Kanem-Bornu State

Timeline

1. 1131–1135Njimi court · ChadThe Kanem 'mai' (king) took Sayfawa lineage as the source of ruling legitimacy and generally converted to Islam from the 11th century onward. By the 1130s the court had established a governance system running Islamic law alongside tribal customary law; the mai appointed governors (kaygama) to manage tribal vassal states and maintained religious contacts with scholars of the North African Maghreb.
2. 1135–1140Lake Chad basin · Lake Chad BasinKanem controlled trade routes connecting Fezzan (present-day Libya) with the Niger River basin, levying tolls on camel caravans and exchanging North African salt and cloth for southern slaves, ivory, and kola nuts. In the 1130s, lakeside fishing and irrigated agriculture provided the empire's food base, and Njimi became one of Central Africa's largest urban settlements, attracting Arabic-speaking scholars and merchants.