Kanem–Bornu Empire
Key Points
- The Kanem–Bornu Empire was an empire that existed in modern Chad and Nigeria. It was known to the Arabian geographers as the Kanem Empire from the 9th century AD onward and lasted as the independent kingdom of Bornu (the Bornu Empire) until 1900.
- The Kanem Empire (c. 700–1380) was located in the present countries of Chad, Nigeria and Libya. The empire of Kanem formed under the nomadic Tebu-speaking Kanembu, who eventually abandoned their nomadic lifestyle and founded a capital around 700 CE under the first documented Kanembu king (mai), known as Sef of Saif. The capital of Njimi grew in power and influence under the Duguwa dynaty. Njimi dominated trans-Saharan trade in ivory and slaves between the central Sahara and Libya.
- The major factor that later influenced the history of the state of Kanem was the early penetration of Islam that came with North African traders, Berbers, and Arabs.
- By the end of the 14th century, internal struggles and external attacks had torn Kanem apart. Around 1380 the Kanem empire merged with Bornu to become the Kanem-Bornu empire under the Sayfawa Dynasty.
- The Bornu Empire (1380s–1893) was a state of what is now northeastern Nigeria, in time becoming even larger than Kanem, incorporating areas that are today parts of Chad, Niger, Sudan, and Cameroon; is existed from 1380s to 1893. The early history of the Empire is mainly known from the Royal Chronicle or Girgam discovered in 1851 by the German traveller Heinrich Barth.
- Kanem-Bornu dominated and invaded its neighbors through its cavalry, as the empire relied heavily on the strength of its horsemen for its conquests and slave raids. Kanem-Bornu was also a major diplomatic power in the Sahara area and boasted embassies in both Morocco and the Ottoman Empire via Tripoli.
- The practice of recording orally the names and genealogies of the kings of Kanem seems to have existed since the 9th century. The introduction of Islam and the Arabic script codified this tradition by making it possible to write down the names of the kings. This list or chronicle of kings, the diwan or girgam, was written from the 13th or 16th century until the 19th and contained the names of 67 kings from the 9th to the 19th century. It constitutes one of the most important sources for the history of Kanem-Bornu and has been extensively used by historians of the empire.
External Links
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References Wikipedia contributors. (2019, January 24). Kanem–Bornu Empire. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18:45, February 3, 2019, from Link