Origin and Meaning of Kanuri:
Kanuri /kəˈnuːri/ is a dialect continuum
spoken by some six million people, as of
2015, in mainly North –Eastern Nigeria,
Western Niger, South –Eastern Chad and
Northern Cameroon, as well as small minorities in southern Libya and by a
diaspora in Sudan.
The Kanuri Kingdom with its remnant
cities
,provinces and states like Borno Nigeria,
Damagaram (Zinder) in Niger, Mao Chad and
Kusri and Baghirmi in Cameroon among
others were said to have originated from
the East; Some experts interpreted this
East
as the Southern Arabian Penisular which equals to the modern geographical
description of the territories of Al
Hudaydah
(Arabic: ﺓﺪﻳﺪﺤﻟﺍ), also known in English as
Hodeida or Hudaiyya in Kanuri language
located in the republic of Yemen, which is geographically located at 14°48′08″N
42°57′04″E . These Kanuri people were
said
to have come all the way from the
Arabian
Peninsula and get settled at about 640 kilometers north of the present day Lake
Chad which was latter emerged as the
great
Kanem-Bornu Empire( One of the two
great
Empires in the history of Africa).”Althou gh
this historical findings were based on
extractions from available existing
historical
sources both at home and abroad
including the British Library London, the American
Museum of Natural History in New York as
well as in the Suleymaniye Library in
Istanbul ( Turkey), but yet with the advent
of modern technological advancements in
the field of DNA testing and identifications; I
believe that further research needed to
be
done with time in the field of Geo-
archaeological and Geo-biological
investigations to further prove these findings beyond reasonable doubts.
However considering the similarities
between Kanuri and Arabic languages as
in
counting days, numbers and some of the
existing nouns in the language one can easily conclude that the Kanuri language
is a
product of decayed or decaying local
Arabic
mixed with some indigenous African
languages. This is one of the main reasons
why the Anthropologists classified the
Kanuri language under the Nilo-Saharan
language family.
Despite the fact that the Lake chad
environment which is the heart of the Kanuri settlement and the Kanem-Bornu
Empire as a whole is a very dusty
environment as such that if a person
doesn’t wash his body more often or
regularly the dust gets settle on the Skin
and makes the Skin looks very dusty looking
one; but yet because the Kanuris are
practicing Muslims they regularly wash
their
faces, feet and hands on an average of
five times makes them keep having more
fresher looking Skin at all times,especially
their forehead. It was in view of this
fresher looking Skin and face in the
middle
of this dusty Lake Chad environment that makes some of the neighboring ethnic
groups such as the “Sau” (reputedly a race
of giants) that lived around the present
day
Ngala area referred to them as the
Kanuris or Kanuri.
The NAME Kanuri is from the combination
of
two Kanuri words ; “Ka” meaning Stick
and
a word derived from the Arabic word NUR or “Nuri” meaning Light (Though in
Kanuri
itself Nur means light).
Reason for calling the Kanuri as KA +
NURI=
KANURI ,was that the Kanuri on arrival they
were mainly Pastoralists engaged in
rearing
of cattle and Sheep ,so as a normal
tradition
almost every pastoralist carry stick with him
that helps him guide his animals while
grazing and chasing them back home on
return so same it was with the Kanuris.
But
for the Sau people they know that there were a lot of pastoralists living within
their
environment but this Kanuri people have
more fresher Skin complexion and they
always hold sticks with them so in other
to differentiate them with the other
Pastoralists holding same Sticks and
rearing
same animals makes them refer to this
brightly looking people (Fresher skin)
looking people with Sticks as the Kanuri which is literally translated as "Stick and
Nur" but meaning the Nur (Fresher skin)
looking man with the stick.Hence the
Kanuri
man became Kanuri and known by this
name by many tribes and kingdoms such as
the Sau,Koto,the Europeans,Arabs and the
Turkish as well as the local surrounding
ethnic groups such as Marghi,Babur
etc,but
yet some other ethnic groups aslo call the Kanuri with some other names . For
example they are called "Beri Beri" by the
present day Hausas and "Barnowaji" by
the
Najdi, Baggara and Hejazi tribes living in
Chad and Sudan republics. The Kanuri language was the major
language of the precolonial Kanem Bornu
Empire and remains a major language in
Borno and Yobe sates in the modern day
Nigeria,Diffa and Damagaram in Niger
republic as well as Mao,Kusri and Kanem in
the Chad republic, yet having some few
presents in Western Sudan and Southern
Libya as well.
The Kanuri kingdom started with the
Dynasty of Safeway which was founded by Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan who many historians
considered him to be an Arab from the
Arabian Peninsula as indicated ealier.
Yazan
dynasty ruled and controlled the Kanem
Empire for about 800 years. So with this historical facts it said that the ancient
Kanem Empire was founded in the 9th
Century and its first capital was a town in
the north-eastern part of Lake Chad
known
as Njimi. The Sayfawa Dynasty and their subjects
fled
to Birnin Gazargamu when the Bulala
people
attacked them. Birnin Gazargamu
remained as capital even after the reclaiming of
Njimi
in the 16th Century. However over the
years towns/cities like Monguno, Kukawa,
Dikwa ,Old Maiduguri and now Maidugrui/
Yerwa were all capitals at different times since the last 1000 years ago .The rulers
of
the El-Kanemi family were brought in to
rule
the kingdom after some lapses that
occurred and that even cost the office of the ruling Mai as at that time. So a
prominent Islamic scholar and a warrior
in
Ngala known as Sheikh all Hajj
Muhammad al
Amin ibn Muhammad al Kanemi, was brought in as a ruler to checkmate
attacks
and return the kingdom to a required
status. So with this we can say that the
Sayfawa Dynasty came to an end in the
year 1846. Many of the descendants of the Mais of the Saifawa dynasty are still living
in
the present day Maiduguri city with many
of them living in the Lawan Bukar
Kaacha,Shehuri North and the Fezzan
ward areas of Maiduguri.
For a period of several centuries, the
efforts
of the Saifawa to consolidate their power
and expand their kingdom's boundaries
led to the incorporation of many distinctive
groups within Kanuri society. This process
has not ended. Intermarriage, commerce,
politics, and other factors have combined
to
produce a people who are culturally heterogeneous.
The Kanuri have had a strong influence on
surrounding peoples, which include the
Budum of Lake Chad, the Mandara and
Kotoko (or Mogori) who live southeast of
the Kanuri, the Marghi of the Damboa district, the Babur in the hills south of the
Kanuri, the Bolewa located southwest of
the
Kanuri, and the Bede of Gashua, within
the
Kanuri territory. All of these groups have acquired various aspects of Kanuri
culture,
mainly the Kanuri language and Islam.
Many,
including the Hausa, were at one time
subjects of the Kanuri Empire.
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