Sudan Meaning
“Sudan” stretched from the West ie Mauritania/Mali/Senegal or Sahel region as you call it to the East. In the Kitab “Glory of the Su-dan” Al Jahiz labels many “Easterners” as part of the Sudan such as the Zanj(Swahili) and Ethiopians, even some other regions..
Others..
–Zanj, Ethiopians, the people of Fazzan, the Berbers, the
Copts, and Nubians, the people of Zaghawa, Marw, Sind and India, Qamar and Dabila, China,
and Masin… the islands in the seas between China and Africa are full of blacks, such as
Ceylon, Kalah, Amal, Zabij, and their islands, as far as India, China, Kabul, and those
shores.-Al Jahiz
Interesting info and insight into colorism in Early Islam. I think enlightenment Europeans unfairly get a bad rap as the folks who created “Racism”, clearly the Islamic society was obsessed with colorism in some ways…
From Al-Jahiz
The flag of Sudan (Arabic: علم السودان) was adopted on May 20, 1970, and consists of a horizontal red-white-black tricolor, with a green triangle at the hoist. The flag is based on the Arab Liberation Flag shared by Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, that uses a subset of the Pan-Arab colors in which green is less significant. Prior to the 1969 military coup of Gaafar Nimeiry, a blue-yellow-green tricolor design was used.
According to World Flags 101:
Red, white, black and green are called the pan-Arab colors and have been historically linked to the Arab people and Islamic religion for centuries. The colors stand for Arab unity and independence. The red stripe represents Sudan’s struggle for independence and many other struggles, and the sacrifices of the country’s martyrs. The white represents peace, light and optimism. It also represents the White Flag League which was a nationalist group that rose up against colonial rule in 1924. The black represents Sudan; in Arabic ‘Sudan’ means black. It also represents the black flag of nationalists who fought colonial rule during the Mahdist Revolution, late in 19th century. Green represents Islam, agriculture and the prosperity of the land