Kanem–Bornu Empire
Duguwa or Dougouwa dynasty (700–1086)

Climate change ensured the rise of the early Kanem–Bornu Empire, as desertification that increased the spread of the Sahara made some areas around Lake Chad unlivable, causing nomadic peoples from that area to navigate to the places where the empire would eventually be centralized.

Kanem was connected via a trans-Saharan slave trade route with Tripoli via Bilma in the Kawar. Slaves were imported from the south along this route. In the 16th-century, Turkish musketeers where imported to Bornu, and in the 17th-century, European slaves are noted to have been imported to Bornu from the Barbary slave trade in Tripoli in Libya.

Kanuri tradition states Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan established dynastic rule over the nomads around the 9th century through divine kingship. For the next millennium, the Mais ruled the Kanuri, which included the Ngalaga, Kangu, Kayi, Kuburi, Kaguwa, Tomagra, and Tubu.

Kanem is mentioned as one of three great empires in the Sudan region, by Ya'qubi in 872. He describes the kingdom of "the Zaghāwa who live in a place called Kānim", which included several vassal states. "Their dwellings are huts made of reeds and they have no towns." Living as nomads, their cavalry gave them military superiority. In the 10th century, al-Muhallabi mentions two towns in the kingdom, one of which was Mānān. Their king was considered divine, believing he could "bring life and death, sickness and health". Wealth was measured in livestock, sheep, cattle, camels and horses. From al-Bakri in the 11th century onwards, the kingdom is referred to as Kanem. In the 12th century Muhammad al-Idrisi described Mānān as "a small town without industry of any sort and little commerce". Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi describes Mānān as the capital of the Kanem kings in the 13th century and Kanem as a powerful Muslim kingdom.
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