Badi, Sudan

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Badiʿ was a medieval port on the Red Sea and the first Arab port in Bilād al-Sūdān. It flourished roughly between 600 and 1100 AD as a trading town that linked inland Africa with Arabia. It did not belong to any major state.

Location: Badiʿ stood off the coast on the island of Er Rih, south of the Gulf of ʿAḳīḳ, in what is now Sudan near the border with Eritrea. The gulf gets its name from the nearby village of ʿAḳīḳ, about 24 kilometers to the north.

History: The port is mentioned in 9th-century sources. In 637, al-Ṭabarī notes that Caliph ʿUmar exiled the poet Abū Miḥjan al-Thaḳafī there, suggesting it was a place of exile early on. It appears in treaties with the Beja, and in accounts of travelers and geographers. It served as a gateway to the Sudan for Arabs, with figures like ʿAbd Allāh ibn Marwān passing through in 750 on the way to Ethiopia.

Trade: Badiʿ merchants traded combs and perfumes from Arabia in exchange for elephant tusks and ostrich eggs from Ethiopia, and they did business with the Beja. The Beja ruler Zanāfij was Muslim and Arabic-speaking, and Arab traders from Mecca visited his capital. Some traders went inland toward the Nile, and gold from the Shanka mines was exported from Badiʿ.

Decline: The port declined because its trade was focused to the south and it was not well placed for commerce with the Nubian kingdoms Makuria and Alodia; Dahlak served as a better hub to Ethiopia. By around 1170 the city was in ruins. The poet Ibn Ḳalāḳis wrote that the ruins “seem inhabited,” and one theory suggests mosquitoes in cisterns may have helped hasten its abandonment.

Archaeology: J. Crowfoot surveyed the Er Rih ruins in 1911, finding houses, streets, pottery, glass, about 100 cisterns, and Arabic inscriptions on tombstones. No Song dynasty celadon from Sawākin’s trading networks was found at Badiʿ, which fits with its earlier decline.