El Fasher means the courtyard, or gathering place, of the royal palace: The town was the seat of the Fur Sultanate from the 18th century until 1916. The palace of the last sultan has been converted into the Ali Dinar Museum, which displays many artefacts from the period. It sits on a hill overlooking the town and its lake. An important market town, El Fasher was a gathering place for traders and camels en route to Kobbay, the starting point of the Forty Days Road. Salt merchants also came from mines in the Tabago Hills, a trade that still carries on, or at least it did until the recent troubles. SLA raids on El Fasher in April 2003 destroyed several planes of the Sudanese air force but provoked terrible retaliation from the government and janjawid.