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32-611: The capital city was built in c.  1488 , during the reign of Mai Ali Gazi (1476–1503). It was located in the fork of the Komadugu Gana River and the Komadugu Yobe , near present-day Geidam . The city became Bornu's leading center for Islamic education under Idris Alooma . In 1808, Gazargamo was taken by the Fulani Jihad . The first segment of N'gazargamu , which is N'gasar , indicates that

64-405: A century-long civil war that had divided the realm. He implemented reforms and put an end to internal conflicts that had plagued the empire and waged several successful wars with his neighbours. Additionally, he founded Birnin N'gazargamu , a capital city that remained the seat of the empire for over three centuries. During his reign, Bornu regained its prestige and was noted for its participation in

96-567: A diplomatic mission to Constantinople on behalf of the Sultan of Fez Muhammad II he found himself in the port of Rosetta during the Ottoman conquest of Egypt . He continued with his journey through Cairo and Aswan and across the Red Sea to Arabia , where he probably performed a pilgrimage to Mecca . On his way back to Tunis in 1518 he was captured by Spanish corsairs either near

128-633: A half centuries, until it was destroyed during the Sokoto jihad in 1812. Under Mai Ali's rule, Bornu also gained notable prestige. The Arab traveller Leo Africanus underscored the significance of Bornu in trans-Saharan trade during Ali's reign. This period marked Bornu's initial appearance on European maps of Africa produced by Portuguese cartographers in the late 15th-century. Leo Africanus Johannes Leo Africanus (born al-Hasan Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi , Arabic : الحسن محمد الوزان الفاسي ; c.  1494 – c.  1554 )

160-612: A translation of his Christian name, John-Leo, or Johannes Leo (Latin), or Giovanni Leone (Italian). He was also given the family name Medici after his patron, Pope Leo X's family. The same manuscript also contained his original name al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi. al-Hasan ibn Muhammad was a patronymic name meaning "al-Hasan, son of Muhammad", and al-Fasi is the Arabic demonym for someone from Fez, Morocco . Cosmographia et geographia de Affrica , later published by Giovanni Battista Ramusio as Description of Africa in 1550,

192-515: A willing collaborator could provide useful information on North Africa. Leo Africanus left Rome and spent the next three or four years traveling in Italy. The death of his patron Leo X in 1521, and suspicions from the new Pope Adrian VI against a Muslim in court, was likely the reason for his leaving Rome. While staying in Bologna he wrote an Arabic-Hebrew-Latin medical vocabulary , of which only

224-683: Is Leo's most famous work. He wrote an Arabic-Hebrew-Latin medical vocabulary for the Jewish physician Jacob Mantino . He also wrote an Arabic translation of the Epistles of St. Paul , which is dated in January 1521; the manuscript belongs to the Biblioteca Estense in Modena. Another surviving work is a biographical encyclopedia of 25 major Islamic scholars and 5 major Jewish scholars which

256-529: Is unlikely that Leo Africanus visited all the places that he describes and he must therefore have relied on information obtained from other travellers. It is doubtful whether he visited Hausaland and Bornu and it is even possible that he never crossed the Sahara but relied on information from other travellers that he met in Morocco. The historian Pekka Masonen has argued that the belief of his further travels

288-527: Is usually given to the last child born in a family. Historian C.C. Ifemesia has pointed out that sometimes the Gaji in his name is mistakenly confused with Ghazi . The onset of the second era of the Kanem-Bornu empire is widely attributed to the reign of Mai Ali. The century leading up to his rule had been marred by a protracted civil conflict within the empire, pitting the descendants of Mai Idris ,

320-528: The Maghreb ; and gold and kola nuts from Ashanti in the south. This Yobe State , Nigeria location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Ali Gazi Ali Gaji was the Mai (ruler) of Bornu Empire from 1472 or 1476 until 1503 or 1507. He is regarded as one of the "greatest rulers" of the empire and is attributed with ushering in the second era of Kanem-Bornu , following

352-467: The Venetian publisher Giovanni Battista Ramusio . The book proved to be extremely popular and was reprinted five times. It was also translated into other languages. French and Latin editions were published in 1556 while an English version was published in 1600 with the title A Geographical Historie of Africa . The Latin edition, which contained many errors and mistranslations, was used as the source for

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384-578: The trans-Saharan trade , as noted by the Arab traveler Leo Africanus . Mai Ali is known by several different names and nicknames. In accordance with the Bornu tradition of tracing descent through the mother, he is commonly referred to as Ali Gaji Zenamami after his mother, Zainam. Additionally, he is also called Ali Gaji Dunamami after his father who was Mai Ahmad Dunama IV . The Gaji or Ghaji in his name means 'the little' or 'the younger'. The name

416-506: The 26th ruler of Kanem, against those of Mai Dawud , the 27th ruler, both being sons of Mai al-Haj Ibrahim Nikale, the 20th ruler of Kanem . This internal strife eventually led to the loss of Kanem to the Bulala in the late 14th-century. Ali was a descendant of Mai Idris, and it was his direct lineage that held sway throughout the 16th-century. During the civil war, Ali fought and killed Mai Uthman ibn Kadai and, afterwards, made Said (Umar)

448-568: The Amir [Mai], for he traversed them, but many of the roads were unknown to the Amir since he did not traverse them and so did not know them . . . There were four Friday mosques. Each of these mosques had an Imam for Friday who led the Friday prayer with the people. At each mosque there were twelve thousand worshippers. Gazargamu emerged as a major trading hub within the Sudan region . By the 17th-century,

480-525: The Arabic part has survived, and a grammar of Arabic of which only an eight-page fragment has survived. He returned to Rome in 1526 under the protection of the new Pope Clement VII , a cousin of Leo X who replaced Adrian. According to Leo, he completed his manuscript on African geography in the same year. The work was published in Italian with the title Della descrittione dell'Africa et delle cose notabili che ivi sono, per Giovan Lioni Africano in 1550 by

512-707: The English translation. There are several theories of his later life, but none of them are certain. According to one theory, he spent it in Rome until he died around 1550, the year Description of Africa was published. This theory was based on indirect allusion in a later preface to this book. According to another theory, he left shortly before the Sack of Rome by Charles V 's troops in 1527. He then returned to North Africa and lived in Tunis until his death, some time after 1550. This

544-639: The Middle East and another for Europe. He also planned to write an exposition of the Islamic faith and a history of North Africa. None of these books survived nor has there been any proof that he completed them, which might have been due to his possible return to North Africa. A fictionalized account of his life, Leo Africanus , by the Lebanese-French author Amin Maalouf , fills in key gaps in

576-521: The capital of Kanem-Bornu until the 19th-century. Little is known of the physical appearance or population of the city. The city was surrounded by a circular wall spanning approximately two kilometers in diameter, with the Mai's palace, constructed of red bricks, occupying its center. A description of the city was given by one Mallam Salih ibn Ishaku and translated by H R Palmer : At N'gazargamu [sic] there were six hundred and sixty roads cleared and widened, called Le. Sixty of these roads were well known to

608-531: The city's markets attracted caravans from various directions: Tunis , Tripoli , and Cairo in the north; Timbuktu , Awdaghust , Agades , and Gao in the west; and Kordofan and the Nile regions in the east. These trade caravans transported a variety of goods, including silk, carpets, weapons, and books from the Middle East ; paper and glass beads from Venice ; leather products, copperware, and tobacco from

640-470: The commercial centre of the region. Furthermore, he expanded the empire northward into Borku and Tibesti . To centralize his administration, he erected the large capital of Birnin N'gazagamu , situated on the southern bank of the Komadugu Yobe River , near the border of what are now Nigeria and Niger . This capital remained the focal point of power for the empire's rulers for three and

672-569: The earlier residents of the area were known as either N'gasar or N'gizim . The latter segment of the word, gamu or kumu , shares similarities with the initial portion of the name Gwombe and can signify either (i) a leader or monarch or (ii) a revered ancestral spirit. Based on the Kanuri pronunciation, the correct spelling of the city is Birni Gazargamu . The spellings N'gazargamu or Birnin Gazargamu are likely of Hausa origin. During

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704-618: The island of Djerba or more probably near Crete , and imprisoned on the island of Rhodes , the headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller . The usual fate of unransomed Muslim captives was slavery in Christian galleys , but when his captors realized his intelligence and importance, he was moved to the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome and presented to Pope Leo X . He was soon freed and given a pension to persuade him to stay. He

736-482: The late 14th-century, the Sayfawa dynasty , which had ruled Kanem for centuries, fled their capital of Birni Njimi due to a civil war. They settled in Bornu, a southern province of Kanem. The civil war continued throughout much of the 15th-century until the reign of Ali Gaji , who succeeded in defeating his rivals and brought an end to the war. Ali Gaji then established Birni Gazargamu, a fortified city that served as

768-510: The modern exploration of Africa . For this work, Leo became a household name among European geographers. He converted from Islam to Christianity and changed his name to Johannes Leo de Medicis ( يوحنا الأسد ). Leo possibly returned to North Africa in 1528, reverting to Islam. Most of what is known about his life is gathered from autobiographical notes in his own work. Leo Africanus was born as al-Hasan, son of Muhammad in Granada around

800-453: The next Mai. Mai Ali instigated vital governmental reforms, bringing an end to the century-long civil wars that had torn the empire apart. He engaged in several military campaigns, including battles against the Bulala in the Kanem civil war to the east, confrontations with Kwararafa in the south, and the extraction of tribute from a number of Hausa states in the west, including Kano ,

832-569: The year 1494. The year of birth can be estimated from his self-reported age at the time of various historical events. His family moved to Fez soon after his birth. In Fez he studied at the University of al-Qarawiyyin (also spelled al-Karaouine). As a young man he accompanied an uncle on a diplomatic mission , reaching as far as the city of Timbuktu ( c.  1510 ), then part of the Songhai Empire . In 1517 when returning from

864-676: Was baptized in the Basilica of Saint Peter's in 1520. He took the Latin name Johannes Leo de Medicis ( Giovanni Leone in Italian). In Arabic, he preferred to translate this name as Yuhanna al-Asad al-Gharnati (literally means John the Lion of Granada). It is likely that Leo Africanus was welcomed to the papal court as the Pope feared that Turkish forces might invade Sicily and southern Italy, and

896-460: Was an Andalusi diplomat and author who is best known for his 1526 book Cosmographia et geographia de Affrica , later published by Giovanni Battista Ramusio as Descrittione dell'Africa ( Description of Africa ) in 1550, centered on the geography of the Maghreb and Nile Valley . The book was regarded among his scholarly peers in Europe as the most authoritative treatise on the subject until

928-426: Was based on misreadings by modern scholars who interpreted his book as an itinerary. At the time Leo visited the city of Timbuktu , it was a thriving Islamic city famous for its learning. Home to many scholars and learned men, Timbuktu also possessed a Great Mosque , renowned for its expansive library. The town was to become a byword in Europe as the most inaccessible of cities. At the time of Leo's journey there, it

960-703: Was based on records by German orientalist Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter , who arrived in Italy and planned (but ultimately failed) to travel to Tunis to meet Leo who had since reconverted to Islam. Yet another theory said that he left Tunis after it was captured by Charles V in 1535 for Morocco, his second home country after Granada where his relatives were still living. This was based on the assumption that Leo, having left Granada, would not have wanted to live under Christian Spanish rule again, and his wish (recorded in Description of Africa ) that he wanted to ultimately return to his home country "by God's assistance". It

992-475: Was completed in Rome before he left the city in 1527 and published for the first time in Latin by Johann Heinrich Hottinger in 1664. Unlike Description of Africa , this biographical work was hardly noticed in Europe; the book contains various erroneous information, likely due to his lack of sources when he was in Italy, forcing him to rely on memory. In Description of Africa , he referred to plans to write other books. He planned two descriptions of places, one for

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1024-455: Was the centre of a busy trade carried on by traders in African products, gold, printed cottons , slaves and in Islamic books. In an autograph in one of his surviving manuscripts, a fragment of an Arabic-Hebrew-Latin medical vocabulary he wrote for the Jewish physician Jacob Mantino , he signed his name in Arabic as Yuhanna al-Asad al-Gharnati (literally means John the Lion of Granada),

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