a sign of royal favor. Badi then invited them to Abu Haraz, where they were treacherously murdered by members of the Abu el Kaylik family whose relatives had fallen in the battle. Sheikh Abu Ali and many of his sons were killed; Abu Sin was his surviving son. In 1784 Abu Sin allied with the Abdallabis to take Arbaji. In 1795, a battle took place between the Shukria under Abu Sin and the Batahin at Shambat. The Batahin were nearly wiped out, but Abu Sin was murdered after the battle by a Batahi prisoner. These battles assured the Shukria an important role in the political structures of the Sennar sultanate. They made marriage alliances with the Funj rulers and were given a large area of the Buttana to settle. Abu Sin encouraged his people to settle widely with grants of land, and increasing use of the camel promoted trade between settlements. After the Egyptian conquest of Sudan (1820–1824) the Shukria, under Abu Sin's son Ahmad Bey ibn Awad became one of the government's most trusted allies. He was given the title Bey and controlled the Gezira and lands to the East. The Shukria were rewarded with extensive land grants and taxation privileges. The Mahdiya During the Mahdist War the Shukria remained loyal to the Egyptians. Following the defeat of an Egyptian force by the Mahdi at Musallamia on 3 May 1882, Carl Christian Giegler Pasha assembled 2,500 Shukria fighters loyal to the Egyptians and led them into battle against the Mahdist commander Sheikh Taha and defeated him at Abu Haraz on 5 May. As the Mahdist state consolidated, the nazir (chief) of the Shukriya, Awad al-Karim Pasha Ahmad abu Sin, was sent to prison, where he died in 1886. The great outbreak of rinderpest affected eastern Sudan from 1889, and together with the harsh taxation and demands from the Mahdist Emir of Kassala, Hamed Wad Ali, this led to famine. The Shukria tribe was greatly reduced by starvation, and the areas around Kassala it had once cultivated returned to desert. Some of the Shukriya were displaced towards the south and the eastern borders of Sudan, while new people moved into the Butana. A number of West Africans settled around Gedarif. After 1900 During the period of Anglo-Egyptian rule the Shukria regained much of their land and social standing in the Butana. Various agreements were reached with other tribes about water