Kanem–Bornu Empire

The Kanem–Bornu Empire existed in areas which are now part of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Libya and Chad. The Bornu Empire was founded by an exiled king of Kanem, Uma b. Idris, who had been forced to flee following the takeover of that kingdom between 1390 and 1400 CE by the Bulala, a mysterious group who may have been a single tribe or clan group of pastoralists.

Kanem-Bornu was founded about the mid-9th century, and its first capital was at Njimi, northeast of Lake Chad. Toward the end of the 11th century, the Sef mai (king) Umme (later known as Ibn ʿAbd al-Jalīl) became a Muslim, and from that time Kanem-Bornu was an Islamic state.

Kanem-Bornu handled trade between North Africa and lands to the south. The empire sold such products as salt, elephant tusks, ostrich feathers, and live animals. The empire also traded slaves to people in North Africa in exchange for war horses. The Kanem-Bornu people raised crops and livestock for their own use.

It peaked during the reign of Mai Idris Alooma (c. 1564–1596), reaching the limits of its greatest territorial expansion, gaining control over Hausaland, and the people of Ahir and Tuareg. Peace was made with Bulala, when a demarcation of boundaries was agreed upon with a non-aggression pact. Military innovations included the use of mounted Turkish musketeers, slave musketeers, mailed cavalrymen, footmen and feats of military engineering as seen during the siege of the fortified town of Amsaka. This army was organized into an advance guard and a rear reserve while often using shield wall methods as well.

Bornu began to decline as a result of administrative disorganization, regional particularism, and attacks by the militant Ouaddai Empire to the east. The decline continued under Umar's sons. In 1893, Rabih az-Zubayr led an invading army from eastern Sudan and conquered Bornu.