[3] At its height, it encompassed an area covering not only most of Chad but also parts of southern Libya (Fezzan) and eastern Niger, northeastern Nigeria and northern Cameroon.

The Bornu Empire (1380s–1893) was a state in what is now northeastern Nigeria, in time becoming even larger than Kanem, incorporating areas that are today parts of Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

[4] The early history of the empire is mainly known from the Royal Chronicle, or Girgam, discovered in 1851 by the German traveller Heinrich Barth.

Kanem was located at the southern end of the trans-Saharan trade route between Tripoli and the region of Lake Chad.

The Kanembu were supposedly forced southwest towards the fertile lands around Lake Chad by political pressure and desiccation in their former range.

Based on the written and oral traditions of Kanem-Bornu, which place the origin of the ruling Sefuwa dynasty in the Near East, Lange connects the creation of Kanem–Bornu with the departure from the collapsed Neo-Assyrian Empire c. 600 BC to the northeast of Lake Chad.

[10][11] He also proposes that the lost state of Agisymba (mentioned by Ptolemy in the middle of the 2nd century) was the antecedent of the Kanem Empire.

With respect to the king Salmama (1176–1203) the chronicle notes: “From Sultan Sayf to him, no sultan was born black, but they were red like the Beduin Arabs.”[15] 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.

[18] Kanuri tradition states Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan established dynastic rule over the nomads around the 9th century through divine kingship.

[16] For the next millennium, the Mais ruled the Kanuri, which included the Ngalaga, Kangu, Kayi, Kuburi, Kaguwa, Tomagra, and Tubu.

Tribes to the south of Lake Chad were raided as kafirun, and then transported to Zawila in the Fezzan, where the slaves were traded for horses and weapons.

Dabbalemi initiated diplomatic exchanges with sultans in North Africa, sending a giraffe to the Hafsid monarch and arranged for the establishment of a madrasa of al-Rashid in Cairo to facilitate pilgrimages to Mecca.

As the Sayfawa extended control beyond Kanuri tribal lands, fiefs were granted to military commanders, as cima, or 'master of the frontier'.

Finally, around 1387 the Bulala forced Mai Umar b. Idris to abandon Njimi and move the Kanembu people to Bornu on the western edge of Lake Chad.

He built a fortified capital at Ngazargamu, to the west of Lake Chad (in present-day Nigeria), the first permanent home a Sayfawa mai had enjoyed in a century.

So successful was the Sayfawa rejuvenation that by the early 16th century Mai Idris Katakarmabe (1507–1529) was able to defeat the Bulala and retake Njimi, the former capital.

[27][21]: 159 [17]: 73 [8]: 180–182, 205 [20]: 94, 222–228 Bornu 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.

[29] The Bornu army was transported via camel or large boats and fed by free and slave women cooks, and often employed a scorched earth policy if necessary for the conquest of fortified towns and other strongholds.

Ribāts were built on frontiers, and trade routes to the north were secure, allowing relations to be established with the Pasha of Tripoli and the Turkish empire.

[30] Ibn Furtu called Alooma Amir al-Mu'minin, after he implemented Sharia, and relied upon large fiefholders to ensure justice.

As Martin Meredith states, "Wells along the way were surrounded by the skeletons of thousands of slaves, mostly young women and girls, making a last desperate effort to reach water before dying of exhaustion once there.

Borno sultans developed a political legitimacy based on their religious charisma, in the context of the rise of Sufism in Sahel.

Usman dan Fodio led the Fulani thrust and proclaimed a jihad (holy war) on the irreligious Muslims of the area.

[20]: 259–267 [36] Muhammad al-Amin al-Kanemi, who was of mixed Kanuri and Shuwa Arab heritage from Fezzan contested the Fulani incursions into Bornu.

Umar eschewed the title mai for the simpler designation shehu (from the Arabic shaykh), could not match his father's vitality, and gradually allowed the kingdom to be ruled by advisers (wazirs).

Bornu began a further decline as a result of administrative disorganization, regional particularism, and attacks by the militant Waddai Empire to the east.