Sennar is a city on the Blue Nile in Sudan and possibly the capital of the state of Sennar. For several centuries it was the capital of the Funj Kingdom of Sennar and until at least 2011, Sennar was the capital of Sennar State.
Sennar
The Funj Sultanate, also known as Funjistan, Sultanate of Sennar or Blue Sultanate, was a monarchy in what is now Sudan, northwestern Eritrea and western Ethiopia. Founded in 1504 by the Funj people, it quickly converted to Islam, although this conversion was only nominal. Until a more orthodox form of Islam took hold in the 18th century, the state remained an "African empire with a Muslim façade". It reached its peak in the late 17th century, but declined and eventually fell apart in the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1821, the last sultan, greatly reduced in power, surrendered to the Ottoman Egyptian invasion without a fight.
Contemporary albeit romanticizing depiction of Sultan Badi III receiving Theodor Krump. Over 100 years later an eyewitness would describe Badi VII, the last Funj king, as wearing a robe and a tunic and horned cap of rich Indian fabric. He rode a horse with a harness decorated with gold and silver and a plume made of ostrich feathers.
A Sudanese woman in an Ottoman miniature from the late 18th century
At the time of the Egyptian invasion in 1821 the palace of Sennar was already in ruins.
A Funj king of Sennar and his ministers as represented in a book by Félix Mengin, 1823
