ABSTRACT
Darfur (Land of the Fur) is the western region of The Republic of the Sudan (Jumhuriyat as-Sudan). It is approximately the size of France and is divided into three administrative states — North, West, and South — that represent the three ethnic zones of Darfur. Northern Darfur State is the home of camel nomads, a small minority of whom are Meidab Arabs, but the overwhelming majority are non-Arab Zaghawa. In the Western Darfur State, on both sides of the volcanic Jabal Marra massif towering three thousand feet above the vast Sudanic plain, live non-Arab sedentary farmers, the Fur, Massalit, Daju, and Berti. Southern Darfur State is inhabited by the cattle and camel nomads, the Baqqara, who claim Arab (Juhayna) origins and speak Arabic, but are ethnically the result of intercourse with their surrounding African neighbors after arriving in southern Darfur in the eighteenth century. All the peoples of Darfur are Muslims. A few Africans still practice their traditional religions, whose vestiges can be found in the Darfurian symbiotic Muslim practices on this frontier of Islam.
