is called Merys, from which the Merysan wind takes its name.[161]
On the east side of Upper Egypt is a large mountain of marble,
from whence the ancients cut columns, and pedestals, and capitals,
which the Egyptians call Assouanye, (the same name they also give
to the mill-stones). The ancients wrought these things many hundred
years before the appearance of Christianity, and among them are to
be reckoned the columns of Alexandria.
In the month of Zol Hadj, in the year 344, the king of Nouba attacked
Assouan, and killed many Moslims. In the month of Moharran 345,
marched against him Mohammed Ibn Abdallah, the treasurer of the
Egyptian army of El Wodjour, Ibn el Ak Shedy (king of Egypt), by
land and by sea.[162] He sent back many prisoners of the Noubas,
who were beheaded at Cairo, after the king of Nouba had likewise
met with his fate. He continued his march until he conquered Ibrim,
and reduced its inhabitants to captivity, and he returned to Cairo
with 150 prisoners, and many heads, in the middle of the month of
Djomad el Awal, 345.[163]
The Kadhy el Fadhel states, that in the year 585, the income
of the port of Assouan was 25,000 Dinars.[164] Djaafar el Edfouy
relates:[165] at Assouan are 80 officers of the tribunal of justice,
and Assouan produced in one year 30,000 Erdeybs of dates. Somebody
informed me that he had met with a writing that contained the names
of 40 Sherifs of the purest race (of Assouan) and another in which
there were 60, besides the rest. And (El Edfouy) says: “I have
met with a writing, dated in the year 620, that mentioned the names
of 40 authors of Assouan.”
At Assouan were settled the Beni el Kenz, a tribe of Rabya, very
praiseworthy people, celebrated by many verses. El Fadhel el Sedyd
Abou el Hassan Ibn Aram has written their history. When Salah eddyn
Ibn Ayoub[166] sent an army against Kenz el Doula[167] and his party,
they left this territory.[168] The soldiers entered their houses,
and found therein verses of those who had sung their praises, and
among the rest a poem of Mohammed el Hassan Ibn Zebeyr, in which
was this passage:
They help him whom the times have betrayed or oppressed;
People they are, who never dwell where dishonour abides;
When they grant their protection, no man under the stars fears;
When they dispense with their generosity, no want remains upon the
earth’s surface.
For which the author received 1000 Dinars, and a water-wheel
(with its field) was entailed upon him, worth 1000 Dinars.[169]
regular armed garrison had always been stationed at Assouan,
to guard the harbour against the inroads of the Nouba, and the
blacks. When the reign of the Fatimites terminated,[170] this port
was neglected. The king of Nouba, with 10,000 men, fell then again
upon the island opposite Assouan,[171] and took prisoners all its
Moslim inhabitants.[172] After this period the affairs of this
harbour declined. After the year 790, the tribe of El Kenz became
masters of it. They behaved vilely, and had many wars with the
governors of this town, until the destructive epoch of 806.[173]
Upper Egypt was then ruined and depopulated, the Sultan drew off
his hand from Assouan, and he no longer kept a governor there. It
remained in a deserted state for many years. In the month of
Moharram, of the year 815, the Arabs Howara[174] proceeded to
Assouan and attacked the Beni Kenz, and obliged them to fly.[175]
They killed many of them, and reduced to slavery all the women and
children whom they took prisoners.[176] They destroyed the walls of
Assouan, departed with their captives, and left the city in ruins,
without inhabitants. In this state the town remained, of which Selym
el Assouany relates, that when Abd el Hamyd el Amry took the mines,
he wrote to Assouan to demand from the merchants to supply him with
provisions, upon which one man of the name of Othman Ibn Hauthale
el Temymy, carried to him 1000 loads of provisions and corn. (Here
follows a few other notices on Assouan of little interest.)
_Belak._
Belak is the last fortified place of the Moslims. It is an island
in the neighbourhood of the cataract, surrounded by the Nile, with
a large town upon it, well inhabited, with a number of date trees,
and a Mambar (pulpit) in a mosque.[177] Between this and the city
called Kaszer, which is the first town of Nouba, is one mile, and
between Assouan and Belak four miles. Between Assouan and Belak
are cataracts in the river, over which the ships cannot pass but
with great caution, and guided by the fishermen of these parts,
who are acquainted with the passage. At the Kaszer is a garrison
post, and it is a gate towards Nouba.
_On the Desert of Aidab or Aizab._
The pilgrims from Egypt and Barbary remained upwards of 200 years
without taking any other road to Mekka, may God honour her, than
by the desert of Aidab. They embarked on the Nile at the plain of
Fostat, and ascended as far as Kous. From thence they mounted camels,
and crossed this desert to Aidab, where they afterwards embarked in
vessels for Djidda, on the coast of Mekka. In the same manner the
merchants of India, and Yemen, and Habesh, arrived by this sea at
Aidab, reached through this desert the town of Kous, and from thence
Mesr. This desert continued to be peopled and frequented by caravans
of merchants and of pilgrims going and coming, in so much that loads
of spices and drugs, as pepper, cinnamon, and others were found on
the road, while caravans were ascending and descending, and nobody
touched them until their owner took them away.[178] The pilgrims
in going to Mekka and returning from thence, continued to frequent
that road more than 200 years, from the year 453 and upwards, to the
year 663 and upwards, at which time happened the great misfortune
during the reign of the Khalif Mostanser b’illah Aly Temim Mad Ibn
el Dhaher,[179] and the pilgrim caravans were interrupted by land
and by sea until the Sultan Dhaher Roken eddyn Bybars el Bondokdary
clothed again the Kaba, and made a key to it. A caravan then departed
by land in the year 66—.[180] But the passage of pilgrims through
this desert became less frequent, although it continued to be the
road by which the merchandises were carried from Aidab to Kous,
until the year 760, when it was abandoned, after which the affairs
of Kous declined. This desert from Kous to Aidab is seventeen days
journey across, during which no water is found for three, and once
for four, successive days.[181] Aidab is a town on the coast of the
sea of Djidda. It has no walls, and most of its houses are built
of mats.[182] It was formerly one of the first harbours of the
world, because the ships from India and Yemen brought here their
merchandise, and set sail again in company with the ships of the
pilgrims that passed to and fro. When the Indian and Yemen ships
ceased to arrive at this place, then Aden, of the Yemen, became the
great harbour, until after 820 and upwards, Djidda became the first
harbour of the world, and likewise Hormuz, which is a fine anchoring
place. Aidab is situated in a desert devoid of any vegetation;
all the provisions, even the water, are imported. Its inhabitants
derived immense gains from the merchants and the pilgrims; they had
certain established dues from every camel’s load belonging to the
pilgrims,[183] and hired their ships to them to cross over the sea
to Djidda, and from thence back to Aidab; by which they accumulated
great riches. There was no inhabitant of Aidab who had not one or
more ships, in proportion to the amount of his property. In the
sea of Aidab, at some islands in the vicinity of it, is a pearl
fishery.[184] The divers issue from Aidab every year at a fixed
period, in small boats. Arrived at the island, they remain there
some time, and come back with whatever has fallen to their good
fortune. They find the pearls in water of little depth.