The Fur (Fur: fòòrà, Fūr) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting Darfur in the western Sudan, where they are the largest ethnic group. They speak the Fur language, which belongs to the Nilo-Saharan family. Darfur means home of the Fur. They are Muslim cattle herders and farmers, and have been displaced and attacked in ethnic conflicts.
Overview
The Fur's traditional territory|thumb
thumb|right|Linguistic map of the non-Arab peoples of Darfur, showing the extent of the Fur language.
The Fur are the largest ethnic group in the Darfur region of western Sudan. They are also sometimes referred to by the names Fora, Fordunga, Furawi, Konjara, or Kungara. They are an active agricultural people and may also herd cattle. Some Fur families who have accumulated a substantial cattle herd developed a more nomadic lifestyle like that of their herding neighbors, the Baqqara (Baggara) Arabs. Culturally, those cattle-herding Fur are now considered to be Baqqara. The Fur are nominally Sunni Muslims following the Maliki school of Islamic law.
They are a Western Sudanese people who practice sedentary herding and agriculture, mainly the cultivation of millet. Their society is a traditional one governed by village elders. They speak Fur, a Nilo-Saharan language, and are Muslims, having adopted the religion following the region's conquest by the Kanem-Bornu Empire during the Middle Ages. Some of them have come to speak Arabic in recent years. Most of the well known governors of Darfur such as Deriage and Tegani Seisei are members of the Fur. The Fur established the historical Sultanate of Darfur which governed Darfur until 1916 (see History of Darfur). established the Sudan Liberation Movement and Army. Another leader of the Fur, , is Ahmed Abdelshafi (Toba).
Social behavior
Roles of men and women
The men bear the family name. They work to bring money to the family and are responsible for all important decisions related to the family, such as finances and marriages. The women get water, prepare the food and ensure the cleanliness of the home.
Food
Millet is used to make asida. Parts of the Balanites aegyptiaca including leaves and fruit are prepared as food. Rats and animals bones are part of the diet of the Fur.
Sudan's Guhwah coffee is served from a jebena, a special Sudanese pot. The coffee beans are roasted in this pot over charcoal, then ground with cloves and other spices. The grounds are steeped in hot water and the coffee is served in tiny cups after straining it through a grass sieve.
Political situation
Until 1916, the Fur were ruled by an independent sultanate and were oriented politically to peoples in Chad. Though the ruling dynasty before that time, as well as the common people, had long been Muslims, they have not been Arabized. They are now incorporated into the Sudan political system. The Fur had been basically independent from the 17th century. After British reconquest in 1899, the British approved the re-establishment of the Fur Sultanate, assumed by Ali Dinar when the Mahdist movement crumbled.
Mahdist revolts continued to break out in Sudan until 1916. The fall of Darfur was decided when Ali Dinar declared loyalty to the Ottoman Empire in World War I. The British abolished the Fur Sultanate in 1916 after Dinar died in battle.
During World War I, Darfur made a bid for independence by allying with Turkey against the British. The British conquered Darfur in 1916, and since then it has been part of Sudan. Since the 1970s, the Darfur area has suffered some of the effects of the northern Arab war prosecuted in the south against Southern ethnic groups who wanted to secede from Sudan.
War and conflict have ravaged the Darfur region in recent decades. A civil war lasted about 20 years until the end of the 20th Century. Conflict in the region arose again in 2003, deriving from earlier disputes surrounding water and land use between the Fur and other sedentary agricultural populations and Arab nomadic groups who had historically inhabited the region. The Sudanese military, in alliance with a proxy Arab nomadic militia known as the Janjaweed, orchestrated a concerted, scorched earth campaign in Darfur against the Fur and other historically sedentary groups. Forces would move from village to village, burning nearly everything in many places and carrying out a campaign of mass sexual violence against civilians, including children. This resulted in the deaths of upwards of 200,000 to 300,000 civilians from 2003-2005. The Darfur region has remained a bastion for forces of the RSF, an outgrowth of earlier Janjaweed militias, amid the ongoing Sudanese Civil War, with violence against Fur inhabitants and other targeted and displaced groups increasing at a rapid, concentrated pace. Many human rights observers have described the RSF's campaign in the region and in its siege of the North Darfurian capital of Al-Fashir, as constituting crimes against humanity, and, at its greatest extremes, genocide.
Genetics
Analysis of classic genetic markers and DNA polymorphisms by Tay and Saha (1988) found that the Fur are most closely related to the Hawazma of Sudan. Both populations have gene frequencies intermediate between those of the Afro-Asiatic-speaking Beja, Gaalin and Gulf Arab populations and those of the local Nilo-Saharan-speaking Nuba and Nilotes.
According to Hassan et al. (2008), around 59.4% of Fur are carriers of the E1b1b paternal haplogroup. Of these, 68.4% bear the V32 subclade. Approximately 6.3% also belong to the haplogroup J1. This points to significant patrilineal gene flow from neighboring Afro-Asiatic-speaking populations. The remaining Fur individuals are primarily carriers of the A3b2 lineage (31.3%), which is instead common among Nilotes.
Maternally, the Fur entirely belong to African-based derivatives of the macrohaplogroup L according to Hassan (2010). Of these mtDNA clades, the L0a1 (15.3%) and L1c (11.5%) lineages are most frequent. This altogether suggests that the genetic introgression into the Fur's ancestral population was asymmetrical, occurring primarily through Afro-Asiatic-speaking males rather than females.