ABSTRACT
AWLAD JABIR, the Sons of Jabir, were eminent religious teachers in the Nilotic Sudan during the later part of the sixteenth century. Apart from their individual importance, they and their kinsmen by blood and marriage formed a complex group of holy families. Information concerning numerous members of this clan is provided by the biographical dictionary of Sudanese holy men known as the Tabaqat of Wad I)ayfallah (Mu1).ammad al-Nur b. I)ayfallah), which is the main source used in this article. 1
The Ancestry of the Sons of Jabir Concerning the ancestry of the Sons of Jabir, there is a significant ambiguity. The Tabaqat gives the text of an ijaza granted by 'Abd al-Ra1).man b. Jabir to one of his disciples, Ibrahim b. Umm Rabi'a, dated 982/1574-5, which concludes with the words:
By the testimony of 'Abd al-Ra1).man b. Jabir himself, therefore, his family were Arabs of Juhayna, members of which tribe had been moving southwards from Egypt since the third/ninth century, and by the late eighth/fourteenth century were dispersed throughout Nubia, which they controlled.3
