The Mahas are a sub-group of the Nubian people located in Sudan along the banks of the Nile. They are further split into the Mahas of the North and Mahas of the Center. Some Mahas villages are intermixed with remnants of the largely extinct Qamhat Bishari tribe, and as a result today the Qamhat Mahas are ethnic Beja who speak a Nubian language. In the Butana area some Mahas have intermarried with the Rashaida people. The Mahas speak the Nobiin language which is a Northern Nubian language spoken primarily in northern Sudan in Wadi Halfa, they also speak Sudanese Arabic.
For millennia, the Mahas tribe had resided in the region that constitutes present day north Sudan. Little arable land and finite rainfall lead the Mahas, and other residents of the area, to migrate from the area. As early as the late 1400s to the early 1500s, following the end of the Mamluke Sultanate in Egypt and the Christian kingdom in Nubia, the Mahas ethnic group began to migrate. The Mahas migrants settled in the “Three Towns” area, the present-day cities of Khartoum, Khartoum North, and Omdurman, and along the Blue Nile. Arkell insinuates that the Mahas acquired land in the “Three Towns” area and Tuti Island from the Jummu’iya tribe. When the Mahas had arrived, the area was already inhabited by the Rufa’a, Ja’aliyin, Shayqia, and Jummu’iya peoples.
The Mahas in the “Three Towns” are largely from Nubian descent. Lobban argues that they are of the completely Arabized Nubians. The Mahas of this stock do not maintain strong ties with the Nubians in the north and east. They know little of the Nubian language. Inhabiting the north of Sudan and south of Egypt at a time when Islam was expanding south up the Nile, the Mahas of this group were Arabized relatively early. As Mahas families became established in the Three Towns, they were almost exclusively of Mahas descent. The Three Towns area was composed of Nubian, Arab, Sudanic, Nilotic, and European groups. However, within the Mahas communities, there was a strong inclination for preserving the Mahas lineage. Marriage was predominately between the Arab communities in the Nile valley. It was rare to encounter marriages between the Mahas communities and the Sudanese Darfuris and southern regions of present-day Sudan. The emphasis of cultural homogeneity within the Mahas communities was strengthened with Islamic values at that time that perpetuated egalitarianism.
At that time, traditional society embraced socio-economic differences among the people of the region. Servants, former slaves, and farmworkers from the west and south of Sudan constituted the bottom of the hierarchy. Among the Mahas, there was different access to power at the top. Some Mahas family groups brought in a substantial amount of turnover through agricultural land holdings. Other Mahas groups saw religious advisors, omdas (mayors), and high-ranking military officers, business men, and public servants as the conflux of power.
The Mahas community established at Tuti Island, at the convergence of the Blue and White Nile, is among the oldest Mahas communities. The Mahas have occupied their site on Tuti Island for about five hundred years. The site is exclusively homogenous to the Mahas. In the 15th century, The Mahas fukahaa of Tuti were seen as key to the islamization of Sudan. As the first to build permanent structures in the Khartoum area, the Mahas may be credited with initiating the modernization of Sudan. The “Three Towns” area is the current center of modern-day Sudan.
By the early 16th century, the Mahas ethnic community were established in the area. Most of the Mahas communities were established by a prominent Muslim scholar and leader called the fukahaa. Each fukahaa would bring their respective families to the site of the community. In addition to the home the family would build, there would also be a religious school, or khalwa. As the community grew, it would include multiple homes, the khalwa, and the local mesjid, or mosque. When the founding scholar died, a typical Mahas community would also include a gubba, or tomb, that would be the center of the municipal's cemetery. For larger Mahas villages, there would often be a market and areas for craft specialization whereas the inhabitants of the community could sell, exchange, and buy crafts, livestock, and various produce.