Girgam

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Diwan is the Arabic and Girgam the older term of the royal chronicle of Kanem-Bornu. The latter name is also used for either written or oral historical traditions in some kingdoms west of Bornu like Daura and Fika.

The Diwan was discovered in 1851 by the German traveller Heinrich Barth in Kukawa the nineteenth century capital of Bornu. Its "local" name girgam is derived from the Akkadian-Sumerian term girginakku ("library, box for written tablets"). Hence its Arabic translation diwan ("register, collection of written leaves"). It begins with the list of all the Biblical patriarchs (except one) before Abraham and it places Sef and Dugu before and after Abraham. The thirteenth century identification of Sef with the preislamic Yeminite hero Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan corresponds to a conscious effort to bring the history of Kanem-Bornu in line with Arabic history. The form of some of the Patriarchal names can be shown to be authentic and not derived from Arabic sources. Hence it must be supposed that there existed a local line of transmission of valid biblical information.

The Diwan provides the names of 69 rulers of Kanem-Bornu and some supplementary information concering the length of their reign, their ascendancy and often some events of their reign. The information given by several Arab authors (Ibn Said, al-Maqrizi and al-Qalqashandi) confirm the validity of the data provided by the Diwan. On the basis of these elements a nearly accurate chronology of the rulers of Kanem-Bornu can be established between the tenth and the nineteenth century. After the fall of the Sefuwa dynasty in 1846 the supporters of the succeeding al-Kanemi dynasty tried to obliterate the memory of the Sefuwa as much as possibly. Hence they destroyed all copies of the diwan they could lay hands on. The two copies of the chronicle obtained by Barth are therefore the only ones which survived.

[edit] Literature

  • Lange, Dierk: Le Diwan des Sultans du Kanem-Bornu: Chronologie et histoire d'un royaume africain, Wiesbaden 1977.
  • Lange, Dierk: Ancient Kingdoms of West Africa, Dettelbach 2004 (notes concerning a slightly amended chronology, p. 552).
  • Palmer, Herbert R.: The Bornu Sahara and Sudan, London 1936 (a rough Engl. translation of the diwan, pp. 89-95).

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