Susam of Kanem

{{Short description|Legendary founder of Kanem}} {{Infobox royalty | name = Susam | succession = ''Mai'' of the Kanem–Bornu Empire | reign = {{circa}} 700 (20 years) | successor = Biram | spouse = Aisa (legendary) | issue = Biram | house = Duguwa dynasty | house-type = Dynasty | father = Dī Yazan (legendary) | mother = Aisa (legendary)| }} '''Susam''', '''Sebu''', or '''Sef''' was the legendary first ''mai'' (ruler) of the Kanem–Bornu Empire. Later legends credit Susam with uniting the local tribes of Kanem (modern-day southwestern Chad) and establishing the empire and its royal line. If a real historical figure, Susam would have ruled at the time of the empire's establishment, {{Circa}} 700.

After the empire converted to Islam in the 11th century, legends of the ruling dynasty were Arabized and Susam was claimed to have been the 6th-century Himyarite prince '''Sayf ibn Dī Yazan''', a medieval Islamic folk hero. Details of the Arabized legend are contradictory and were questioned as early as the 15th century.

== Historical record == Information about Susam comes from the ''girgam'', the orally recited royal chronicle of the Kanem–Bornu Empire, which is mainly known through transcriptions and translations by European explorers, scholars, and colonial officials in various copies in the 19th and 20th centuries, most importantly by Heinrich Barth, {{Interlanguage link|Moïse Landeroin|lt=Moïse Landeroin|fr|Moïse Landeroin}}, and Gustav Nachtigal. Richmond Palmer later worked with the same material as Barth, with some additions, and Yves Urvoy also published a study in the 1940s attempting to reconcile various sources.<ref name=":22">{{Cite book |last=Cohen |first=Ronald |url=https://archive.org/details/bostonuniversity02bost |title=Boston University Papers on Africa: Volume II: African History |date=1966 |publisher=Boston University Press |pages=56, 73, 78–80 |chapter=The Bornu King Lists}}</ref> Because the long timespan separating Susam from recorded history and the lack of contemporary evidence, Susam and his dynasty (the Duguwa dynasty) are generally treated as legendary figures of uncertain historicity.<ref name=":22" />

Barth, Landeroin, and Nachtigal all agree that Susam ruled for 20 years, and Palmer and Urvoy do not give any dates.<ref name=":22" />

== Arabized legend ==

=== Sayf ibn Dī Yazan === [[File:Himyarite Kingdom.png|thumb|Arabized legends of Kanem's foundation connect Susam to the ancient Himyarite Kingdom]] In the late 11th century, the rulers of Kanem converted to Islam and there was a dynastic shift from the Duguwa to the Sayfawa dynasty.<ref name=":0">{{Citation |last=Dewière |first=Rémi |title=The Kanem and Borno Sultanates (11th–19th Centuries) |date=2024 |work=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History |pages=3 |url=https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-1147 |access-date= |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.1147 |isbn=978-0-19-027773-4|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The first Sayfawa ''mai'', Hummay, is contradictingly recorded both as the founder of a new dynasty and as the son of his (Duguwa) predecessor, Selema I. Barth (1857) speculated that the "dynastic shift" was due to differences in religion, rather than a break in the royal line.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last=Barth |first=Heinrich |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=la_zIUj0oiwC |title=Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa: Being a Journal of an Expedition Undertaken under the Auspices of H.B.M.'s Government, in the Years 1849–1855 |date=1857 |publisher=Longmans |pages=633–634 |language=en}}</ref> It was common for Islamic dynasties in medieval Africa to claim Arab origin as a source of prestige.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Insoll |first=Timothy |title=The Archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2003 |isbn=0-521-65171-9 |pages=273 |chapter=}}</ref> The prologue of the ''girgam'', written down only after centuries of Sayfawa rule, names the dynastic founder of the royal line ''Sayf ibn Dī Yazan.''<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Lange |first=Dierk |date=2011 |title=The Founding of Kanem by Assyrian Refugees ca. 600 BCE: Documentary, Linguistic, and Archaeological Evidence |url=https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Founding-of-Kanem-by-Assyrian-Refugees-ca.-600-Lange/13bc26e168c87a745fd78b67a10cb322659832f5 |journal=Working Papers in African Studies |pages=265}}</ref> This name was apparently taken from a semi-legendary pre-Islamic 6th-century Yemeni prince<ref name=":1" /> who fled from Yemen when Himyar was conquered by the Kingdom of Aksum.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Meyerowitz |first=Eva L. R. |date=1972 |title=The Origins of the "Sudanic" Civilization |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40458020 |journal=Anthropos |volume=67 |issue=1/2 |pages=161–175 |issn=0257-9774}}</ref> Sayf ibn Dī Yazan was remembered as a hero in later medieval Islamic legend.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> The Sayfawa claim of descent from Sayf ibn Dī Yazan is also found outside the ''girgam'', having been recorded by some medieval Arab scholars, such as Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi (13th century) and Ahmad ibn Majid (15th century).<ref name=":1" />

The full name ''Sayf ibn Dī Yazan'' appears only in the prologue of the ''girgam''. In the main portion of the text, written in an annalistic style, he is recorded only as ''Sayf'' or ''Sef'', without the suffix ''ibn Dī Yazan'' ("son of Dī Yazan").<ref name=":1" /> In other king lists of Kanem–Bornu he is also only recorded as ''Sayf'' or ''Sef''.<ref name=":1" /> In lists of rulers of the Bilala around Lake Fitri,<ref name=":1" /> who claimed dynastic connections to the Sayfawa,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Conte |first=Edouard |title=Herders, Warriors, And Traders: Pastoralism In Africa |publisher=Routledge |year=1991 |isbn=9780429045615 |pages=226 |chapter=Herders, Hunters and Smiths: Mobile Populations in the History of Kanem |chapter-url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429045615-10/herders-hunters-smiths-mobile-populations-history-kanem-edouard-conte}}</ref> he is recorded as ''Muhammad Sef Allah''.<ref name=":1" /> Kanuri oral king lists and traditions record him under various names, including ''Sef'', ''Sebu'', and ''Saibu''.<ref name=":1" /> Modern scholars have sometimes used alternate spellings or names with little elaboration, such as ''Séf'' (Barth, 1857),<ref name=":12" /> ''Seif'' (Landeroin, 1911),<ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=Landeroin |first=Moïse |url=https://archive.org/details/documentsscienti21911miss/page/348/mode/2up |title=Documents Scientifiques de la Mission Tilho (1906–1909): Tome Deuxième |date=1911 |publisher=Imprimerie Nationale |pages=348 |language=fr |chapter=Du Tchad au Niger. — Notice historique}}</ref> and ''Susam'' (Venning, 2023).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Venning |first=Timothy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M2bFEAAAQBAJ |title=A Compendium of Medieval World Sovereigns |date=2023 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-000-86633-9 |language=en |chapter=Kanem-Bornu and the Hausa States of N Nigeria}}</ref>

The ''girgam''<nowiki/>'s account of Sayf differs from the Yemeni figure and folk hero in important aspects. The ''girgam''<nowiki/>'s genealogy connects Sayf to the biblical patriarchs through northern Arabian figures, rather than southern Arabian figures as expected for a Yemeni prince. The Egyptian scholar al-Qalqashandi questioned the Sayfawa version of Sayf's genealogy already in the 15th century. Ahmad bin Furtu, Grand Imam of the Kanem–Bornu Empire, endorsed the genealogy as accurate in the 16th century.<ref name=":1" /> The prologue also states, depending on the version, that Sayf or his mother was a child of the "king of Baghdad", further contradicting the tale of the Yemeni Sayf ibn Dī Yazan.<ref name=":1" /> Sayf was claimed to have traveled from Arabia to Kanem, united the local tribes there, and established a kingdom and a dynasty.<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":1" /> According to Barth (1857):<ref name=":12" />

{{blockquote|quote=Séf is said to have come to Kánem, where he founded a new dynasty, and reigned over several tribes; viz. the Berbers (Begháma?), Tebu, or Tedá, Kánembú, and others. Imám A'hmed states expressly that he came to Njímiye.<ref name=":12" />}}

Barth further stated that Séf was said to have died at "Sámina", which he identified as possibly in the territory of the Daju people.<ref name=":12" /> The origin chronicles describe Sayf as "the greatest of sultans" or "the great sultan",<ref name=":1" /> and as "king of the world in his time in its four directions"<ref name=":1" /> or "king of the four corners of the earth in the age in which he lived".<ref name=":7">Palmer, H. R. (1926). History Of The First Twelve Years Of The Reign Of Mai Idris Alooma Of Bornu (1571–1583) (Fartua, Ahmed Ibn). p. 108.</ref>

One version of the ''girgam'', translated by Palmer in 1912, designates Duku (otherwise the third ''mai'') as the first ''mai'' in Kanem and includes Sayf (as Sebu) only as an ancestor figure who "came from Yemen" and "is [buried] in Yemen".<ref name=":32">{{Cite journal |last=Palmer |first=H. R. |date=1912 |title=The Bornu Girgam |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/716085 |journal=Journal of the Royal African Society |volume=12 |issue=45 |pages=74–75 |issn=0368-4016}}</ref> A ''girgam'' translated by Palmer in 1926 places Sayf's deat at "Sima", which Palmer translates to Njimi, the capital of Kanem.<ref name=":7" />

=== Family === As indicated by his name, the legendary Sayf was the son of a man named Dī Yazan.<ref name=":22" /><ref name=":1" /> Landeroin contradictingly names him ''Seif ben Abdallah'' and names his father as ''Abdallah ben Aïssata''.<ref name=":6" /> Barth and Urvoy state that Sayf was the son of a woman from Mecca. Palmer gives her the name Aisa.<ref name=":22" /> One of the ''girgam''s translated by Palmer records Sayf as ''Sebu Aisami'', "Sebu, son of Aisa".<ref name=":32" /> The next ruler of Kanem, Biram, is consistently presented as Sayf's son. Biram's mother is not named by Palmer but is given the name Aisa by both Barth (as "Aaisha") and Urvoy (as "Aicha").<ref name=":22" />

== Modern hypotheses == The process of state formation in Kanem, the original core territory of the Kanem–Bornu Empire, is largely unknown.<ref name=":0" /> The state is generally believed to have been founded {{Circa}} 700<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=Obikili |first=Nonso |title=The Oxford Handbook of Nigerian Politics |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-0-19-880430-7 |location= |pages=40 |chapter=State Formation in Precolonial Nigeria}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Wright |first=John |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Libya_Chad_and_the_Central_Sahara/dsKlU6Ry8lgC |title=Libya, Chad, and the Central Sahara |date=1989 |publisher=Hurst & Company |isbn=1-85065-050-0 |pages=33}}</ref> by the Zaghawa people,<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Nave |first=Ari |title=Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-19-517055-9 |location= |pages=17 |chapter=Chad}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Bosworth |first=Clifford Edmund |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/New_Islamic_Dynasties/maQxEAAAQBAJ |title=The New Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Manual |date=2012 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |year= |isbn=0-7486-2137-7 |pages=128 |orig-year=1996}}</ref> pastoralists from the Ennedi Plateau in the northeast,<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":4" /> but to quickly have grown to encompass several other ethnic groups, such as the Toubou people,<ref name=":2" /> with different groups eventually giving rise to the Kanembu people.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hiribarren |first=Vincent |title=The Encyclopedia of Empire |publisher=Wiley |year=2016 |isbn=9781118440643 |chapter=Kanem-Bornu Empire |chapter-url=https://www.vincenthiribarren.com/pdf/Hiribarren_-_2016_-_Kanem-Bornu.pdf}}</ref> Njimi is generally identified as the original capital of the empire.<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Stewart |first=John |title=African States and Rulers: An Encyclopedia of Native, Colonial and Independent States and Rulers Past and Present |publisher=McFarland & Company |year=1989 |isbn= |pages=146 |chapter=}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last= |first= |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Africa_to_America/9b6cAAAAQBAJ |title=Africa to America: From the Middle Passage Through the 1930s |date=2010 |publisher=Britannica Educational Publishing |isbn=978-1-61530-175-1 |pages=50 |language=en |chapter=Kingdoms, Empires, and Centres}}</ref> Another site, Manan, has also been proposed to have been the pre-Islamic capital.<ref name=":0" /> In 1989, the Cameroonian historian Verkijika Fanso treated Susam as a historical figure and the founder of Kanem, who may have originated as a nomadic leader and united various groups into the Kanembu people.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fanso |first=Verkijika G. |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Cameroon_History_for_Secondary_Schools_a/dqUPAQAAMAAJ |title=Cameroon History for Secondary Schools and Colleges |date=1989 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-333-47121-0 |pages=20 |language=en}}</ref>

The German historian Dierk Lange has suggested that Kanem's establishment was connected to refugees from the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 7th century BCE.<ref name=":1" /> As part of his hypothesis, Lange identified the legendary Duguwa rulers of Kanem as cultural memories of various historical figures from different civilizations in the Ancient Near East. Lange connected the ''girgam''<nowiki/>'s title "king of the world in his time in its four directions" to the ancient Mesopotamian title "king of the four corners of the world", and the name ''Sayf'' to the Sumerian royal title ''sipa'' ("shepherd"). Lange specifically identified Susam with Sargon of Akkad, the "most important" of the rulers referred to as ''sipa''.<ref name=":1" /> Lange's hypothesis on the origin of Kanem has been criticised for lack of evidence and has found no acceptance among other researchers.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bjorkelo |first1=Anders |date=1979 |title=Response to Dierk Lange |journal=The International Journal of African Historical Studies |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=286–289 |doi=10.2307/218839 |jstor=218839}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Barrows |first1=Leland Conley |date=2006 |title=Review of Ancient Kingdoms of West Africa-Africa-Centred and Canaanite-Israelite Perspectives: A Collection of Published and Unpublished Studies in English and French |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40034020 |journal=The International Journal of African Historical Studies |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=171–173 |issn=0361-7882 |jstor=40034020}}</ref>

== References == {{Reflist}} {{Kanem–Bornu rulers}}

Category:Rulers of the Kanem Empire Category:8th-century monarchs in Africa