DUNQULAH

also spelled Dongola, or Dunkula, town, northern Sudan. It lies on the west bank of the Nile River, about 278 miles (448 km) northwest of Khartoum. The town is an agricultural centre for the surrounding area, which produces cotton, wheat, barley, sugarcane, and vegetables. Dunqulah is linked by road with Wadi Halfa' and Marawi and has a domestic airport. The historic town of Old Dunqulah (Dunqulah al-'Ajuz) was situated on the east bank of the Nile about 100 miles (160 km) southeast of present-day Dunqulah. Old Dunqulah was the capital of the Christian kingdom of Makurra from the mid-6th century. Old Dunqulah was besieged in 652 by a Muslim army from Egypt under 'Abd Allah ibn Sa'd ibn Abi Sarh, who agreed to raise the siege only after conclusion of a pact, which regulated relations between Egypt and Dunqulah for some six centuries thereafter. Medieval Dunqulah was described as having many churches, large houses, wide streets within a city wall, and, from 1002, a red-brick palace. After the Christian kingdom of Nubia collapsed (14th century), Dunqulah became a Muslim town. Upon the establishment at Sennar of the Funj dynasty (16th century), it emerged as the seat of a tributary king whose dominion extended northward to the third cataract of the Nile. Following the rise of the Shayqiyah confederacy of Dunqulah in the late 17th century, the region was ruled by petty chiefs, and the principal north-south trade routes tended to skirt Dunqulah. In its subsequent decline, Dunqulah was prey both to the Shaqiyah from within and to Mamluk refugees fleeing southward from Egypt. By the time these refugees founded the present-day Dunqulah as a camp in the early 19th century, Old Dunqulah had sunk into ruins and been abandoned. Pop. (1973) 5,626.