Empire of Kanem Borno

Did you know that the tradition of African knights and Cavalry from the Kanem Borno empire is still celebrated today? And the network of mediaeval castles built by them still stands?

Kanem Borno was a major empire covering north-eastern Nigeria, northern Cameroon, eastern Niger, Western Chad, and southern Libya. Between the eleventh and nineteenth centuries it was ruled by the Dugawa, then the Zaghawa dynasties. Its Kings were called 'Mai'.

It was major trading centre. Trading goods across the Sahara into the Islamic world, other parts of Africa, and as far as Moorish Spain. It traded horses, fine metalware, glassware, fabrics, and copper. Kola nuts, Ivory, cotton goods.

Women occupied a respected position in society and the Queen Mother and senior sister of the ruler exercised considerable political influence on the government of the state. It was renowned for its military expertise which allowed it to expand and take control of neighbouring states. Its towns, Ali Gajiri, Damasak, Difa, Duji, Gashagar, Wudi, and Yo, were considerable urban centres, where pottery, weaving, leatherwork, and dyeing flourished. Borno leather paid for the importation of European manufactured goods, perfumes, armaments, etcetera.

 Great luxury was associated with Kanem Borno. According to Leo Africanus, the emperor’s cavalry had golden “stirrups, spurs, bits and buckles.” Even the ruler’s dogs had “chains of the finest gold”.

Mai Idris Alooma, who ruled during the sixteenth century, was considered one
of its greatest rulers who gained international prestige for his leadership qualities.

He was described as “an excellent prince, uniting in himself the most opposite qualities: warlike energy, combined with mildness and intelligence; courage, with circumspection and patience; severity with pious feelings".

 He presided over a court famous for the high standard of its legal and theological disputations. He patronised learning, encouraging scholars from other African countries to become resident in Borno. The achievements of Mai Idris Alooma, however, like that of other Kanem rulers, owed much to the advice and direction given by the Queen Mother. Idris’s mother, Queen Amsa, ruled a short while before her son’s succession.

 Of this Queen, Lady Lugard says: “She was a very distinguished woman, to whose advice it is believed that her son owed much of the wisdom of his conduct. Under her influence an important embassy was sent to Tripoli, and the policy of maintaining intercourse and trade with the outer world by the medium of the Turkish Empire, which had always been the policy of prosperous Bornu, was actively developed”

 Dr Basil Davidson describes Kanem Borno in the seventeenth century: "We may well imagine that they made the best of these peaceful years. Farmers could work their fields in safety. Travellers and pilgrims could follow the roads without fear. Those who lived in towns and market-villages could prosper with the spread of trade that came both from everyday security and from unified rule over a wide country. There was growth of learning in the towns, and of schools in the villages. There was regular traffic between Kanem Borno and the Egyptian and Tunisian provinces of the Turkish empire in North Africa"

 A combination of internal conflict and invasions by the British and French in the nineteenth century brought an end to the Kanem Borno empire.

By Danny Thompson

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