Dunama Dibalami

Dunama Dibalami, or Dunama II, was the greatest of the medieval mais of Kanem, reigning in the first half of the thirteenth century at the height of the empire's power. He is remembered above all for opening the mune, the sacred relic that stood as the palladium of the kingship and the surviving emblem of the pre-Islamic royal cult. Moved by his devotion to Islam, he violated the taboo that forbade the object ever being unwrapped. The internal chronicles, the Diwan and the account of the imam Ahmad ibn Furtu, treat this as a grievous sacrilege and trace to it the rebellions of the Tubu and the Bulala and the century of dynastic bloodshed that followed, which ultimately forced the Sefuwa to abandon Kanem for Bornu west of Lake Chad. In him the collision between the old sacral order and the new faith is crystallised into a single fateful act.

Domains

• sacred kingship
• sacred relic

Powers

• open the sacred mune
• muster the great cavalry of Kanem

Epithets

• Dibalami — Dabbalemi, the by-name of the great thirteenth-century DunamaLe Diwan des sultans du Kanem-Bornu, ed. Lange (1977) (primary)

Sources

• Dunama Dibalami (Dunama II), reigning c. 1210-1248, opened or destroyed the sacred mune, an act the Diwan and Ibn Furtu present as sacrilege that precipitated revolt.: Ahmad ibn Furtu, Kitab ghazawat Kanim, trans. H. R. Palmer, Sudanese Memoirs (1928) (primary); Dierk Lange, Le Diwan des sultans du Kanem-Bornu (1977) (secondary)
• His reign marks the apogee of Kanem's medieval power and expansion.: Yves Urvoy, Histoire de l'empire du Bornou (1949) (secondary)