Bornu, 1600–1660
How did the heirs of Idris Alooma hold his empire together, and why did the pashas of Tripoli end up asking Bornu for its trade?
▶ Watch the narrated atlas · 5 minThe ground by 1660, in the colours of who held it. Hatched: ground that changed hands between 1600 and 1660.
In each era below, numbered events on the map match the list under it and the marks in the text; nothing moves.
The eras
The sons of Idris
In brief
In 1600 the kingdom of Bornu, west of Lake Chad, belonged to the sons of Idris Alooma. Idris had spent his reign at war, and left his heirs an empire around the lake. He had died a few years before, about 1596 by the dating recent historians use; older lists say 1603. From the walled capital, Ngazargamu, his son Muhammad now ruled. The chronicles remember Muhammad as patient and modest. About 1612 he died, and his half-brother Ibrahim took the throne. His name, Gumsami, means son of the gumsu, the senior royal wife. Every king list gives him seven years, remembered as years of plenty. Ibrahim died about 1619, and their half-brother Umar, a third son of Idris, took the throne.
The chain, era by era
Idris Alooma had spent his reign at war and left his sons an empire around Lake Chad, ruled from the walled capital of Ngazargamu. He died about 1596 on the chronicle-based dating recent historians use; the older king lists, which Barth followed, put his death in 1603, so on that count he still reigned in 1600.
Muhammad, a son of Idris by a mother the lists call Fanna, ruled from about 1596. The chronicles remember him as patient, modest and handsome: in his prosperous days, they say, no discord was heard. Barth judged him less warlike than his father, because Idris had left the state secure. He died about 1612, at a place the lists call Dagana or Dékana.
The empire Idris had built passed to his son intact.
Ibrahim, another son of Idris, took the throne about 1612. His name, Gumsami, means son of the gumsu: his mother was called Gumsu, perhaps the title of the mai's senior wife. Every king list gives him seven years, remembered for plenty: 'to one wet season there were seven autumns, and milk was plenteous.' He died about 1619, at Ngazargamu or at a place called Galagâti.
Umar, a son of Idris by a mother named Fusam, succeeded about 1619; the lists also call him Umar Fusami and Umar al-Maqdisi. He made the pilgrimage to Mecca, which gave him the title al-Hajj, though its year is unsettled. Barth's chronicles give him nearly twenty years on the throne.
Three sons of Idris, each by a different mother, held the throne in turn before it passed to a grandson.
A fugitive with gold
- 1♜Murzuq sacked — early 1620s · Ottoman troops from Tripoli
- 2⌂The Galadima's seat — tradition · Umar's reign
In brief
Umar is remembered as al-Hajj, the pilgrim, for his journey to Mecca. North of his kingdom, across the desert, lay the Fezzan, whose ruling house Bornu had helped back to power in the 1580s. In the early 1620s Ottoman troops from Tripoli invaded the Fezzan and sacked its capital, Murzuq.1 About 1622 a prince of its ruling house, Tahir, fled south toward Bornu with twelve camel-loads of gold. On the way, it was said, he had blinded two of his own nephews. Umar did not take him in. His men seized Tahir and his followers, and Umar had them tied in sacks and drowned. In the west, Bornu tradition credits Umar with a new command. A son of his by a slave woman had been raised in the house of a palace slave, the Makinta. Once the boy was grown, Umar acknowledged him and gave him the west as a fief, with his seat at Nguru.2 He became the first Galadima, warden of Bornu's western marches.
The chain, era by era
Tahir was a prince of the Awlad Muhammad, the Fezzan's ruling house, which Bornu had helped back to power in the 1580s. When Ottoman troops from Tripoli invaded the Fezzan and sacked Murzuq, about 1622, he fled south toward Bornu with twelve camel-loads of gold. On the road, it was said, he blinded two of his own nephews.
Muhammad Saqizli, a Greek from Chios who had turned Muslim and corsair, became pasha of Tripoli in 1631. Bornu's caravans reached his city through Kawar and the Fezzan. About 1636 he sent an embassy south to Umar, with gifts that included European renegades, and a proposal: merchants coming from Bornu would sell their goods to the pasha alone.
Umar did not shelter Tahir. As the fugitives neared Bornu his men seized the prince, his followers and his gold, and Umar had them tied in sacks and drowned in a river, angered, the story goes, by the blinding of the nephews. Coming into the mai's country as a refugee bought no protection.
Umar welcomed the pasha's proposal, and Bornu's northern trade was bound to Tripoli on the pasha's terms. The agreement was his own, and it would pass to his heir with the throne. Umar died about 1639 at Ngazargamu, and his son Ali succeeded him.
Bornu tradition credits Umar with the western command. A son of his by a slave woman had been raised in the house of the Makinta, a palace slave. Grown, he was acknowledged by his father and given the west as a fief, seated at Nguru. He became the first Galadima, warden of the western marches; the office later became hereditary.
East of the lake, about 1630, Wadai drove the Bilala out of Kanem, which they had held as Bornu's vassals, and the Tunjur, themselves expelled from Wadai, tried to take it. The mai, by most reckonings Umar, sent the general Dala Afuno. Dala won Kanem back and was made its viceroy; his line, the Dalatoa, ruled it afterwards as the alifa of Mao.
Al-Wali ibn al-Jarmi was a Sufi teacher of the first community at Kalumbardo, on Bornu's northern edge. Muhammad Bello, writing in Sokoto two centuries later, and Bornu oral tradition remember that the mai had him put to death. Most accounts name Umar; others name Ibrahim or a Dunama. Whether the quarrel was over doctrine or the community's following is disputed.
Umar Waldede, said to have studied at Agades and Timbuktu, led the same community. When al-Jarmi was killed he left Bornu for Bagirmi: let go, in Bello's telling, while Bornu folklore has him escape the mai's horsemen on a flying blanket. The first Kalumbardo community broke up.
Umar set wardens on both marches, showed refugees and holy men alike the mai's hand, and tied Bornu's northern trade to Tripoli.
The pasha's bargain
- 3✒The pasha's bargain — c. 1636–37 · Bornu's merchants to sell to the pasha alone
In brief
In Tripoli the pasha since 1631 was Muhammad Saqizli, a Greek from the island of Chios who had turned Muslim and corsair. Bornu's caravans reached his city by the oases of Kawar and the Fezzan, and he wanted control of that trade. About 1636 he sent an embassy south to Umar, with gifts that included European renegades, and a proposal: merchants coming from Bornu would sell their goods to the pasha alone. Umar welcomed the bargain.3 About 1639 Umar died at Ngazargamu, and his son Ali took the throne. Ali had inherited his father's agreement with the pasha, and he did not mean to keep it.
Horsemen on the pilgrim road
- 4◆Bornu's caravans stop — 1648–1653
In brief
In 1647 the pasha's ambassador came to Ngazargamu again, to renew the agreement. Ali refused. A French captive who later wrote a history of Tripoli recorded that the pasha was stung by the contempt shown to his envoy. In 1648 Ali led Bornu's pilgrim caravan to Mecca himself. The pasha sent a troop of horsemen to seize him on the road home and hold him for ransom. The attempt failed. Trade between Bornu and Tripoli stopped.4 Bornu could absorb the loss; Tripoli could not. In 1649 Muhammad Saqizli died, poisoned, the captive's history says, by his own finance officer. Osman Saqizli, another convert from Chios, took his place.
The chain, era by era
The agreement had been made with Umar, and Muhammad Saqizli wanted it kept. In 1647 his ambassador came to Ngazargamu again to renew it with the new mai. A French surgeon later held captive in Tripoli, who wrote a history of the city, recorded the pasha's anger at what followed.
Ali, Umar's son, became mai about 1639 on the chronicle-based dating (Barth's lists say 1645); some lists put a brother, Biri, of doubtful historicity, briefly between them. Barth's chronicles remember Ali as valiant and intelligent, and his reign ran close to four decades. He had inherited his father's agreement with the pasha and did not mean to keep it.
Ali refused to renew the agreement. The pasha, the French captive wrote, was stung by the contempt the king of Bornu had shown his ambassador. In 1648 Ali led Bornu's pilgrim caravan to Mecca himself, a journey that took him far from his capital along the desert road.
The pasha's monopoly did not survive the change of mai.
A letter and porcelain
- 5✒Trade restored — 1653 · Ali's letter to Osman
In brief
In Tripoli, Osman wanted the caravans back. He sent an embassy south to Ali, asking for the trade to resume. It was Tripoli that had come asking. Ali's answer was a letter in Arabic to the pasha, dated 1653, which survives in a French translation. With it went gifts of porcelain, which suggests that Bornu had come through the break unharmed. The caravans moved again5 on the desert road. Two years later the embassies were still running. In 1655 a man named Ismail was in Tripoli as Ali's ambassador, and the pasha sent European captives south to Bornu.
The chain, era by era
In 1648 the pasha sent a troop of horsemen to seize Ali on his way home from Mecca and hold him for ransom. The attempt failed, and the caravans between Bornu and Tripoli stopped. In 1649 Muhammad Saqizli died, poisoned by his own finance officer according to the captive's history; another account gives a natural death.
Osman Saqizli, another convert from Chios, became pasha in 1649 and ruled until 1672. The break had hurt Tripoli more than Bornu, and it was Tripoli that moved first: Osman sent an embassy south to Ali asking for the trade to resume.
Ali answered with a letter in Arabic to the pasha, dated 1653, which survives in a French translation. Gifts of porcelain went with it, which suggests that Bornu had come through the break unharmed. In 1653 the caravans moved again on the desert road, with Tripoli, not Bornu, the side that had come asking.
Kwararafa was the Hausa name for a confederacy of non-Muslim peoples of the Benue valley, south of the Hausa cities. Through the century their armies raided north. About 1650 Kano and Katsina made a treaty against them, and about 1653 a Kwararafa army broke down a gate of Kano and drove its king into exile.
Ali went to war against the Kwararafa. In the words of the ode written for him, he went into the land of the heathen, lay in wait for them and drove them back to their borders. The date is uncertain: it is usually placed around the 1650s, while Urvoy's dating of the reign puts the victory near 1670.
Dan Marina, the Katsina scholar Muhammad ibn al-Sabbagh, whose mother was a daughter of a king of Katsina, wrote a seventeen-verse Arabic ode to Ali's victory. It hails Ali as Commander of the Faithful and the pious pilgrim to the holy cities. The enemy king's name once read in it, Lewufaru, is a misreading of a word meaning 'the wretched pagan'.
Bornu outlasted a five-year break with Tripoli, and the pasha's successor came asking.
Commander of the Faithful
- 6♜Kwararafa break Kano's gate — c. 1653 · Kano Chronicle
In brief
Bornu's reach ran west to the Hausa cities as well. Katsina still paid it a nominal tribute. Their danger came from the south, from the Kwararafa, and about 1653 a Kwararafa army broke down a gate of Kano.6 Ali went to war against them. In Katsina the scholar Dan Marina wrote an Arabic ode to his victory. Ali, it says, went into the land of the heathen, lay in wait for the Kwararafa and drove them back to their borders. It calls him Commander of the Faithful, and the pious pilgrim to the holy cities. The date of the battle is disputed: it is usually placed in the 1650s, while others put the victory near 1670. In 1656 Ali led the pilgrim caravan to Mecca once more. In 1600 Idris Alooma's empire was in the hands of his sons. By 1660 his grandson had refused a pasha's monopoly, escaped his horsemen, and watched Tripoli come back asking.
The chain, era by era
In 1655 Ali's ambassador in Tripoli was a man named Ismail. Bornu's side of the talks included a request for European Christian captives to be sent as gifts, and that year Tripoli sent European captives south to Bornu. The road reopened in 1653 now carried envoys and gifts both ways.
In 1656 Ali led the pilgrim caravan to Mecca again, the second of the three pilgrimages Barth's chronicles credit to him, in 1648, 1656 and 1667. By 1660 the grandson of Idris had refused a pasha's monopoly, escaped his horsemen, and seen Tripoli come back asking.
Abd Allah al-Barnawi, a disciple of the Air Sufi Ahmad al-Sadiq, became the holy man of a new Sufi settlement at Kalumbardo in Ali's reign, founded, tradition says, with forty Koyam. A court qadi, Abu Bakr, accused him before Ali of plotting revolt; Ali instead recognised his sanctity and supported the settlement, at the place his father's purge had emptied.
In 1658 a scholar named Muhammad, also called Salih ibn Ishaq, wrote in Arabic an account of Birnin Gazargamu, Ali's capital, during his reign. The account survives, and the colonial official and historian H. R. Palmer published an English translation of it in 1928.
By 1660 Ali dealt with Tripoli through his own envoys, patronised the Sufis his father had suppressed, and still rode to Mecca.
Who’s who
Bornu and the Sayfawa mais
The pashas of Tripoli
The Fezzan
The Hausa cities
Others
Timeline
- 1♜Murzuq sacked — early 1620s · Ottoman troops from Tripoli 1619 – c. 1630
- 2⌂The Galadima's seat — tradition · Umar's reign 1619 – c. 1630
- 3✒The pasha's bargain — c. 1636–37 · Bornu's merchants to sell to the pasha alone c. 1636–1639
- 4◆Bornu's caravans stop — 1648–1653 1647–1649
- 5✒Trade restored — 1653 · Ali's letter to Osman 1649–1655
- 6♜Kwararafa break Kano's gate — c. 1653 · Kano Chronicle 1650s–1660
Sources
- R. Dewière, Du lac Tchad à la Mecque (2017), Prélude: the 1636–37 monopoly embassy, the 1647 refusal, the 1648 attempt to seize the sultan, the 1648–1653 rupture — source
- R. Dewière, 'Le Discours historique de l'estat du royaume de Borno', Afriques 04 (2013): the Tripoli captive's chronology, the 1653 restoration, Ismail's embassy of 1655 — source
- B. G. Martin, 'Maî Idrîs of Bornu and the Ottoman Turks, 1576–78', IJMES 3 (1972): Tahir's flight in 1622–23; Ali's Arabic letter of 1653 to Osman Pasha — source
- T. Hodgkin, Nigerian Perspectives (1960), p. 132: Dan Marina's ode to Mai Ali's victory over the Kwararafa, in Palmer's translation — source
- Umar III al-Maqdisi — Wikipedia (Tahir's drowning; the king-list dates) — source
- Muhammad VII Bukalmarami and Ibrahim III Gumsami — Wikipedia (the chronicles' portraits of the two brothers) — source
- Ali III Walamma — Wikipedia (Barth's dates for the pilgrimages of 1648 and 1656) — source
- Galadima — Wikipedia (Brenner's account of the first Galadima at Nguru) — source
- Mehmed Saqizli and Osman Saqizli — Wikipedia (the two pashas from Chios) — source
- Muhammad Kukuna — Wikipedia (the Kano Chronicle on the Kwararafa at Kano's gate) — source
Every claim in the text was checked against the sources above. Borders: historical-basemaps (A. Ourednik, GPL-3.0), the c.1600 snapshot, simplified — schematic, the right states in roughly the right places. Ground that changed hands: modern provinces (Natural Earth) or later snapshots standing in for historical ones. Land, lakes and rivers: Natural Earth. Portraits: credited below with author, licence and source.
Portraits
- Idris Alooma — Charles Lilly, Great Kings of Africa: Idris Alooma (1981?1987); later depiction, reproduced by Kentake Page; catalogued by Kenyon College, Blick-Harris Study Collection, accession 2024.2.12 · copyright, educational reproduction — source
- Muhammad Bukalmarami — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of sober naturalistic painted portrait in period dress (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Ibrahim Gumsami — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of sober naturalistic painted portrait in period dress (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Umar ibn Idris — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of sober naturalistic painted portrait in period dress (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Tahir — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of sober naturalistic painted portrait in period dress (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- the first Galadima — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of sober naturalistic painted portrait in period dress (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Muhammad Saqizli — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of sober naturalistic painted portrait in period dress (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Ali ibn Umar — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of sober naturalistic painted portrait in period dress (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Osman Saqizli — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of sober naturalistic painted portrait in period dress (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Ismail — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of sober naturalistic painted portrait in period dress (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Dan Marina — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of sober naturalistic painted portrait in period dress (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Dala Afuno — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of sober naturalistic painted portrait in period dress (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- al-Wali ibn al-Jarmi — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of sober naturalistic painted portrait in period dress (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Umar Waldede — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of sober naturalistic painted portrait in period dress (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Abd Allah al-Barnawi — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of sober naturalistic painted portrait in period dress (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration
- Muhammad Salih ibn Ishaq — imagined likeness, generated in the manner of sober naturalistic painted portrait in period dress (Codex image generation, 2026); no historical portrait survives or could be identified · generated illustration