half of the 18th century Sennar lost the Tigre in what is now Eritrea to the rising naib ("deputy") of Massawa, while after 1791 Taka around the Sudanese Mareb River made itself independent. The Shukriya became the new dominant power in the Butana. After 1802, the authority of the sultanate was limited to the Gezira for good. In the early years of the 19th century the kingdom was plagued by excessive civil wars. Regent Muhammad Adlan, who rose to power in 1808 and whose father had been assassinated by a warlord of that period, was able to put an end to these wars and managed to stabilize the kingdom for another 13 years. In 1820, Ismail bin Muhammad Ali, the general and son of the nominally Ottoman vassal Muhammad Ali Pasha, started the conquest of Sudan. Realizing that the Turks were about to conquer his domain, Muhammad Adlan prepared to resist and ordered to muster the army at the Nile confluence, but he fell to a plot near Sennar in early 1821. One of the murderers, a man named Daf'Allah, rode back to the capital to prepare Sultan Badi VII's submission ceremony to the Turks. The Turks reached the Nile confluence in May 1821. Afterwards, they travelled upstream the Blue Nile until reaching Sennar. They were disappointed to learn that Sennar, once enjoying a reputation of wealth and splendour, was now reduced to a heap of ruins. On 14 June they received the official submission of Badi VII. Government Administration The sultans of Sennar were powerful, but not absolutely so, as a council of 20 elders also had a say in state decisions. Below the king stood the chief minister, the amin, and the jundi, who supervised the market and acted as commander of the state police and intelligence service. Another high court official was the sid al-qum, a royal bodyguard and executioner. Only he was allowed to shed royal blood, as he was tasked to kill all brothers of a freshly elected king to prevent civil wars. The state was divided into several provinces governed by a manjil. Each of these province was again divided into sub-provinces governed by a makk, each of them subordinated to their respective manjil. The most important manjil was the one of the Abdallabs, followed by Alays at the White Nile, the kings of the Blue Nile region and finally the rest. The king