Trade, however, soon resumed after the conflict, although on reduced scale. It has been suggested that it was Badi's victory over the Ethiopians that strengthened his power; in 1743/4 he is known to have had his vizier executed and to have taken the reins. He attempted to create a new power base by purging the previous ruling clan, stripping the nobility of their land and instead empowering clients from the western and southern periphery of his realm. One of these clients was Muhammad Abu Likayik, a Hamaj (a generic Sudannese term applied to the pre-Funj, non-Arabic or semi-Arabized people of the Gezira and Ethiopian-Sudanese borderlands) from east of Fazughli who was granted land immediately south of Sennar in 1747/8. He was a cavalry commander tasked to pacify Kordofan, which had become a battlefield between the Funj and the Musabb’at, refugees from the Sultanate of Darfur. The Fur had the upper hand until 1755, when Abu Likayik finally managed to overrun Kordofan and turn it into his new powerbase. In the meantime, Sultan Badi grew increasingly unpopular due to his repressive measures. Eventually, Abu Likayik was convinced by disaffected Funj noblemen, many of them residing in Kordofan, to march on the capital. In 1760/1761 he reached Alays at the White Nile, where a council was held in which Badi was formally deposed. Afterwards, he besieged Sennar, which he entered on 27 March 1762. Badi fled to Ethiopia but was murdered in 1763. Thus began the Hamaj Regency, where the Funj monarchs became puppets of the Hamaj. Abu Likayik installed another member of the royal family as his puppet sultan and ruled as regent. This began a long conflict between the Funj sultans attempting to reassert their independence and authority and the Hamaj regents attempting to maintain control of the true power of the state. These internal divisions greatly weakened the state and in the late 18th century Mek Adlan II, son of Mek Taifara, took power during a turbulent time at which a Turkish presence was being established in the Funj kingdom. The Turkish ruler, Al-Tahir Agha, married Khadeeja, daughter of Mek Adlan II. This paved the way for the assimilation of the Funj into the Ottoman Empire. The later 18th century saw a rapid disintegration of the Funj state. In 1785/6 the Fur Sultanate conquered Kordofan which it managed to hold until the Egyptian invasion of 1821. In the second