The ''Girgam'' (or ''Diwan'') is the royal chronicle 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 ...

, written in

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

. Girgam is also used as the name for written historical records in some kingdoms west of Bornu, including Daura, Fika and Mandara, defined as "chronicle or 'list of ancestors'" or simply "date". "A very meagre and incorrect abridgement" of the ''Girgam'' was provided by a local associated with the Sefuwa dynasty to the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

traveller Heinrich Barth in 1851, in

Kukawa Kukawa (Kanuri language, Kanuri for "Baobabs"), formerly Kuka ("Baobab"), is a town and local government areas of Nigeria, Local Government Area in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno State, Borno, close to Lake Chad. History The town wa ...

, the nineteenth century capital of Bornu. Barth reported that a translation was published in 1852. It provides the names of 69 rulers of Kanem-Bornu and some supplementary information concerning the length of their reigns, their ascendancy, and often some events of their reigns. The information given by several Arab authors ( Ibn Sa'īd,

al-Maqrīzī Al-Maqrīzī (, full name Taqī al-Dīn Abū al-'Abbās Aḥmad ibn 'Alī ibn 'Abd al-Qādir ibn Muḥammad al-Maqrīzī, ; 1364–1442) was a medieval Egyptian historian and biographer during the Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo), Mamluk era, known for ...

and al-Qalqashandī) confirm the validity of the data provided by the ''Girgam''. On the basis of these sources, a nearly accurate chronology of the rulers of Kanem-Bornu can be established between the tenth and the nineteenth centuries. Since the fall of the Sefuwa dynasty in 1846, "the new dynasty of the Kánemíyín ānemīendeavours to obliterate as much as possible the memory of the old Kanúri efuwadynasty, and has assiduously destroyed all its records wherever they could be laid hold of."Henry Barth 1957, p. 255 The two copies of the chronicle obtained by Barth are the only ones that are known to have survived.

See also