Beja people

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Beja
البجا
Cushites, Tigre, Sudanese Arabs, Nubians

The Beja people (

4000 BC or earlier,[1] although they were Arabized by Arabs who settled in the region.[6] They are nomadic[1] and live primarily in the Eastern Desert. The Beja number around 1,900,000[1] to 2,759,000.[2]

Some of the Beja speak a

Islamization of them.[6][8] The Arabs did not however fully settle in the Beja areas as they looked for better climate in other areas.[8] The Beja have partially mixed with Arabs through intermarriages over the centuries,[8] and by the 15th century were absorbed into Islam.[8] The process of Arabization led to the Beja adopting the Arabic language,[6] Arab clothing,[9] and Arab kinship organization.[1]

While many secondary sources identify the Ababda as an Arabic-speaking Beja tribe because of their cultural links with the Bishari, this is a misconception; the Ababda do not consider themselves Beja, nor are they so considered by Beja people.[10]

History

Twelfth Dynasty ancient Egyptian
tomb

The Beja are traditionally Cushitic-speaking

Beni Amer - a subset of the Beja who live largely in Eritrea sided with the Ethiopian Ras Alula in certain battles, such as Kufit.[15]

Meroe
.

The

Sudan People's Liberation Army, and allied with the rebel movement of the Darfur region, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army, in January 2004. A peace agreement was signed with the government of Sudan in October 2006. In the general elections in April 2010, the Beja Congress did not win a single seat in the National Assembly in Khartoum. In anger over alleged election fraud and the slow implementation of the peace agreement, the Beja Congress in October 2011 withdrew from the agreement, and later announced an alliance with the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army.[citation needed
]

Geography

Beni-Amer woman with her daughter, Kassala state, Sudan.

The Beja people inhabit a general area between the

Jebel Uweinat
is revered by the Qamhat.

Names

The Beja have been named "

Turkish-Egyptian rule, supported by the British Imperial administration.[14]

Language

Geographical distribution of Afroasiatic languages. Beja speakers comprise the northernmost cyan zone, separated from the other Cushitic languages.

Many of the Beja speak Arabic, while some speak the Beja language,[1] known as Bidhaawyeet or Tubdhaawi in that language. It belongs to the Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic family.[18] Cohen noted that the Beja language is the Cushitic language with the largest proportion of Semitic roots, and stated that they are in majority of Arabic origin.[19]

The French linguist Didier Morin (2001) has made an attempt to bridge the gap between Beja and another branch of Cushitic, namely Lowland East Cushitic languages and in particular Afar and Saho, the linguistic hypothesis being historically grounded on the fact that the three languages were once geographically contiguous.[20] Most Beja speak the Beja language, but certain subgroups use other lingua franca. The Beni Amers speak a variety of Tigre, whereas most of the Halenga speak Arabic.[20]

Although there is a marked Arabic influence, the Beja language is still widely spoken. The very fact that the highest moral and cultural values of this society are in one way or the other linked to their expression in Beja, that Beja poetry is still highly praised, and that the claims over the Beja land are only valid when expressed in Beja, are very strong social factors in favour of its preservation. True enough Arabic is considered as the language of modernity, but it is also very low in the scale of Beja cultural values as it is a means of transgressing social prohibitions. Beja is still the prestigious language for most of its speakers because it conforms to the ethical values of the community.[20]

Subdivisions

A Beja shield made of animal hide from the 20th century, in the collection of the Walters Art Museum

The Beja are divided into

Beni-Amer, Hallenga, Habab, Belin and Hamran, some of whom are partly mixed with Bedouins in the east.[citation needed
]

Beja society was traditionally organized into independent kingdoms. According to

Al-Yaqubi, there were six such Beja polities that existed between Aswan and Massawa during the 9th century. Among these were the Kingdom of Bazin, Kingdom of Belgin, Kingdom of Jarin, Kingdom of Nagash, Kingdom of Qita'a and Kingdom of Tankish.[21]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "Beja | people | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2022-09-04.
  2. ^ a b c "Bedawiyet". Ethnologue. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  3. ^ "Bedawiyet". Ethnologue. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  4. ^ "Bedawiyet". Ethnologue. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
  5. ISBN 9780080877754
    . Retrieved 2023-10-25.
  6. ^
    ISBN 978-90-04-39879-5
    .
  7. ^ "Beja". Ethnologue. Retrieved 25 October 2023.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h Záhořík, Jan. "The Islamization of the Beja until the 19th century" (PDF). p. 4.
  9. ISBN 978-1-68471-649-4
    .
  10. ^ ضرار, محمّد صالح (2012). تاريخ شرق السودان. Khartoum: مكتبة التوبة. p. 36.
  11. ^ Ruffini, Giovanni. "Abu Nasr Mutahhar al-Maqdisi". Medieval Nubia: A Source Book. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  12. ^ Hatke, George. "Aksum and Nubia: Warfare, Commerce, and Political Fictions in Ancient Northeast Africa". Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. New York University. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
  13. ISBN 0714617105
    .
  14. ^ a b Orville Boyd Jenkins, Profile of the Beja people (1996, 2009).
  15. ^ Wingate, Francis (1891). Mahdiism and the Egyptian Sudan: Being an Account of the Rise and Progress of Mahdiism and of Subsequent Events in the Sudan to the Present Time. London: Macmillan and Company. p. 230.
  16. ^ Stanley Mayer Burstein, Ancient African Civilizations: Kush and Axum, p. 167 (2008)
  17. ^ Hatke, George. "Aksum and Nubia: Warfare, Commerce, and Political Fictions in Ancient Northeast Africa". Ancient World Digital Library. NYU Press. Retrieved 29 May 2020.
  18. ^ "Bedawiyet". Ethnologue. Retrieved 14 October 2016.
  19. ISBN 978-0-19-960989-5
    .
  20. ^ a b c Martine Vanhove, The Beja Language Today in Sudan: The State of the Art in Linguistics 2006.
  21. ISBN 1841716391
    . Retrieved 13 March 2015.

Further reading

Ethnography

History

  • A. Paul. A history of the Beja tribes of the Sudan, Cambridge University Press, 2012.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Beja people.
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