TEKRÚR.

Ibn Baṭúṭah, in describing the course of the Great River below Kársekhó, makes no mention of Tekrúr, the first converted of the Negro communities in that quarter. That designation, though widely and vaguely extended in process of time, was certainly at first applied to a spot between Silla and Ṣínghánah, and not far from the former of these places. Wárjání, the chief of Tekrúr who first adopted the Mohammedan faith, and induced his subjects to follow his example, died in 432 H. (A.D. 1040-1); so that the conversion of his principality preceded, by thirty-five years at least, that of Ghánah and Western Negroland in general. Such a priority explains at once the religious eminence implied in the title Tekrúr (whatever may have been its original signification), and which caused it to be usurped till its proper application was at length forgotten.[160]

But though Ibn Baṭúṭah does not expressly mention Tekrúr, yet he says of Zághah, situate between Kársekhó and Tomboktú, that it was the first city of Negroland which received the Mohammedan faith. Hence it may be inferred that Zághah was the proper territorial name of the place styled Tekrúr. And this conjecture receives from Ibn Khaldún strong confirmation, falling short of completeness only through the unsteady orthography which so often hinders the exact coincidence of Arab authorities. His words are as follows:—“I was told by the Sheíkh ʿOthmán, a learned man and theologian of the people of Ghánah, and one of the chief men of that country in respect to rank, intelligence, and piety, when he came to Egypt on his way to Mekkah in 796 (A.D. 1393), that the people of Ghánah employ the name Tekrúr to designate the Zagháï, and give the name Málí to Atakárthah.”—It can hardly be doubted that the people here called Zagháï derived their name from the place called by Ibn Baṭúṭah Zághah. The name Atakárthah does not admit of quite so easy an explanation; yet it may with much probability be assumed to be the original and complete Berber form of the name, now written in our maps, Kaarta. The statement of the Sheíkh ʿOthmán then amounts to this: the people of Ghánah discriminated, in terms naturally arising out of their local position, between Tekrúr and Málí, giving the former name to a certain tribe dwelling to the south, and the latter to a particular region higher up the river, and the frontier of which, facing Ghánah, was Atakárthah or Kaarta.[161]

The country of Tekrúr or of the Zagháï thus discriminated from Málí, which lay further west, may be clearly recognized in modern accounts, notwithstanding the disguise of a variable orthography. Sultan Bello, after describing the country of Mósí, thus proceeds:—“Adjoining to it on the north side, the province of Sanghee (Zághí) lies. Its inhabitants are remnants of the Sonhaja (Zenágah), wandering Arabs and the Felateen. They profess the Mohammedan faith, and their princes ruled them always with equity and justice. A great number of learned and pious persons have distinguished themselves from among them. Next to Sanghee on the west side, the country of Málí is situated. It embraces the province of Bambara,” &c.[162]—The situation here assigned to Sanghee, and the reputed piety of its inhabitants, clearly show that it is the country of Tekrúr or of the Zagháï mentioned by Ibn Khaldún, and the Zághah or Zághiyah of Ibn Baṭúṭah. The commercial activity of the people, or perhaps their social ascendency due to their religious reputation, appears in the wide diffusion of their language; for, according to Leo, the Sungai (Zagháï) language was used in Walet, Tomboktú, Jenni, Málí, and Kághó.[163]

The geographical sketch of Negroland drawn by Sultan Bello, differs materially from that made by his follower Mohammed Másíní, inasmuch as the former exhibits the territorial divisions of the indigenous population, whereas the latter offers only Fellátah names, and totally overlooks the aboriginal inhabitants. Nevertheless, the Zagháï, or people of Sanghee, are to be found in Mohammed’s descriptions with little change of denomination. In describing the road from Sokkatú to Másín, he places, seven days east of the latter country, “the territory of Hajrí,”—that is, the rocky or mountainous tract. The Fellátah, he says, possess the valleys, “but the mountains are inhabited by a people called Benoo-Hami, of the tribe of Sokai (Zagháï), who are great warriors. In the middle of this country is a great and lofty mountain, on which is a town called Oonbori, whose king is named Noohoo-Ghaloo-farma, of the tribe of Sokai, and is renowned for his generosity and munificence.” Further on we are told that Oonbori is comprised in the dominion of the Sultan of Másín, so that the people here called the tribe of Sokai probably extend from the mountains to the river. Alexander Scott received from his ignorant companions a distorted account of the Zachah (Zagháï) dwelling on the eastern shores of Lake Debú; and the town of Sankhaguibila, placed by Caillié on the right bank of the river farther south, appears to owe its name to the same tribe (Ḳabílah).[164]

The Benú Hami, who are also Zagháï, or of the tribe of Sokai, are said by Mohammed Másíní, to dwell not only in the mountains near the western course of the Great River above Tomboktú, but also in the desert, mingled with the Tawárik, on the left bank of the same river below Kághó, and between that river and Sokkatú. And this information accords with the statement of Sultan Bello, who, speaking of the province of Kábi, west of Sokkatú, says, “its inhabitants, it is supposed, had their first father from Sanghee and their mother from Kashnah;” clearly implying by this genealogy, that the Zagháï, Sanghee, Sokai, or Benú Hami, have dwelt from time immemorial in Kábi, intermingled with and ruling the indigenous population.[165] The advance of the tribe or nation originally styled Tekrúr, from the vicinity of Jenni eastwards to Marra or Western Houssa, completely explains why Ibn Khaldún, placing the Ṣúṣú and then Málí next to Ghánah (an arrangement expressing historical perhaps rather than geographical relations), and beyond these Kághó, sets Tekrúr beyond, or, as he supposed, eastward from, the latter place; and also why Makrízí makes Tekrúr the western boundary of the great empire of Kánem or Bornú. In the last century Niebuhr the traveller learned that Tekrúr was the residence of a sultan, the vassal of Afnú (Houssa), who possessed Mara (Marra) and Adana (perhaps Ader).[166]

Though the people of Ghánah always kept in view the original application of the name Tekrúr, even after the territory where it grew into importance became part of the empire of Málí, yet beyond the circle of exact local knowledge, such propriety of language was never thought of, and at a distance the name Tekrúr was employed in a very comprehensive and indefinite manner. Makrízí, in describing the pilgrimage of Mansá Músa, King of Málí, in A.D. 1324, styles him King of Tekrúr; but again, in the annals of A.D. 1351, he mentions another king of Tekrúr, who likewise passed through Egypt, and who certainly was not Mansá Suleïmán, at that time King of Málí. It is manifest therefore that Makrízí used the name Tekrúr in no properly restricted and perhaps in no fixed acceptation.[167] The Western Fellátah apply the epithet Tekrúrí to the religious classes of their own nation. In Egypt it is given generally to Mohammedan devotees, natives of Negroland; and when Sultan Bello makes Tekrúr comprise all Negroland from Dárfúr inclusively westward, he offers an example not of the correct use of that name, but of its widest abuse.[168]

The history of Tekrúr may be thus briefly recapitulated:—The Zenágah early established themselves on the Great River, above Lake Debú, where the continued tract of desert conducted them to its banks, and there founded the city of Zághah, from which they afterwards took their name. They embraced Mohammedism, nearly half a century before the Blacks in their neighbourhood, and thereby obtained a reputation of sanctity which was nowise diminished by their activity as slave hunters. The general conversion of Western Negroland compelling them to go to a distance for their prey, they proceeded eastwards to Marra or Western Houssa, where the hilly region has been always, in an eminent degree, the country of slaves.[169] They thus broke the path in which they were afterwards followed by the people of Málí, and more recently still by the Fellátah. The kingdom of Tekrúr being extinguished in the west by the empire of Málí, rose more conspicuously in the east: though the people retained their old habitations, the political denomination completely shifted its place, and Tekrúr stood between Málí and Bornú. In the meantime the religious title Tekrúrí being widely usurped, the original and proper application of the name fell into neglect and oblivion.