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The term 'Tribe' it clearly is not applicable to
the Nubians. Dr .William Y. Adams in " The Nubian Nations" Alone
among Sudanese peoples, they left behind this fragmented and
rather chaotic from of political and social organization more
than three thousand years ago. In the great days of their Kerma
monarchy( c.1785-1580 B.C) they had already developed an
imperial state that held sway over a diversity of peoples, and
that could challenge the authority of the Egyptian pharaohs
themselves. Under the colonial rule of the Egyptians New kingdom
( c.1580-1000 B.c) they imperial subjects of the pharaoh, but
also achieved high bureaucratic office within the colonial
regime.There is nothing in the numerous Egyptian colonial
records of that time to suggest a division of the Nubian
population along ethnic or political lines. Under the
independent post-colonial Empire of Kush ( c. 700 B.C- 350 A. D
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The Nubians achieved a still higher level of
political centralization and unification, creating an empire
four times as large as Egypt itself. It was an empire which the
Romans treated as co-equal power, following the Treaty of Samos
in 23 B.C .Romans and Greek visitors who spoke admiringly of the
polity culture of Meroe, never mentioned tribal division within
its population
It was under the post- Kushite kingdoms of medieval times,
however, that the Nubians took the longest of all steps towards
freedom from the limitations of tribalism. Although there were
linguistic divisions within the Nubian population, the kingdoms
of Nobatia, Makouria, and Awal (c. 500-150 A.D ) were not tribal
confederations, separated by linguistic. They were nation-states
in the full modern sense of word, and the first to exist on the
African continent. They were ruled not only by secular monarchs
who claimed no divinity, but also by a complex hierarchy of
bureaucratic officials. Most importantly, they were governed by
well developed codes of law, which were binding upon the rulers
as their subjects .Thus established on a stable foundation, and
not subject to the whims of individual rulers , they were able
to negotiate a treaty ( the Baqt of A.D.653) with the Muslim
rulers of Egypt that guaranteed their peace for more than six
hundred years . And although the Nubian throughout the Middle
Ages had a reputation for warlike prowess, their medieval states
never once went to war with one another so far as we know
But the medieval Nubian nations made still a further advanced
beyond both tribalism and imperialism. They achieved the most
complete separation between church and state of any people
before modern times. Their secular officials were appointees of
the reigning monarchs, and were responsible wholly to him, at
the same time that the entire church hierarchy was appointed by,
and responsible to, the Coptic Patriarch in Alexandria. If we
can believe the numerous documents that have been uncovered at
Qasr Ibrim, there was virtually no overlapping between these two
bureaucratic structures . And this was at a time when all the
neighboring lands of Islam were ruled by the theocratic
Caliphates , and when the church and state throughout the
Byzantine Empire were closely intertwined . There was a fuller
separation between church and state in Roman Catholic lands of
Western Europe, yet in those lands it was the kings and not the
pope who appointed most of the bishops and priests. Speaking
personally, I regard " freedom of conscience" as one of the most
precious liberties that we possess in the modern world and I
therefore see the separation of church and state as one of the
single most outstanding accomplishments of the early Nubians
Viewing the long sweep of Sudanese history, it becomes apparent
that the Nubians have always been on the " cutting edge " of
cultural progress . It was they who first learned to write in
hieroglyphics , and who subsequently developed the first truly
indigenous alphabets in Africa It was they , who a later time,
developed an alphabets to write the Nubian language, while at
the same time many became literate in Greek, Coptic and Arabic .
It was they who developed written instruments of law . and who
achieved the first separation church and state It was they who
became the main mercantile class under the Turco-Egyptian
regims, and who also became backbone of the Anglo-Egyptian
colonial civil service. Finally it was they who finished most of
the earliest faculty at Khartoum University
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