Kanem-Bulala War

The Kanem-Bulala War was a prolonged conflict of the second half of the fourteenth century between the Kanem empire, centered on its capital of Njimi east of Lake Chad, and the Bulala people invading from the direction of Lake Fitri. Between 1359 and 1383 alone, seven successive mais, or rulers, of Kanem reigned, and five of them were killed fighting the Bulala, a rate of loss that shows how severely the war destabilized the Kanem state. Around 1380 the Bulala finally forced Mai Umar Idrismi to abandon Njimi altogether, and the Kanembu people relocated west of Lake Chad into the region of Bornu. This forced migration did not end the Kanem state but transplanted it: the Kanembu intermarried with the peoples of Bornu over the following generations, forming the new Kanuri people and language and giving rise to the Bornu empire as Kanem's political successor.