700 villages bear their name…the secret of the Sudanese association with the “tree”

Forest expert Talaat Abdel Majid told Sky News Arabia that it is estimated that there are more than 830 species of woody plants, such as trees, shrubs and climbers, registered in Sudan, including 154 species with non-woody products, 90 of which produce fruits used in food. Beverages and feed.

He adds that 67 types of them are used in the production of medical drugs and chemical products.

The tree is an essential source of energy, as it is estimated that the consumption of fuelwood in Sudan amounts to more than 15 million tons annually, and it constitutes more than half of the total energy consumption in the country.

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According to Musa Sheikh al-Ruba’, a researcher in heritage and author of the “Sudanese Tree” encyclopedia, the Sudanese person’s connection to the tree emerges through many economic activities and medical, cultural and heritage aspects.

Al-Rabaa told Sky News Arabia that entire communities in some regions of Sudan depend on the tree as a source of income.

The “hashab” tree is considered one of the most closely related types of trees to the lives of the people of western Sudan, and it has clear repercussions on the entire economy of the country. The gum arabic produced by the “hashab” is considered one of the most important Sudanese exports, and it contributed greatly to saving the lives of the rural population in the years of drought.

As for the second most important tree related to people’s lives in Sudan, it is the “Baobab” tree, which gains its importance not only from its exceptional size, but also from its being an important source of water, food and medicine, and its ability to live for up to a thousand years.

This tree, which is abundantly concentrated in the Kordofat region in western Sudan, is considered the largest and tallest tree in the world, as it reaches a height of 30 meters and a diameter of its trunk up to 11 meters, and it can accommodate 45 people if it is emptied from the inside.

The “Baobab” tree in many regions of Kordofan forms the place where people congregate and discuss their public affairs under its shade, and hold their wedding parties and banquets. It is also considered an integrated pharmacy tree, as its fruits are characterized by rich components that have the ability to treat a number of diseases, as residents say.

In other regions, the “acacia” tree plays a major role in people’s lives, as the fruit of the loan that it produces is used as a tanning material and as an important ingredient in many municipal medicinal uses.

The Heglig tree is spread in many regions of Sudan, and it is one of the giant trees that produce the fruit of the “Lalop”, which is used as a treatment for diarrhea and abdominal pain in some rural areas. Its broad stems are also used in making home furniture and in construction work.

cultural and historical value

The tree has a distinguished position in Sudanese poetry, as many poets and artists sang about it.

The poet, Al-Fateh Hamdto, explains to Sky News Arabia that there are many Sudanese songs and cultural works in which the tree was an essential element.

Among the famous songs that bore the name of the tree was the song “Mango Fruit”, organized by the lyricist Ishaq Al-Halangi, and sung by the famous “Al-Balabel” band consisting of three sisters, in addition to the song “Jana Al-Babai” sung by Kamal Tarbas.

The poet Mubarak Al-Maghribi was creative in describing the palm tree in the song “Love Al-Adem”, which was sung by the late Salah Bin Al-Badia. The “Baobab”, Doum, and Kharaz Zalmango trees also constituted a rich material for many of the dramas that Sudan witnessed in the past decades.

Politically, according to the documented Siddiq al-Tayyib al-Bashir; Ashar was associated with many articulated figures in Sudanese history.

One of the accounts indicates that the current “Al-Shajara” area in the south of Khartoum, which is considered one of the most important military areas in the country, was named after the British entered Khartoum in the nineteenth century. They took it as a place to rest from the sweltering heat of Khartoum.

Another narration says that the tree itself was a place chosen by Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, son of the founder of the Mahdist revolution, Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi, to rest during his permanent travels between Khartoum and the region of the island, Aba, the stronghold of the Ansar.

The Heglig tree was associated with Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi himself when he chose a group of them in the north of Omdurman as a place for the camps of his forces in the midst of his preparations for the conquest of Khartoum in the year 1884, where he received the allegiance of the people of the region under its shadow.