3. A detailed history of the first twelve years of the reign of the king Edrís Alawóma, consisting of two parts, in my copy one of 77 and the other of 145 pages, and written by a contemporary of the above-mentioned king, the Imám Ahmed, son of Sofíya. Of this very interesting and important history a copy was forwarded by the late vizier of Bórnu, Háj Beshír ben Tiráb, at my urgent request,[42] to Her Britannic Majesty’s Government, and is now in the Foreign Office; another copy I myself have brought back.
4. A few facts regarding the history of this country, mentioned by Arabic writers, such as Ebn Sáid (A.D. 1282), Ebn Batúta (A.D. 1353), Ebn Khaldún (A.D. 1381-2), Makrízí (about A.D. 1400), and Leo Africanus (A.D. 1528).
5. A short document containing information about embassies sent to Tripoli by some Bórnu kings, and published in the “Bulletin de la Société Géographique de Paris,” 1849, 252 ff.
I now proceed to inquire into the character of the first of these documents, which is the only one among them comprising the whole history of Bórnu, and which therefore forms the basis of our tables. The most momentous question is,—upon what authority this document rests, and when it was compiled. As for the first point, I have been assured by Shitíma Makarémma (a man intimately connected with the old dynasty, who made the two copies for me, and of whom some notice will be found in my journal) that it is a mere extract from a more voluminous work, which he represented as still existing, but which I was unable to procure, as it is carefully concealed. The whole business of collecting documents and information relative to the history of the old dynasty was most difficult, and demanded much discretion, as the new dynasty of the Kánemíyín endeavours to obliterate as much as possible the memory of the old Kanúri dynasty, and has assiduously destroyed all its records wherever they could be laid hold of.
As regards the time when the chronicle, of which the manuscript in question is a very meagre and incorrect abridgment, was written, it is stated that the various parts of it were composed at different times, at the beginning of every new reign; and the question is, when the Kanúri people, or rather their ʿulama, began to commit to writing the most important facts of their history. This question we are fortunately enabled, from Imám Ahmed’s work, to answer satisfactorily; namely, that there existed no written record whatever of the history of his country previous to the king Edrís Katakarmábi, whose reign falls in the first half of the sixteenth century of our era. For when that writer refers to facts of the older history, he is only able to recite as his authority oral information received from old men versed in historical tradition; and he evidently mentions as the oldest author of a written history, the fákih Masfárma ʿOmár ben ʿOthmán, who wrote the history of the king in question.
The annals, therefore, of the time preceding the period of this king and of his predecessor ʿAli Gajidéni, appear to be based entirely upon oral information, and cannot but be liable to a certain degree of inaccuracy as to the actions attributed to each king, the length of their respective reigns, and even the order of succession where it was not dependent on genealogy or descent. For it would be the extreme of hypercriticism to deny that the royal family of Bórnu, in the middle of the sixteenth century, could not or may not justly be supposed to have preserved with great precision their line of descent for fifteen or twenty generations; and in this respect the chronicle No. 1 is entirely confirmed and borne out by Imám Ahmed, who, in the introduction to his History, gives the pedigree of his master Edrís Alawóma up to his first royal ancestor, while the difference in the form of the names, and one slight variance in the order of succession, as given by these two documents, is a plain proof that they have not been borrowed from each other, but have been based on independent authorities.
The disagreement in question is certainly a remarkable one; but it is easily explained. For Makrízí, in harmony with the extract from the chronicle, names the father of the kings Edrís and Dáúd (whose reign he places about the year 700 of the Hejra), Ibrahím, while Imám Ahmed calls them sons of Nikále son of Ibrahím; and this is the general statement of the natives of the country even at the present time, every educated man knowing “Dáúd tata Nikálebe,” or Dáúd Nikálemi. The fact is, that the name Bíri, which the chronicle attributes to the father of Ibrahím the grandfather of Edrís and Dáúd, being a variation of the form Bíram, is identical with Ibrahím; whence it appears that Nikále was another name of Ibrahím the son of Bíri. The same is the case with regard to the names Ahmed and Dúnama, which are identical, if not with regard to their meanings, at least with regard to their applications, as well as the names Sélma or Sélmama and ʿAbd el Jelíl.
This general harmony between the pedigree of the Bórnu kings as given by the chronicle No. 1 and the Imám Ahmed, a learned and clever man in a high position, and in constant connection with the court, is, I think, very satisfactory, and the more so if we take into consideration that, from a reason which I shall soon mention, and which at the same time is a strong argument in favour of the authenticity of these two documents, the pedigree as given by them is not the only one current in Bórnu, but the line of descent and succession varies greatly in one of the two other short chronicles which are mentioned in No. 2, while the third one, which does not appear to make any pretensions to completeness, cannot be taken into account here. Hence, as far as regards the line of descent or succession, I have not thought these two lists worthy of attention, except only with regard to the reign following that of the fifty-eighth king, if we count the reign of the usurper Sʿaíd ʿAlí, the son of Háj ʿOmár. For here the chronicle No. 1 has omitted, by mistake or negligence, the well-established reign of Edrís ben ʿAli, who succeeding to his father ʿAlí, preceded his younger brother Dúnama ben ʿAlí, and reigned twenty years.[43]
What I have here said with regard to the authenticity of the chronicle refers only to the line of descent and succession of the kings mentioned; but, of course, it is quite another question, if we take into view the length of time attributed to the reign of each succeeding king. But even here the dates of the chronicle are confirmed in a most surprising and satisfactory manner by the history of Imám Ahmed, who, in relating the successful expedition of Edrís Aʿaishámi to Kánem, states that from the time when Dáúd Nikálemi was obliged to leave his capital Njímiye, down to the period when Edrís made his entrance into it, 122 years had elapsed. Now, according to the dates of the chronicle, between the end of the reign of Dáúd and the beginning of the reign of Edrís, who is expressly stated by the historian to have undertaken that expedition in the first year of his reign, there intervened exactly 121 years. And indeed we see from the Imám’s account, that most people thought this was the real length of the period, and not 122 years; so well were the educated inhabitants of Bórnu at that time acquainted with the history of their country. Perhaps also Imám Ahmed wishes here to refute Masfárma, the historian of Edrís Áʿaishámi, who adhered to the general opinion.
Unfortunately, the length of the several reigns is our only guide with regard to the chronology of this history, as neither the chronicle nor even Imám Ahmed specifies particular years with reference to any of the events which they mention. This is indeed a very great defect, not so apparent in the dry chronicle as in the account of the learned priest; and it seems almost inconceivable, as he is very particular, not only with regard to seasons, but even to months and days, mentioning with great exactness on what day of the month his master did so and so, and even disputing, in this respect, slight variations of opinion. If he had only given us the date of a single year, we should be much better off as to the chronology of the history of Bórnu. As it is, if we put out of account other chronological data which we are fortunately in possession of, in order to reduce to chronology the events mentioned by the chronicle, we can only reckon backwards the number of years attributed by it to the reign of each successive king, commencing from the death of Sultan Dúnama, who in the year A.H. 1233 was killed in the battle at Ngála (written “Ghála” in Arabic, but called “Angala” by the members of the former expedition).