Note 161 — TEKRÚR.

The name Zagháí زغاي cannot, it is true, be formed from Zághah زاغة; but considering that they are taken from different authors, and that the orthography of African names is extremely unsettled, there is no great boldness in the hypothesis which connects them. It is easier to believe that one of these names requires a little correction, than that the Tekrúrí did not bear the name of the town which first received the Mohammedan faith. Makrízí, or Ibn Sʿaíd, from whom he copies, says (Hamaker, Specimen Catalogi, &c., p. 209,) “that all the nations comprised between Abyssinia on the south, Nubia on the east, Barkah on the north, and Tekrúr on the west, are called Zagháï.” Here the name Zagháï is derived from Zagháwah, and the Tekrúr spoken of is that of Houssa. An anecdote related in the ‘History of the Mohammedan Dynasties,’ by Gayangos (p. 303), shows that in the thirteenth century, there was a state called Tekrúr in the neighbourhood of Aïwalátin. An Arab writer of little merit apparently (in the Library of the British Museum, MS. No. 7,483), says that “the Blacks are now in general styled Tekrúr; but anciently the name Tekrúr was applied only to the inhabitants of the country called Atasama اتسمي.” It may be conjectured that Atasama is an ill-written derivative from Sámah, the country of the Bokmo or Bagamo. The t is a Berber article; the initial a the sign of the possessive case, and perhaps also of adjectives derived therefrom. Thus the Berbers say, Mohammed a-Mohammed a-Mast, to express Mohammed, son of Mohammed, of or belonging to Messah. Hence also from Mazig, the reputed ancestor of the Berbers, and personification of the μαζίκες of the Greeks, was formed the name Amazig (see De Sacy’s Analysis of Shehabeddin in Not. et Extr. tom. II. p. 153, and the extract from Ibn Khaldún’s History of the Berbers in the Nouv. Jour. Asiatique, No. VIII., 1828, p. 132). The reader may consider how far these remarks are applicable to such names as Atakárthah, Atasama, Amímah, and perhaps Awalílí or Aúlílí (see Note 107).