The Myth of the Greater Pan-Zaghawa Kingdom Part III — What the Myth Concealed Dr. El-Tahir El-Fa

05:33 PM October, 14 2026

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The Myth of the Greater Pan-Zaghawa Kingdom

Part III — What the Myth Concealed

Dr. El-Tahir El-Faki

The most important question is no longer whether a Greater Pan-Zaghawa Kingdom exists.

After more than two decades of rebellion, peace agreements, political participation and, since 2023, civil war, the evidence is clear: there has never been convincing evidence of a coherent Zaghawa political project aimed at establishing such a kingdom.

The more important question is why the myth survived for so long.

The answer tells us something important about Sudan itself.

A Convenient Explanation

The myth offered a simple explanation for a complicated crisis.

Darfur’s rebellion emerged from political exclusion, economic marginalisation, land disputes, environmental pressures, insecurity and the longstanding imbalance between Sudan’s centre and periphery. Reducing these problems to a Zaghawa conspiracy was much easier.

A national political crisis could then be presented as the ambition of one tribe. Instead of asking why Darfuris rebelled, the question became why the Zaghawa supposedly wanted power.

Instead of discussing marginalisation, people discussed tribal expansion. Instead of confronting failures of governance, they discussed an imaginary kingdom.

The Price of Collective Suspicion

The consequences were serious. The May 2008 JEM attack on Omdurman intensified hostility toward Darfuris in central Sudan, while Zaghawa communities became particularly vulnerable to suspicion and retaliation.
The actions of an armed organisation were increasingly attributed to an entire population.

That is the danger of ethnic politics: a political decision is made by individuals, a movement can be defeated, but an ethnic identity is inherited. Once collective suspicion takes hold, civilians may spend years defending themselves against accusations for which they bear no responsibility.

What the Current War Revealed

The war since April 2023 has provided perhaps the strongest evidence against the myth.
Zaghawa political actors have taken different positions. Some have fought alongside the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Darfur Joint Forces. Minni Minnawi and Jibril Ibrahim have occupied prominent positions within the state. Suleiman Sandal, however, moved toward the RSF and became associated with its parallel political project. Others have remained outside the major armed camps.

These divisions demonstrate a simple reality: shared ethnicity does not produce political unity.

Jibril Ibrahim and Minni Minnawi themselves provide powerful examples. Both emerged from the Darfur rebellion and spent years outside the political establishment. Yet both eventually entered positions of authority within the Sudanese state.

Their journeys demonstrate that rebellion does not necessarily mean rejection of the state itself. A marginalised community can demand representation without demanding secession, and a rebel leader can eventually become a government official.

Sandal’s different trajectory reinforces the same point. Political alliances are shaped not only by ethnicity, but by ideology, leadership disputes, military calculations and competing visions of Sudan’s future.

The Zaghawa and Chad
The same distinction applies to the Sudan-Chad border. Zaghawa communities on both sides share longstanding family, commercial and social connections. The border is a political boundary, but not an absolute social barrier.

Yet cross-border connections do not prove a plan to abolish the border or establish a transnational kingdom.

Shared ancestry creates relationships; it does not dictate political allegiance.

The Real Danger
The real danger is therefore not a Greater Pan-Zaghawa Kingdom, but the ethnicisation of Sudanese politics.

When armed movements become identified with entire communities, civilians can be punished for decisions they never made. The violence around El Fasher and elsewhere in Darfur illustrates the consequences. Amnesty International documented attacks on predominantly Zaghawa villages around Abu Zerega and described the pattern as consistent with ethnic cleansing.

The lesson is clear: political organisations must not be confused with the communities from which their members come.

The Myth Has Failed the Test of History
The Greater Pan-Zaghawa Kingdom was constructed from real facts: Zaghawa communities exist across the Sudan-Chad border; cross-border family networks are real; JEM emerged as a major Darfuri movement; and Zaghawa figures became influential in Sudanese and Chadian politics.
But real facts do not necessarily produce a true conclusion.

When history provided the ultimate test, Zaghawa political actors did not unite around a common kingdom. They divided over the future of Sudan.

The myth therefore tells us less about the Zaghawa than about Sudanese politics. It shows how easily legitimate grievances can be transformed into ethnic conspiracies and how quickly an entire community can be held responsible for the actions of its leaders.

Sudan’s real challenge is not preventing the creation of a Greater Pan-Zaghawa Kingdom.

It is building a country in which political representation is not mistaken for tribal conquest, and in which no community is required to prove that its aspirations are not a conspiracy against another.

That is the lesson the past two decades should have taught Sudan—and one the country can no longer afford to ignore.

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