Судан и Большой Ближний Восток

226 III. Судан и его соседи The main focus of the paper is the reason of survival of the straight sword in Sudan, despite a preponderance of a more sophisticated curved sabre in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and beyond. Though occasionally curved sabres, mostly imported fancy Persian shamshirs, found their way to the arsenals of higher nobility, as well as to those of the members of the military classes and aff luent urbanites, especially in Khartoum, they remained of a marginal importance for the Sudan in general. Various military, social and cultural reasons discussed in the paper, made kaskara the most suitable weapon in the context of Sudanese warfare. As a result, the sabre, which became a weapon of choice among most of the Sudanese neighbours, was not able to challenge the dominance of the traditional straight sword; neither the colonial British and Egyptian military practices, seriously affected the indigenous pattern. Early in the 20th century, after the fall of ‘Ali Dinar’s Darfur Sulta­ nate in 1916, kaskara stopped being major army arms, but remained a self-defence weapon (the carrying of firearms was banned, while steel arms were not), required in a turbulent and unsafe tribal periphery, such as Darfur, Kordofan or Beja-dominated Eastern Sudan. Thus, Michael Asher who travelled inDarfur in 1980, purchased such a sword for self-protection. The owner of a kaskara I managed to buy in Darfur in 2020, in his younger days used to take it with him while travelling from his village to the weekly market in El Fasher. As such kaskara had survived until the start of the large-scale conflict in Darfur in the early 21th century, then being replaced by AK47. Nevertheless, it continues to be used till now as a sacred object in the traditional ritual dancing, e. g., at wedding ceremonies; being also a symbol of masculinity, resembling in this respect the Yemeni jambiya . Hence, though having relinquished its combat significance, the kaskara remains an indispensable element of the modern Sudan traditional society as a symbolic object. Keywords . Sword; Kaskara ; ArabWarfare; Sudan; Darfur; Kassala; the Mahdist State; Sultan ‘Ali Dinar; Beja; Fuzzy-Wuzzy . Ключевые слова. Меч; каскара ; военное дело арабов; Судан; Дарфур; Кассала; Махдистское государство; султан ‘Али Динар; беджа; Фуззи-Вуззи .