{{Short description|Arabic royal chronicle of the Kanem–Bornu Empire}} {{italic title}} The '''''Girgam''''' (or ''Diwan'') is the royal chronicle of the Kanem–Bornu Empire, written in Arabic. Girgam is also used as the name for written historical records in some kingdoms west of Bornu, including Daura, Fika and Mandara, defined as "chronicle or 'list of ancestors'"<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xFM4AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA71 |title=The Bornu Girgam |last=Palmer |first=H. R. |journal=African Affairs |volume=12 |number=45 |date=October 1912 |access-date=16 May 2019}}</ref> or simply "date".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vTAOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA157 |title=Collection of vocabularies of Central-African languages |last=Barth |first=Heinrich |volume=3 |page=157 |date=1862 |publisher=J. Perthes |access-date=16 May 2019}}</ref>
"A very meagre and incorrect abridgement" of the ''Girgam'' was provided by a local associated with the Sefuwa dynasty to the German traveller Heinrich Barth in 1851, in Kukawa, the nineteenth century capital of Bornu.<ref>Henry Barth 1857, ''Travels'', II, p. 253-255.</ref><ref>Heinrich Barth 1857, ''Travels'', II, p. 16.</ref> Barth reported that a translation was published in 1852.<ref>Blau 1852</ref>
It provides the names of 69 rulers of Kanem-Bornu and some supplementary information concerning the length of their reigns, their ascendancy, and often some events of their reigns.<ref>Palmer, ''Bornu Sahara'', 89–95</ref> The information given by several Arab authors (Ibn Sa'īd, al-Maqrīzī and al-Qalqashandī) confirm the validity of the data provided by the ''Girgam''.<ref>Levtzion/Hopkins, ''Corpus'', pp. 188, 347, 354-5.</ref> On the basis of these sources, a nearly accurate chronology of the rulers of Kanem-Bornu can be established between the tenth and the nineteenth centuries. Since the fall of the Sefuwa dynasty in 1846, "the new dynasty of the Kánemíyín [Kānemī] endeavours to obliterate as much as possible the memory of the old Kanúri [Sefuwa] dynasty, and has assiduously destroyed all its records wherever they could be laid hold of."<ref>Henry Barth 1957, p. 255</ref>
==See also== *Bornu Empire *Kanem Empire *Sayfawa dynasty
==References== {{Reflist}}
== Literature == *Barth, Heinrich (1857): ''Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa''. Vol. II, New York, pp. 15–35, 581-602. *Barth, Henry (1857): [https://books.google.com/books?id=d5cSAAAAYAAJ ''Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa'']. Vol. II, London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, pp. 253-268. *Blau, Otto (1852): [https://menadoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/download/pdf/20781 ''Chronik der Sultâne von Bornu'']. ''Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft,'' p. 305-330. (German translation of the ''Dīwān''. This source is referenced by Henry Barth (1857 p. 253 footnote)). *Palmer, Herbert R. (1936): ''The Bornu Sahara and Sudan.'' London 1936 (English translation of the ''Dīwān'' S. 89-95 *Lavers, John (1982): [http://dierklange.com/pdf/reviews/chronologie/review_Chronologie_histoire.pdf "Review of 'Le ''dīwān'' des sultans du Kanem-Bornu'], ''Journal of African History'', 23, 122-3. *Nehemia Levtzion and John Hopkins (1981): ''Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History'', Cambridge. *Palmer, Richmond: ''The Bornu Sahara and Sudan'', London 1936 (a rough English translation of the ''Dīwān'', pp. 89–95).
Category:Culture of Chad Category:African chronicles Category:Kanem–Bornu Empire Category:Nigerian literature