Rex Seán O’Fahey’s The Darfur Sultanate stands as the definitive historical analysis of the region, distilling four decades of research into a single volume. The work provides a comprehensive narrative from the rise of the Keira sultanate through the colonial era and into the modern period. It is celebrated by scholars for its unparalleled depth of research into Darfur’s pre-colonial past, offering profound and often surprising insights that fundamentally reshape our understanding of the region’s political and social structures. 

This work presents a rare collection of British colonial documents copied in al-Fashir and Kutum before the originals were lost. It documents the period of Anglo-Egyptian rule in Darfur (1916-1956), a time when the administration largely maintained the existing systems of the Darfur sultans with minimal intervention. The book serves as an essential reference for understanding traditional governance, land tenure, and tribal administration. Scholars have praised this compilation for providing crucial insights into the historical roots of the region’s contemporary challenges, highlighting how this colonial-era framework continues to influence Darfur’s present reality.

This pioneering study of the Darfur Sultanate’s 18th-19th century administration is based on recently discovered Arabic land charters. It presents forty-seven documents revealing sophisticated systems of land grants and rights. Scholars recognize it as essential for understanding pre-colonial Sudanese governance, providing unparalleled insight into the social and economic structures that defined the sultanate. The work remains invaluable for historians of Africa and comparative land studies.

This pioneering study provides the first comprehensive history of Sudan’s two major pre-colonial states: the Funj kingdom of Sinnār and the Keira sultanate of Dār Fūr. Drawing on Arabic chronicles, traveler accounts, and oral traditions, the book examines their political structures, economic networks, and Islamization from the 16th to 19th centuries. It fills a crucial gap in African historiography by documenting these eastern Sudanic polities that were overshadowed by better-known West African empires. The work remains a foundational text for understanding state formation in the Nile-Sahel corridor and continues to influence modern Sudanese scholarship.

This critical edition presents Ahmad ibn Idris’s sophisticated critiques of rigid legal tradition (taqlīd) and Wahhabism. Translating this work into Arabic restores these essential texts—with their scholarly annotations—to their original linguistic community, enabling Arabophone scholars and Sufi orders to engage directly with the Idrisi intellectual legacy. This “repatriation” corrects distorted transmissions and integrates Ibn Idris’s nuanced arguments into contemporary Arabic debates on Islamic reform and ijtihād, establishing the book as an authoritative text for universities across the Muslim world.

This foundational volume of the Arabic Literature of Africa series represents the first comprehensive bio-bibliographical survey of Islamic writing from Eastern Sudanic Africa. It meticulously documents the intellectual heritage of the region through detailed entries on authors and their works in Arabic and local languages, preserving a rich scholarly tradition that was previously scattered and inaccessible. The work serves as an indispensable reference for understanding the depth and breadth of Islamic scholarship in Sudan, providing scholars and students with the essential tools to explore this vital aspect of Africa’s intellectual history.