Abdullah I Bikur (ʿAbdallāh Bikur bin ʿUthmān) was the '' mai'' of the

Kanem–Bornu Empire The Kanem–Bornu Empire was an empire based around Lake Chad that once ruled areas which are now part of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Libya, Algeria, Sudan, and Chad. The empire was sustained by the prosperous trans-Saharan trade and was one of the ...

in 1174/1176–1194.

Life

Abdullah was the son of

Bir I Othman Bir I Othman (ʿUthmān Biri bin Dunama) was the '' mai'' of the Kanem–Bornu Empire in 1150/1151–1174/1176. Life Bir was the son of Dunama I Umemi and Fasama. He succeeded his father as ''mai'' in 1150/1151, after Dunama was killed in Egypt ...

and Zainab. He succeeded his father as ''mai'' in 1174/1176. His reign was apparently uneventful; the German explorer

Heinrich Barth Johann Heinrich Barth (; ; 16 February 1821 – 25 November 1865) was a German explorer of Africa and scholar. Barth is thought to be one of the greatest of the European explorers of Africa, as his scholarly preparation, ability to speak and wri ...

, who visited Bornu in the mid-19th century, records no principal events of Abdullah I's reign, unlike virtually all the other ''mai''s. Abdullah's consort was named Huwa. They had at least one son together, Abd al-Jalil II, who succeeded Abdullah as ''mai'' in 1194.

References

Rulers of the Kanem Empire 12th-century monarchs in Africa {{Africa-royal-stub