The Bedaria are part of the Ja'alin tribe, who trace their lineage to
Abbas, uncle of the
Islamic prophet
Muhammad. They were at one time subject to the
Funj kings, but their position was in a measure independent. At the
Egyptian invasion in 1820, the
Ja'alin were the most powerful of Arab tribes in the Nile valley. They submitted at first, but in 1822 rebelled and massacred the Egyptian garrison at Shendi with the Mek Nimir, a Ja'ali leader burning Ismail,
Muhammad Ali Pasha's son and his cortege at a banquet. The revolt was mercilessly suppressed, and the Ja'alin were thence forward looked on with suspicion. They were almost the first of the northern tribes to join the
mahdi in 1884, and it was their position to the north of Khartoum which made communication with
General Gordon so difficult. The Ja'alin are now a semi-nomad agricultural people. In common with much of the rest of the
Arab world, the gradual process of
Arabization in Sudan led to the predominance of the
Arabic language and aspects of
Arab culture, The population of Sudan includes various tribes who are ethnically Arab, such as the
Shaigya,
Ja'alin,
Shukria,
Juhaynah.
Burckhardt noted that the Ja'alin of the
Eastern Desert are almost indistinguishable from the
Bedouin of
eastern Arabia. ==Sudanese Arabic==