Bornu Empire, the leader of the Keira clan, Sulayman Solong (1596–1637), supplanted a rival clan and became Darfur's first sultan. Sulayman Solong decreed Islam to be the sultanate's official religion. However, large-scale religious conversions did not occur until the reign of Ahmad Bakr (1682–1722), who imported teachers, built mosques, and compelled his subjects to become Muslims. In the eighteenth century, several sultans consolidated the dynasty's hold on Darfur, established a capital at Al-Fashir, and contested the Funj for control of Kurdufan. The sultans operated the slave trade as a monopoly. They levied taxes on traders, and export duties on slaves sent to Egypt, and took a share of the slaves brought into Darfur. Some household slaves advanced to prominent positions in the courts of sultans, and the power exercised by these slaves provoked a violent reaction among the traditional class of Fur officeholders in the late eighteenth century. The rivalry between the slave and traditional elites caused recurrent unrest throughout the next century. See also References Further reading – Sudan Spencer Trimingham, History of Islam in West Africa. Oxford University Press, 1962. Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels (eds). The History of Islam in Africa. Ohio University Press, 2000. David Robinson. Muslim Societies in African History. Cambridge University Press, 2004. Bruce S. Hall, A History of Race in Muslim West Africa, 1600–1960. Cambridge University Press, 2011, . External links Trade and the Spread of Islam in Africa, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (October 2001). History of Sudan Sudan Islam Islamization Sudan region Sudan