Kanem: the Sayfawa mai

Who rules

Name

Selema II (also Salmama, Salma, Tselma, Jilim; Arabic name Abd al-Jalil), son of mai Abdallah I Bikur (Bikorom)

Title

mai (king) of Kanem; in Arabic sources sultan or king of Kanem

Since

1194 in Barth's and Palmer's counts (followed by Stewart 1989 and Bosworth 2012); 1193 (Urvoy); 1190 (Landeroin); 1182 in Lange (1984). Nachtigal's count (1246-1266), which later writers do not follow for this period, would put an earlier mai on the throne in 1200.

Born

Not known

Family

Sayfawa dynasty, of the Magumi lineage of the Kanembu, which claimed descent from the Yemeni hero Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan. Mother: Huwa (Palmer: Kime) of the Dibbiri, counted as Tubu. Wife: Dibala of the Magharma, mother of his son and successor Dunama (later Dibalemi, 'son of Dibala').

Confidence

medium

The only internal source is the king list with notes (the Diwan salatin Barnu or girgam), written down in Bornu centuries later; it gives reign lengths, mothers' names and clans, and places of death, but no dates. Every chronology is a count backwards from later fixed points. Whichever count is used except Nachtigal's, Selema II is on the throne at first light on 1 January 1200: Barth 1194-1220, Palmer 1194-1221, Urvoy 1193-1210, Landeroin 1190-1210, Lange (1984) 1182-1210.

His successor Dunama Dibalemi begins in 1210 (Lange, Urvoy, Landeroin) or 1221 (Barth, Palmer). This record follows Lange (1984), the count Lange and Barkindo use in UNESCO III (Dunama Dibalemi about 1210-1248); Palmer's count gives the same king for 1200.

Overlord

None. A Muslim kingdom since the eleventh century; the Friday prayer would name the Abbasid caliph, as later Kanem practice and its pilgrim contacts with Egypt suggest, but no source of about 1200 records it.

What the realm holds

• The Kanem dunes and inter-dune hollows east and north-east of Lake Chad, with the lower valley of the Bahr el Ghazal (the royal core; see Selema II)
• Njimi and Manan, the royal towns (sites not identified; see Njimi)
• Overlordship of the Kawar oases on the road to the Fezzan, with the Bilma salt works and the alum of Kawar (form and extent not pinned; see Kawar and Bilma)
• A claim over the Kanembu and Kanuri herders and settlers west of the lake, the later Bornu (see Bornu (west of the lake))
• Tribute and service from allied nomad clans (Tubu and Tomaghra) linked to the royal house by marriage (form not recorded)
• Raiding rights over the Sao towns and the peoples south of the lake, the source of the captives sold north (see Kanem's southern raiding ground)

How it was acquired

The kingdom grew out of the confederation the ninth and tenth century Arabic writers call the kingdom of the Zaghawa (al-Yaqubi, al-Muhallabi). The Duguwa kings ruled it until the later eleventh century; The last Duguwa kings, Hu and Selema I, were already Muslims; Hummay (about 1075-1086, Lange; 1085-1097 in Barth's count) displaced them and founded the Sayfawa line, which later claimed Yemeni descent. Hummay's son Dunama I, his grandson Biri I and his great-grandson Abdallah I Bikur were followed by Selema II, who succeeded his father (1182 in Lange's count, 1194 in Palmer's).

Allies and rivals

No treaty or campaign is recorded for 1199-1200. Allies: the nomad clans tied by marriage (Tubu, Tomaghra, the Kay of Kawar); the merchants of the Fezzan road. Rivals and victims: the Sao towns south and south-west of the lake, whose captives are sold north (the later tradition makes Sao wars a holy war); the Zaghawa nomads east and north-east, who no longer rule Kanem and are probably its subjects in al-Idrisi's day; the Tubu clans that break away (Dunama Dibalemi's long Tubu war is later).

Abroad: the Fezzan, where Qaraqush's raids of the 1170s ended the Banu Khattab of Zawila (see the Maghreb sheet); Egypt, the pilgrims' road; the Almohad court, where the grammarian and poet Abu Ishaq Ibrahim al-Kanemi, born at Bilma 'then a part of Kanem', came to Marrakesh about 1197-98 under the patronage of Ya'qub al-Mansur and stayed in the Almohad lands (Marrakesh or Seville) until his death in 1211-1213.

The realm that morning

At first light on 1 January 1200 Selema II rules Kanem from Njimi or Manan, both on the Kanem side of the lake. His direct rule covers the Kanem dunes and the lower Bahr el Ghazal; the Kawar oases on the Fezzan road owe him some form of allegiance (al-Muhallabi already put Bilma within the kingdom; the Diwan's claim that Selema ruled 'the whole desert' is treated by modern writers as boast). West of the lake, the later Bornu is a land of Sao towns with Kanembu herders and settlers moving in; Kanem's rule there is not pinned.

The Tubu of the Tibesti and the Borkou act on their own (realm tubu). The Fezzan is not his: it belongs to the Maghreb sheet (realm fezzan). The Hausa towns to the west owe him nothing that is recorded.

Wealth

Captives sent north by the Kawar and Fezzan road to Zawila, Tripoli and Egypt, for horses, cloth, copper, beads and books; the natron and fish of the lake; the salt and alum of Kawar; cattle, camels and horses of the dunes; millet in the hollows; ivory and ostrich feathers. Coinage: none of its own is known; cloth strips and, later, cowries served as money.

Military

Horsemen (the horses are bought in the north with captives) and camel-riding nomad allies (Tubu, Tomaghra), with foot archers. No force size is recorded for 1200. Kanem towns are built largely of perishable materials; fired-brick elite buildings appear in central Kanem (Tie, built by the mid-12th to mid-13th century at the latest) but no fortress of 1200 is identified.

Threats

• Strain between the nomad clans (Tubu, Tomaghra) and the rising settled clans of the court (Lange's reading of the royal marriages)
• A Tubu break with the kingdom (the later Tubu war of Dunama Dibalemi)
• Drought and overgrazing on the dunes; the lake's level
• Resistance of the Sao towns to raiding

Family and court

The mai: Selema II. His mother Huwa of the Dibbiri (Palmer: Kime), remembered as of Tubu origin; whether she is alive in 1200 is not known. His wife Dibala of the Magharma, a settled Kanembu clan; their son Dunama, later Dunama Dibalemi, succeeds about 1210 (Lange) or 1221 (Palmer); his birth date is not recorded, though a reign of 38-40 years makes it likely he was born before 1200. No brothers or other sons are named for this generation.

The queen mother is a real power: in the reign of Biri I (Lange 1140-1166), his mother Fasama, of the Kay (Koyam) of Dirkou, acted as regent and had him imprisoned for a year for executing a thief against the law. The great offices known from later Bornu (the galadima of the west, the yerima of the north, the kaigama commander, the magira as queen mother with her own estates, a royal council) are not attested for Kanem in 1200 and are not assumed here. The Muslim scholars of the court held privileges: the Bornu tradition preserves a charter of exemption (mahram) said to have been granted by Hummay to the family of a scholar, Muhammad ibn Mani (reported in the later tradition).

Great families

The Magumi, the royal lineage itself. The Tomaghra, a nomad clan (today found among the Teda, the Kanembu and the Kanuri) and the Tubu, who gave the kings their chief wives in the eleventh and twelfth centuries (Lange). The Kay (Koyam), counted a Kanuri clan, whose woman Fasama of Dirkou was Biri I's mother. The Dibbiri, the clan of Selema's mother. The Magharma, the clan of Selema's wife Dibala. Lange reads these marriages as a shift: the settled clans gain the upper hand only under Dunama Dibalemi (about 1210-1248).

Religion

Sunni Islam at court (some writers think the earlier kings Hu and Selema I were Ibadis); pilgrimages to Mecca through Egypt; old cults survive, among them the mune, a sacred object that Dunama Dibalemi later 'opened'.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. 1200, through the yearSelema II continues to reign; no dated event of Kanem is recorded for 1200.Depends on: His survival; every count but Nachtigal's puts his death in 1210 (Lange, Urvoy, Landeroin) or 1220-1221 (Barth, Palmer). Stopped by: His death or deposition, which no source suggests for 1200.

Later, on the likely course

1. about 1210 (Lange) or 1221 (Palmer)Succession of his son Dunama Dibalemi, who conquers the Fezzan to Waddan, fights a long war with the Tubu, raids the Sao and the lake shores with a fleet, and 'opens' the mune.Depends on: Dunama surviving his father and winning the throne; the balance between settled and nomad clans tilting to the settled clans. Stopped by: A rival claimant, or the Tubu clans turning against the house earlier.

Places of note

• Njimi (approximate): Royal town; site not identified
• Bilma: Salt works of Kawar

Where the sources disagree

• The mai on 1 January 1200 is Selema II in Barth, Palmer, Urvoy, Landeroin, Lange (1984), Stewart and Bosworth; Nachtigal's chronology (Selema 1246-1266) is the outlier. The brief's 'Abd al-Jalil' is the same man.
• Wikipedia gives Urvoy's dates for both Abdallah I and Selema II as 1193-1210; one of them is a copying error. Urvoy's Dunama starts in 1210, which fits Selema 1193-1210.
• The capital: Njimi is usually called the capital throughout, but al-Idrisi (1154) makes Manan the royal town and Lange notes the change from Manan to Njimi; for 1200 it is not pinned.
• Wikipedia says Kanem expanded to the Kawar oases in the 11th century; UNESCO III (Lange and Barkindo) already has Bilma within the kingdom in al-Muhallabi's tenth century account, while al-Idrisi counts Kawar as Zaghawa ground.

Evidence: No contemporary account of 1200 exists. The picture rests on al-Idrisi (1154) before it and Ibn Said (about 1250) after it, the Diwan king list written down later, and the first archaeology of central Kanem (Tie).

On the map: Kanem had no fixed borders: the drawing shows the dunes and valleys where the mai's horsemen and officers ruled directly. Kawar and Bornu are drawn as separate provinces under it; the Tubu desert north and east is drawn as realm tubu.

Primary sources for this realm

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.

• Exhortations and Reflections on the Quarters and Monuments: the chapters on Nubia and the Beja, al-Maqrizi (about 1417 to 1442, at Cairo). Two centuries late, but al-Maqrizi copied earlier books that are now lost, above all the account of Nubia by Ibn Salim al-Aswani, who went as Fatimid envoy to Dongola about 970 and described the Nubian king, his court, the eparch, the church and the land, which is the fullest description of Makuria ever written and still broadly valid in 1200; he also gives the Beja tribes, the oases, the baqt treaty and the Ayyubid campaigns against Nubia of 1173. Read online
• The Book of Examples: the History of the Berbers and of the Muslim Dynasties of North Africa, Ibn Khaldun (1375 to 1379 at Qal'at Ibn Salama and Tunis, revised until 1406). Ibn Khaldun's tribal histories are the standard account of the powers that Almohad chronicles treat as background: the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym in Ifriqiya and Tripolitania and their alliances with the Banu Ghaniya and Qaraqush; the Zenata of the central Maghreb (Banu Marin, Banu Abd al-Wad, Tujin, Maghrawa) before their rise; the Sanhaja and the veiled peoples of the Sahara; the Masmuda and the Almohad tribes. Read online
• 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
• Dictionary of Countries: the entries on Africa, Yaqut al-Hamawi (1224 to 1228, at Mosul and Aleppo). Entries written within a generation of 1200 from earlier books and from informants: Maqdishu (Mogadishu), described as a town of the Barbar (Somali) on the edge of the Zanj country with no single ruler but elders for each group, the earliest notice of the town; Manbasa (Mombasa), Lanjuya (Zanzibar) and the Zanj coast; Zayla, Barbara and the Dahlak islands; Dunqula (Dongola) and the Nubians; the Beja; Kanem, Zaghawa, Ghana, Kawkaw and the Sudan, mostly from al-Bakri and al-Idrisi; and the towns of Ifriqiya and the Maghreb. Read online
• The Book of Routes and Realms: the Description of North Africa, al-Bakri (Abu Ubayd Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Bakri) (1068, at Cordoba). Old by 1200 but still the standard description of the Sahara and the Sudan that the Almohad-period writers copied: Ghana under Tunka Manin with its twin towns and its Muslim quarter, Awdaghust, Tadmakka, Kawkaw, Takrur and Sila, the gold trade and the routes from Sijilmasa and the Dar'a; the Ibadi towns of the Jarid and the Fezzan; the Berber peoples of the Maghreb. Read online
• The Pleasure of One who Longs to Cross the Horizons (the Book of Roger), al-Idrisi (Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Sharif al-Idrisi) (completed in 1154 at Palermo, for Roger II of Sicily). The fullest geography of Africa a generation before 1200: the Maghreb and Ifriqiya town by town with distances and products; the Sahara routes through Sijilmasa, Awdaghust, Ghadames and Zawila; the Sudan with Ghana, Takrur, Sila, Barisa, Kawkaw (Gao) and Kugha, and Kanem with its towns Manan and Njimi; Nubia and Dongola, the Beja and the Red Sea ports; Zeila and Berbera; and the Zanj coast with Malindi, Mombasa, Qanbalu and Sofala with its gold, the earliest systematic notice of the Swahili towns. Read online
• Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History, Various (edited by N. Levtzion and J. F. P. Hopkins) (ninth to sixteenth centuries; the collection published 1981). The standard English collection of every Arabic passage on the western and central Sudan.