The Kufra oases (al-Jawf, Buma, Buzayma, with Rebiana and Tazirbu to the west) lie deep in the Libyan desert.
Their people before the Arab conquest of the eighteenth century were Tubu (Teda), and the name itself is usually read as 'land of the unbelievers'; nothing is recorded of them in 1200. See Tubu of Kufra.
Who holds it
- Title
- Tubu clan heads
- Since
- Not applicable
- Born
- Not pinned
- Family
- Not known
- Confidence
- low
Lord in 1200
Not known (Tubu)
How things stand that morning
Not documented.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Later tradition only.
Primary sources for Tubu
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- The Diwan of the Sultans of Bornu (the Sayfawa king list) (kept and extended to the nineteenth century; Lange argues its core was first written down in the thirteenth century). A list of the Sayfawa mais with reign lengths, parentage, mothers' names and burial places, and the odd event.
- The Book of Geography, Ibn Said al-Maghribi (Ali ibn Musa ibn Said) (about 1250 to 1275). Written two generations after 1200 but drawing on the travels of Ibn Fatima, a merchant who had been in the Sudan, Ibn Said gives the first clear picture of Kanem as an empire: the mai Dunama Dibalemi (reigned about 1210 to 1248), his capital Njimi, his Muslim subjects and his reach to the Fezzan, Tajuwa and the Zaghawa, with the Sao and other peoples on his borders. Read online
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.