Ibrahim IV was a titled Sultan of the Kanuri state of Bornu from 1820 to 1846. He was one of the last rulers from the Sefawa ruling dynasty.

Life

Ibrahim's father, and previous ruler of Bornu, had called on

Muhammad al-Amin al-Kanemi Shehu al-Hajj Muhammad al-Amîn ibn Muhammad al-Kânemî ( ar, محمد الأمين بن محمد الكانمي) (1776–1837) was an Islamic scholar, teacher, religious and political leader who advised and eventually supplanted the Sayfawa dy ...

or El-Kanemi, an

Islamic scholar In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of reli ...

and warrior, to help him fight against the Fulanis and their leader Goni Mukhtar. The two were able to push back the Fulanis from much of Bornu. In the process, El-Kanemi grew powerful and was a threat to the ruling

Sefawa dynasty Sayfawa dynasty, Sefouwa, Sefawa, or Sefuwa dynasty is the name of the Muslim kings (or ''mai'', as they called themselves) of the Kanem–Bornu Empire, centered first in Kanem in western Chad, and then, after 1380, in Borno (today north-eas ...

which had produced Ibrahim and his father,

Dunama IX Lefiami Dunama Lefiami was the ''Mai'' (sultan) of the Kanem-Bornu Empire, located in what is now Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad during the early nineteenth century. Life Dunama succeeded his father Ahmad, an old and blind Mai who abdicated after the Fulani J ...

. Dunama was later killed in a failed putsch to murder El-Kanemi. His son, Ibrahim succeeded him. When El-Kanemi died in 1837, he was succeeded by his son,

Umar ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ( ar, عمر بن الخطاب, also spelled Omar, ) was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr () as the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate o ...

. Ibrahim and Umar became enmeshed in a battle of supremacy and they renewed hostilities between the Kanemis and the Sefawas. Ibrahim hatched a plan to kill Umar by inviting an external army from Wadai under the command of the

Sultan Sultan (; ar, سلطان ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it ...

of Wadai. However, Umar knew about the plan before had and killed Ibrahim before fleeing Bornu, continuing the assault on the Safawa dynasty. Rulers of the Bornu Empire 19th-century monarchs in Africa {{Africa-royal-stub