As R. S. O'Fahey describes it, by the end of the seventeenth century the caravan route of darb al-arbaïn between Därfür and Assiout in Upper Egypt was well-established. The merchants regularly went back and forth across great distances of desert, and learned to find or create homes at either end of their journeys. In a way, this was true of the ulamä´ too. These were learned men who crossed the Islamic world in wide swathes from Mecca to West Africa, and who traveled to Därfür to work as judges or in other capacities for the sul- tan. Many of them came from North Africa,Arabia, or Egypt.They had cre- dentials from al-Azhär University and spoke an impressive classical Arabic that raised their importance in the eyes of the Fur sultans, who were them- selves looking to Islamize both court and country.

Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Coloni…, loc. 146