A town of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan on the right bank of the Nile, 345 m. by rail N. of Khartum. It stands at the centre of the great S-shaped bend of the Nile, and from it the railway to Wadi Halfa strikes straight across the Nubian desert, a little west of the old caravan route to Korosko. A branch railway, 138 m. long, from Abu Hamed goes down the right bank of the Nile to Kareima in the Dongola mudiria. The town is named after a celebrated sheikh buried here, by whose tomb travellers crossing the desert used formerly to deposit all superfluous goods, the sanctity of the saint's tomb ensuring their safety.