Description

British occupation, 1882-1936
Cairo Imprint

Abdullah HUSSEIN

[Al-Sudan: Min al-tarikh al-qadim ila rihlat al-ba’thah al-misriyyah / Sudan: From Ancient History to the Journey of the Egyptian Mission].

Cairo: Published at the author’s sole expense and printed by Al-Matba’ah al-Rahmaniyyah [Ma’rouf District, Cairo], 1354, 1935.

Three volumes, bound together in one book (complete). Large 8°. Title page, portrait, 306 pp., [2 pp.] blank. 600 pp. Title page, 342 pp. All volumes richly illustrated with black and white photographs and maps. Copyright stamps on title pages. Contemporary brown patterned binding, dark brown goat spine with gold lettering and tooling (small scuffing to the binding, minor cracks in hinges of endpapers, minor staining, but overall good).

The author, Abdullah Hussein, was a distinguished 20th-century Egyptian intellectual, jurist, and editorial voice for Al-Ahram newspaper, who concurrently served as an academic at the American University in Cairo. Deeply embedded in regional diplomacy, Hussein served on the official Egyptian economic delegation dispatched to Sudan in 1935—a pivotal mission aimed at evaluating regional infrastructure, telegraph lines, and economic frameworks amid sensitive Anglo-Egyptian treaty negotiations. His immersive involvement led directly to his founding of the Society for Sudanese Studies and the Society for African Studies.

This monumental work in three volumes serves as a comprehensive chronological survey and socio-political audit of modern Sudan and its deep ancestral origins. Volume One initiates this sweeping historical study by charting the region’s heritage from the Pharaonic, Ptolemaic, and Roman eras into the sovereign reigns of historic local kingdoms, including Napata, Meroe, and the Sultanate of Sennar. The text provides a rigorous exploration of ethnic origins, domestic religious evolution, the historical patterns of Arab tribal migration, and the subsequent administrative eras of the Ottoman-Egyptian “Turkiyah” and the Mamluks.

Volume Two advances the narrative into modern history, systematically documenting the military campaign that dismantled the Mahdist State and providing an extensive legal analysis of the defining 1899 Anglo-Egyptian Condominium Agreement. It transitions from a strictly historical chronicle into an exhaustive geo-economic survey, meticulously mapping Sudan’s physical geography, agricultural outputs, regional trade paths, and nascent commercial and educational frameworks.

Volume Three serves as a vital contemporary policy reference tool, focusing directly on the 1935 Egyptian Economic Delegation. It delivers close technical coverage of the institutional entities involved, detailed accounts of the expedition’s path, and its strategic geopolitical findings. Crucially, this final volume incorporates dedicated biographical studies, most notably a comprehensive profile honoring Prince Omar Toussoun to highlight his monumental philanthropic and diplomatic impact on modern Egyptian-Sudanese relations.

Self-funded by the author to preserve absolute intellectual independence, examples were distributed directly via Al-Ahram.

References: OCLC 913018939.