A plausible map of Kanem's 13th century apogee available on Wikipedia.
The Mune, an object opened by Dunama Dibalemi (r. 1210-1248), is one of the heavily contested or debated topics in the annals of the Sayfawa dynasty. Said to have led to the period of strife, defeat, and civil wars that followed Dunama Dibalemi's reign, the Mune has been interpreted by some as a pagan relic, an Islamic covenant, and even tied to Egyptian conspiracies against the mai. Older academics tried to contextualize it as Dunama the ardent Islamic reformer, eager to end pre-Islamic customs or influences in the state. Others stress the interpretation of Ahmad b. Furtu or Muhammad Yanbu, which suggests the Mune was a revered Islamic relic. Thus, in their eyes, Dunama Dibalemi went against Islam and the advice of his court. A thorough second look at the various contexts in which the Mune was discussed in Borno sources as well as an examination of Kanuri religious practices may shed additional light on this poorly understood aspect of Kanem-Borno history. Ultimately, the Mune may best be understood as a symbol for proper leadership.
Let us begin with one of the earliest written sources on the Mune. Ahmad b. Furtu, chief imam and chronicler of Idris b. Ali (r. 1564-1596), mentioned the Mune in the context of Idris b. Ali's campaigns against the Bulala sultan in Kanem. Since Kanem was the ancient homeland of the Sayfawa dynasty, it is not surprising that Ahmad b. Furtu also wrote of visits to the burial places of Sayfawa ancestors or compared Idris b. Ali to Dunama Dibalemi. It would seem that by the 16th century, Borno tradition remembered Dunama Dibalemi as a seminal figure in the history of the maiwa. Informants on this past included elders and sheikhs. More specifically, a shaykh named Wunoma Muhammad al-Saghir ibn Tuguma spoke of Dunama Dibalemi's army including 30,000 cavalry (Sudanese Memoirs I, 50). In terms of the Mune itself, Ahmad b. Furtu wrote it "was a certain thing wrapped up and hidden away whereon depended their victory in war" (Sudanese Memoirs I, 69-70). It was thus something held by the Sayfawa dynasty for generations and believed to be essential for military victory or success. Ahmad b. Furtu stressed that Dunama Dibalemi disobeyed "his people" by opening the Mune and whatever was inside flew away. In addition to losing what ensured victory against infidels, Ahmad b. Furtu wrote, "It is said that when Dunama opened it, whatever was inside flew away impelling the chief men of the kingdom to greed for dominion and high rank" (Sudanese Memoirs I, 70). As if it was not already clear, Ahmad b. Furtu also compared the Mune to the Ark of the Covenant and immediately wrote of the war with the Tubu during Dunama Dibalemi's reign. This was followed by further conflict with the Bulala. Undoubtedly, Ahmad b. Furtu (and presumably elders and shaykhs relying on tradition) saw the Mune as Ilslamic and something held by the Banu Sayf for generations which ensured their military victories as well as internal political stability.
The next source, the Diwan, is much briefer. Since we are relying on the French translation of Lange, which used a 19th century copy found by Barth, we are assuming the Diwan given to Barth represented a 19th century product. While there may have been a longer chronicle or much earlier girgams that were periodically updated over the centuries, we do not have any such document from the reign of Dunama Dibalemi or his immediate successors. So, what does the Diwan tell us about the Mune? Like Ahmad b. Furtu, the chronicle attributes the opening of the Mune, a thing known only to God the most high, to Dunama Dibalemi. Moreover, like Ahmad b. Furtu, it also tells us that Dunama engaged in at least one war, his sons were dispersed. Furthermore, "Auparavant il n'y avait pas eu des factions" (Diwan, 72). Unmistakably, the Diwan emphasizes the rise of political factions with the sons of the mai taking different sides. This corroborates the view of Ahmad b. Furtu, who wrote of the chief men of Kanem aspiring to higher positions and power after the opening of the Mune. The general picture is one of the Mune as a holy object and the opening or cutting of it was actually un-Islamic. In his commentary on it, Lange tried to argue that the Diwan and Ahmad b. Furtu saw the "pagan" object as something that must be maintained by the Sayfawa for reasons of state security. However, it is far more likely that the authors of these aforementioned texts truly believed that the Mune was a Muslim object akin to the Ark of the Covenant.
The next major source on the Mune is Muhammad Yanbu. A scion of the Sayfawa dynasty who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries, Yanbu wrote al-Idara fi nizam al-mamlaka wa 'l-imara. This author wrote that the Mune was actually carried on military campaigns. Yanbu also emphasized the Mune as a convenant with Ten Commandments the Banu Say were supposed to maintain (Bobboyi, 87). One such commandment was, "Eightly, to hold fast, all together, to the rope of Allah and not be divided" (Bobboyi 88). This commandment seems particularly relevant since the Sayfawa princes apparently began to form or align themselves with factions, eventually leading to civil wars and internal discord that weakened Kanem after Dunama Dibalemi's reign. Based on Ahmad b. Furtu, Muhammad Yanbu and Borno oral sources, Bobboyi believed the Mune represented "a conceptualization of the Islamic political role of the Sayfawa sultans by the 'Ulama, at least from the sixteenth century" (Bobboyi, 88). Besides these aforementioned written sources, abundant Borno oral traditions consulted by Bobboyi stress the central role of the Mune in the fall of Sayfawa rule in Kanem. For example, the Mune commandment to never flee from battle when defeated, as Bobboyi elucidates, informed the custom among the Sayfawa for the ruler to dismount, sit on his shield and say, "Munem Bago." This apparently means "Fleeing is not in the Mune" (Bobboyi, 107). Undoubtedly, the Mune and its commandments were understood in this broadly Islamic ideology of a proper, just ruler.
Additional Borno sources on the Mune were utilized by historian Muhammad Nur Alkali. One of his sources, an unpublished text he entitled The story of the mune written 1185 A.H. (NO, 1771) as a memory of the golden age of the Sayfawa rule, was written by the amir of Alarge, Muhammad b. al-Hajj b. Ali. A translation and commentary by Abdullahi Smith was included in Kyari Tijani's "The Mune in Pre-Colonial Borno." This source includes a list of pledges or dictates the Sayfawa must maintain, which is essentially the same as the Commandments in al-Idara (Alkali, 43-44). Alkali also included material from al-Idara which blamed the Egyptians for influencing Dunama Dibalemi's actions with regard to the Mune: "Thus, Mai Dunoma’s decision to open the Mune was not only seen as a break-away from an established tradition of his ancestors but was also considered a conspiracy against the state by the Egyptians who influenced the Mai into taking this decision" (Alkali, 70). A possible foreign involvement or influence on Dunama Dibalemi was certainly possible. He was likely the ruler of Kanem when Kanemi pilgrims and students began to pay Ibn Rashiq in Cairo to teach at a madrasa, sometime in the 1240s (Levtzion & Hopkins, 353). Furthermore, one mahram said to originate during the reign of Dunama Dibalemi's father designates Dunama Dibalemi as "Al Hajj Dunama ibn Dabale" (Bornu Sahara and Sudan, 20). There are no Egyptian sources to corroborate a pilgrimage undertaken by Dunama Dibalemi, but he likely sponsored the Kanemi students and pilgrims who passed through Cairo in the 1240s and began to study at Madrasat Ibn Rashiq.
Since contact with Ayyubid Egypt did occur and it entailed Islamic teaching, there may have been some kind of foreign involvement or pressure that influenced Dunama's decision to open the Mune. Alternatively, one wonders if the story of an Egyptian conspiracy here is merely a muddled alternative version of Egyptian involvement in the drowning of Dunama b. Hummay in c. 1140 (Diwan, 69). Unfortunately, there are no Fatimid sources on the alleged pilgrimages of Dunama b. Hummay or any involvement in his death. But since Dunama Dibalemi shared the same name, is it possible the idea of Egyptian involvement arose because of Dunama b. Hummay's death, a death in the sea of Moses which the Kanem ruler could not part? Or was there pressure from Egyptian scholars to end the veneration of the Mune that reached Dunama in Kanem? Alternatively, is the Egyptian involvement related to Ayyubid fears of Kanem's influence in the Fazzan and lands in the east, toward Nubia? One of the Borno sources, written in the late 1700s, merely states, "Some Egyptians who came to him advised him that it would be preferable to open it to find out what it contained" (Tijani, 239).
Alternatively, given its Judeo-Christian overtones and clear resemblance with the Ark of the Covenant, was there some creative reimagining of Sayf b. Dhi Yazan legends in which he actually took the Ark of the Covenant from Ethiopia? Or was this a reference to the period of Jewish rulers in Himyar? In one of the story cycles of the Sayf legends written in Mamluk Egypt, Sayf was interested in seizing a book on the history of the Nile. Is it possible that Coptic and Islamic legends in Egypt about the Ark of the Covenant being in Ethiopia possibly influenced, even indirectly, the Mune traditions acquiring more overt Biblical characteristics? Unfortunately, the ascent of the Solomonic dynasty in Ethiopia only began in 1270, but the idea of the Christian kingdom as the land of Sheba and its Solomonic connections predate this period. Is it possible that the Mune was creatively reimagining the Ark of the Covenant based on traditions of Sayf b. Dhi Yazan defeating the Abyssinians? Or was this due to the brief period of a Jewish kingdom at Himyar? Either way, it was undoubtedly reimagined with a more Islamic veneer by the 16th century. It nonetheless demonstrates how complex the Mune and its origins were.
With Borno sources emphasizing an Islamic orientation of the Mune and connecting it to an ideology of kingship, what room is left for interpretations of it as a pagan relic or symbol from the pre-Islamic past? Palmer, whose diffusionist imagination often got the better of him, tried to link the Mune to sacra of the Hausa, Kwararafa, and Zaghawa peoples. When informed by a Zaghawa of Wadai that a Koran covered in skins like the Kano dirki was a Mani, and pagan Zaghawa saw the Mani as a ram stored in a cave with sacred objects, Palmer leapt at the opportunity to bring in the Ancient Egyptian god, Aman (Amun, perhaps). Consequently, Dunama Dibalemi's opening the Mune was seen by Palmer as the first truly Islamic ruler of Kanem ending pagan practices (Bornu Sahara and Sudan). However, this view is contradicted by local written sources and oral traditions. In our own feeble attempts at reconstructing pre-Islamic religion in Kanem, we preferred to view the Mune as a type of sacrum from the pre-Islamic period which was adapted after the conversion of the Sayfawa maiwa in the late 11th century.
Looking at the sources on it again, we find it impossible to answer. Either the Mune was purely inspired and began during the reign of Hummay or the tradition attributing its opening or "cutting" to Dunama Dibalemi is meant metaphorically to refer to the loss of internal unity during and after Dunama Dibalemi's reign. In that sense, he violated one of the central commandments and his successors truly paid the consequences. Yet, the Mune must have also been an actual object at one point if it was carried into battle. Its possible pre-Islamic, Judeo-Christian, and Islamic meanings or origins suggest the need for a closer exploration of Kanem-Borno's intellectual history. Understanding, to whatever extent possible, the connections with the broader Islamic world and perhaps, the Egyptian context in which Kanem pilgrims and students began to travel more frequently in Ayyubid and Mamluk Egypt may provide further clues for the development of the Mune ideology.
Bibliography
Alkali, Mohammad Nur. 2013. Kanem-Borno under the Sayfawa: A Study of the Origin, Growth, and Collapse of a Dynasty (891-1846) . Nigeria: University of Maiduguri.
Bobboyi, Hamidu. The ’Ulama of Borno : A Study of the Relations between Scholars and State under the Sayfawa, 1470-1808. Dissertation, 1992.
Hopkins, J. F. P., and Nehemia Levtzion (editors). Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2000.
Lange, Dierk. Le Dīwān Des Sultans Du (Kānem-)Bornū: Chronologie Et Histoire D'un Royaume Africain (de La Fin Du Xe Siècle Jusqu'à 1808). Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1977.
Palmer, H.R. Sudanese Memoirs: Being Mainly Translations of a Number of Arabic Manuscripts Relating to the Central and Western Sudan. 1st ed., new impression. London: Cass, 1967.
___________. The Bornu Sahara and Sudan. London: J. Murray, 1936.