Dunama Dabbalemi

Dunama Dabbalemi, or Dounama Dibbalém, of the

Kanem Empire, in present-day Chad, from 1210 to 1224.^[1]^[2]^[3]

A fervent

Ouaddaï, and southward to the Adamawa grasslands (in present-day Cameroon). Through his wars, he captured many slaves that he sold to the North African traders as the main item of the trans-Saharan trade.^[5]

He is also credited with destroying the mune, a mysterious object believed to possess unknown powers, possibly a symbol of divine kingship. It was probably destroyed so to cancel an important symbol of pre-Muslim beliefs, and to prove his determination in contrasting what he saw as the lax faith of his predecessors. The action generated some reprobation, as it is reported that the destruction opened a period of civil strife within the kingdom.[6]

Dabbalemi devised a system to reward military commanders with authority over the people they conquered. This system, however, tempted military officers to pass their positions to their sons, thus transforming the office from one based on achievement and loyalty to the mai into one based on hereditary nobility. Dabbalemi was able to suppress this tendency, but it was to erupt after his death, provoking the loss of most of Dabbalemi's conquests.

References

^ Urvoy, Y. (1949). Historie De L'Empire Du Bronu (Memoires De L'Institut Francais D'Afrique Noire, No. 7 ed.). Paris: Librairie Larose. pp. 52, 57.
^ Palmer, Richmond (1936). The Bornu Sahara and Sudan. London: John Murray. pp. 92, 179–186.
^ Barth, Henry (1890). Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa. London: Ward, Lock, and Co. p. 361. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
^ Levtzion/Hopkins, Corpus, 337.
^ Barkindo, ""Early states", 237-9.
^ Lange, "Mune-symbol", 84-104.

General

Barkindo, Bawuro, "The early states of the Central Sudan: Kanem, Borno and some of their neighbours to c. 1500 A.D.", in: J. Ajayi und M. Crowder (ed.), History of West Africa, vol. I, 3. ed. Harlow 1985, 225-254.
Chad: A Country Study
Lange, Dierk: "The Mune-symbol as the Ark of the Covenant between Duguwa and Sefuwa", Borno Museum Society Newsletter, 66/67 (2006), 84-106.
Nehemia Levtzion and John Hopkins: Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History, Cambridge 1981.

References

See also