ABSTRACT
The southern boundary of Egypt until modern times was the natural frontier formed by the First Cataract of the Nile, a few miles upstream of Aswan, Beyond this point lay the territory of the Nubians, whose settlements were thinly strung out along the river banks, wherever cultivation was possible. Politically they formed two kingdoms. The more northerly, al-Maqurra, had its capital at Dongolal and it extended to a region called al-Abwab (i.e. the Gates), probably south of the confluence of the Atbara and the Nile. Upstream of al-Abwab lay the southern kingdom ofcAlwa with its capital ofSob a on the Blue Nile. The people (or at least the rulers) ofboth kingdoms had been converted to Christianity in the century before the Arab conquest ofEgypt. The eastern deserts and hills between the Nile valley and the Red Sea were the home of nomadic tribesmen, the Beja, who spoke a Hamitic language, were still pagan, and were independent of control by either Egypt or Nubia. The Red Sea itselfwas a Muslim lake, and ports on the African coast were important entrepots for international trade. Between the fifth/eleventh and the eighth/fourteenth centuries, 'Aydhab (now a deserted site north of Port Sudan) was busy with merchants and pilgrims passing between Upper Egypt and the Hijaz.
