Kisra legend

The Kisra legend is a migration story shared by a number of political and ethnic groups in modern Nigeria, Benin, and Cameroon, primarily the Borgu kingdom and the people of the Benue River valley.

There are a number of different versions of the legend with Kisra sometimes being depicted as a religious and military rival to Muhammad near Mecca around the time that Islam was founded and sometimes as the remnant forces of a Persian king defeated in Egypt.

[1] In the most prominent version of the story in the Borgu kingdom, Kisra is depicted as an early political and religious challenger to Muhammad in the area around Mecca.

[3] In 1909, the German anthropologist Leo Frobenius compiled an aggregate version of the Kisra legend from informants in the Benue river valley.

This version depicts Kisra not as a challenger to Mohammad, but instead as a Persian king who suffered a military defeat in Egypt to a Byzantine army.

His army settled briefly in Nubia and Ethiopia where Kisra joined forces with a powerful king in the region, Napata, to conquer lands to the West.

These include: Anthropologists and historians have conducted significant oral history studies and material research to identify any correspondence of key parts of the legend.

The legend was a key part of developing clear cultural identity in Borgu and Kebbi as they resisted Songhai and Fulani dominance to the north.

[16] These theories argued that political development, namely the formation of complex states, had its origins in migrations of people from the Middle East or of Christian influences (often Coptic).

The Borgu kingdom
Egyptian woven pattern woolen curtain or trousers, which was a copy of a Sassanid silk import, which was in turn based on a fresco of Persian King Khosrau II fighting Ethiopian forces in Yemen , 5-6th century.