El-Gadarif

El-Gadarif (Arabic: القضارف Al Qaḍārif), also spelt Gedaref or Gedarif, is the capital of the state of Al Qadarif in Sudan. It lies on the road that connects Khartoum with Gallabat on the Ethiopian border, about 410 kilometres (250 mi) from the capital.

El-Gadarif is surrounded by mountains on three sides. The city represents an excellent example of the intermingled ethnicities of central Sudan. Recently, a university has been established there. The main feature of the city is the grain silo built by the Russians to store sorghum. The town is famous for its daily sesame seed auctions.

The word Gedaref is derived from the Arabic phrase (Alli qada-Ye-rif) (Arabic القضا يرف), meaning 'He who has finished selling or buying should leave'. The phrase was later developed into 'Al-Gadarif'. The story of the name begins when Arab nomad tribes roaming the Butana plains in East-central Sudan chose the place where the city is built as a market place called Suq Abu Sinn (the Market of Abu Sinn), where the nomads exchanged their commercial commodities with the indigenous people. When the sun set, a herald used to call 'AIli Qada-ye-rif ... Alli qada-ye-rif', asking every one who had finished his dealing in the market to leave so that the market could be closed on time.

Another theory is that the town was named for the range of hills surrounding the area which looks like cartilage. Yet there is confusion in the spelling of the word in Arabic, because "cartilage" in Arabic is written as Ghadarif (Arabic غضارف) not Qadarif (Arabic قضارف), the spelling of the town name.

Al-Gada-ye-rif market place developed into a village; then into a town with its dwellers cultivating its fertile soil with sorghum, sesame, peanuts and vegetables. Its green plains during the rainy seasons attracted many nomad herds and peasants from neighbouring areas.

According to Holt and Daly, the Shukriya, who were camel-owning nomads and the leading tribe of the southern Butana, were living and ruling the grain-producing rain lands of Gadarif or Qadarif, where a tribal market developed. This place, originally called Suq Abu Sinn (Abu Sinn's Market) took the name Qadarif, anglicized as Gedaref.

The Scottish explorer James Bruce (who called the town Teawa) passed through al Qadarif in 1772. He recorded that its sheikh, Fidele, was a vassal of the Kingdom of Sennar. Today, Teawa or Twawa is the name of a hill in the western part of the city. The British explorer Samuel Baker stopped in this town in November 1862. He mentioned in his book The Nile Tributaries Of Abyssinia that it lay on the trade route between Khartoum and Kassala, and described at length its twice-weekly market.

During the Turkiyah (Egyptian rule), Gedaref became an administrative unit with a strong military garrison. The Mahdist forces preserved this status when they occupied the town in 1884 during the Mahdist Revolt, using it as a base to conquer other places in the area and in neighbouring Ethiopia.