ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the political history of the Hassaniya and Kawahla will be presented with emphasis upon the main features of the Hassaniya polity and political leadership in the pre-Condominium era. To solve this problem the government summoned a tribal meglis, consisting of the big men of the Hassaniya concerned, the parties to the conflict, some religious shaikhs. Although the institutionalization of formal positions of authority at the tribal, tribal-section levels began from the turn of the century, the colonial policy of indirect rule became fully mature only in 1930 when it was agreed upon, referred to throughout the Sudan as 'the Native Administration'. The reciprocal political and religious leadership that he established between the Hassaniya and the Hissinat continued until the middle of the century, around the 1940s and 1950s, when the socio-economic conditions created by the institution of the dam, the accompanying administrative policy led the Hissinat religious shaikhs to rebel against the political leadership of the Hassaniya.
