The Bilala or Bulala are a Muslim people that live around
Lake Fitri
Lake Fitri is located in the center of Chad about 300 km east of N’Djamena. The normal size of the lake is about . The size of this lake can triple in wetter years. This freshwater lake is shallow and is fed by seasonal rainfall and run-o ...
, in the
Batha Prefecture
Batha Prefecture ( ar, ﺇﻗﻠﻴﻢ البطحاء) was one of the 14 prefectures of Chad. Located in the center of the country, Batha covered an area of 88,800 square kilometers and had a population of 288,458 in 1993. Its capital was Ati, Chad ...
, in central
Chad. The last Chadian
census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...
in 1993 stated that they numbered 136,629 people. Their language,
Naba, is divided in four dialects and is a part of the
Central Sudanic language family; it is shared by two of their neighbours, the
Kuka
KUKA is a German manufacturer of industrial robots and systems for factory automation. It has been predominantly owned by the Chinese company Midea Group since 2016.
The KUKA Robotics Corporation has 25 subsidiaries, mostly sales and servi ...
and the
Medogo. These three peoples are collectively known as
Lisi and are believed to be descendants of main ethnic groups of the
Sultanate of
Yao.
They first appeared in the 14th century near lake Fitri as a
nomad
A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...
ic clan led by scions of the
Sayfawa 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-easter ...
. They were originally a political entity that came about as a result of fusion of the Kayi (old Zaghawa = current Kanembu, the clan exist even today in Kanem) and
Ngizimis Kanembu clan, which exists event today in Dibbinintchi,
Lake Tchad inhabitants of the Fittri region.
[^ H. R. Palmer "History of the first twelve years of the reign of Mai Idris Alooma of Bornu (1571-1583), by his Imam Ahmed Bin Furtua"] Settled east of the
Kanem Empire Kanem may refer to:
* Kanem–Bornu Empire, existed in modern Chad and Nigeria known to Arabian geographers from the 9th century AD onward and lasted as the independent kingdom of Bornu until 1900
* Kanem Prefecture, of former prefectures of Chad
* ...
, in today's
Chad, they shattered the empire's power, killing five of six of Kanem's ''mais'' (kings) between 1376 and 1400.
At the end the Bulala conquered
Kanem and forced the Kanem ''mais'' to migrate to
Bornu. As a result, the Bulala put their hands on Kanem, founding in the 15th century the Muslim sultanate of Yao. The Kanem-Bornu Empire counter-attacked a century later under
Ali Gazi. Kanem was retaken by Ali's son after a great battle at Garni Kiyala, forcing the Bulala to move east, where they were to remain a menace for centuries to Kanem-Bornu. It continued also to be a flourishing kingdom: the traveller
Leo Africanus
Joannes Leo Africanus (born al-Hasan Muhammad al-Wazzan, ar, الحسن محمد الوزان ; c. 1494 – c. 1554) was an Andalusian diplomat and author who is best known for his 1526 book '' Cosmographia et geographia de Affrica'', later ...
even thought that the Bulala's reign was richer than Kanem-Bornu for its prosperous trade with
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
.
Their power survived in diminished forms until the onset of colonialism, when they submitted to the
French.
References
External links
Notes sur les Bilala du Fitri(PDF, in French)
{{authority control
Kanem Empire
Ethnic groups in Chad
Muslim communities in Africa