The Egyptian government of Sudan becomes less harsh as the military occupation becomes more secure.

Egypt has saddled Sudan with a parasitic bureaucracy, however, and expects the country to be self-supporting.

Nevertheless, farmers and herders gradually return to Al Jazirah.

The Turkiyah also win the allegiance of some tribal and religious leaders by granting them a tax exemption.

Egyptian soldiers and Sudanese jahidiyah (slave soldiers; literally, fighters), supplemented by mercenaries recruited in various Ottoman domains, man garrisons in Khartoum, Kassala, Al Ubayyid, and at several smaller outposts.

The Shaiqiyah, Arabic speakers who had resisted Egyptian occupation, are defeated and allowed to serve the Egyptian rulers as tax collectors and irregular cavalry under their own sheikhs.

The Egyptians divide Sudan into provinces, which they then subdivide into smaller administrative units that usually correspond to tribal territories.