The Mahas are a sub-group of the Nubian people located in Southern Egypt and Northern Sudan along the banks of the Nile. 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.