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The Shifir of Sudan

The Shifir of Sudan, numbering approximately 37,500 people, are Unengaged and Unreached. They are an indigenous Nuba Mountains ethnolinguistic community of South Kordofan, Sudan, who maintain a distinct Shifir identity and traditional ties to the Nuba region while increasingly using Sudanese Arabic alongside local Nuba languages. They mostly adhere to Sunni Islam and Sudanese Arabic is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite: Shifir

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Sub-Saharan African Peoples
Country: Sudan
People Cluster: Nuba Mountains
Primary Language(s): Sudanese Arabic (apd)
Primary Religion(s): Sunni Islam
Population: 37,500
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity
People Group ID: PG050432
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Pray for the Shifir of Sudan

Join others around the world in praying for the lost to be saved, the gospel to advance, the global Church to grow, and for laborers to be sent out and sustained in the harvest.

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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Sunni Islam
Religious Affiliation: Islam

100%
%
Sunni Islam Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Sudanese Arabic
Language Family: Afro-Asiatic

100%
%
Arabic, Sudanese Speakers

Media Resources in Sudanese Arabic:

Films:
TitleLink
JESUSView Film
MagdalenaView Film

2 films

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

View all resources

Bible Resources in Sudanese Arabic:

Bible Name (Translation)VideoAudioText
Sharif (Sudanese) Version✓✓✓

1 entry

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Sudanese Arabic bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

View all resources

Explore Lostness and Next Steps

Unengaged and Unreached

Strategic Priority Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached (SPI: 0), which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations among which there are no known efforts focused on establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.
Lostness Priority Index (LPI): Frontier Unreached People Group, (LPI: 0), < 0.1% Evangelical.
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity (GSEC: 1), this people group is less than 2% evangelical, some evangelical resources are available, but there has been no active church planting among them within the past two years

Next steps for the Shifir:
Begin signifcant prayer and fasting for this group
Send cross-cultural teams to discover and research this people group
Begin gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group

Pray specifically for the Shifir of Sudan

You visit the earth and water it; you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide their grain, for so you have prepared it.
readPsalm 65:9

Give thanks for God's provision in nature, and pray that those who don't know Him will recognize His hand, desire to know their Creator, and hear the truth that Jesus is the solution to the world's greatest need.

...And that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
readLuke 24:47

Pray that the message of repentance and forgiveness through Jesus will reach everyone.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
readJames 1:2-3

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will consider it pure joy when they face trials of many kinds, trusting in God's promise that the testing of their faith produces perseverance.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
readJohn 1:12

Pray that believers will have the opportunity to clearly share the good news with the lost here, so that all people can be invited to trust in Jesus and become children of God.

Shifir Across Countries (ROP3 - 119387) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

1 people group

PhotoPeople Group ID ▲NameCountryPopulationStrategic Progress IndexLanguageReligion
ShifirPG050432ShifirSudan37,500Unengaged and UnreachedSudanese ArabicSunni Islam

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Data Standards section.

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