The Sefuwa dynasty emerged in Kanem during the second half of the eleventh century, bringing the period of Zaghawa rule to an end. Its founder, Hummay, is presented as having reigned approximately from 1075 to 1180, although the chronology in the dynastic tradition is not fully uniform. The extract suggests that Hummay was probably a Berber from a profoundly Islamized community, possibly connected with Kawar or with Berber groups already incorporated into Kanem.

The dynasty claimed descent from Sayf b. Dhī Yazan, a Yemenite hero, but the genealogy appears to have changed its ideological purpose over time. Contact with North African Berbers may explain the claim to Himyarite ancestry, while the official genealogy later emphasized fidelity to Islam. Names associated with Quraysh, Mecca and Baghdad appear in the tradition, whereas Himyar, Kahtān and Yemen are absent, suggesting that the genealogy was adapted to serve dynastic legitimacy rather than preserve a straightforward ethnic memory.

The Sefuwa court also minimized the dynasty’s Berber associations. Chroniclers described Salmama b. ʿAbd Allah as exceptionally dark and contrasted him with rulers characterized as having the complexion of Bedouin Arabs. In this account, lighter skin mattered chiefly when associated with Muslim identity. The narrative therefore reveals an ideological effort to represent the dynasty through Arab and Islamic legitimacy while obscuring or transforming its Berber inheritance.

The Sefuwa capital was Djimi, which retained its special status for three centuries. The shift from Manan, the residence of the earlier Dugawa kings, toward a more southerly capital may indicate the growing political weight of sedentary peoples in Kanem. The dynastic transition did not destroy the state’s foundations; instead, the extract presents Kanem as a structured polity whose territorial organization survived the change of ruling house and the introduction of Islam.

The queen-mothers’ origins reveal changing alliances within the kingdom. Early Sefuwa rulers were connected through marriage to Kay, Tubu, Dabir and Magomi groups, while later queen-mothers appear predominantly to have belonged to the Magomi lineage. This sequence is interpreted as evidence for a progressive movement from alliances with nomadic and sedentary groups toward the stronger political position of the royal patrilineage.

Under Dunama Dibalami and his successors, the Magomi lineage became increasingly central to royal power. The mother of Dunama Dibalami was Magomi, as was one of his wives, and by the early fourteenth century the Magomi may have eclipsed other sedentary groups of Kanem. The extract links this closing of ranks around the royal line to the kingdom’s strength, but also possibly to factional conflict and the long war against the Tubu.

The Magomi are described as the likely nucleus of the Kanuri people, gradually forming from the agnatic descendants of the Sefuwa kings. This development did not mean that the dynasty created the state itself. Rather, the state of Kanem-Bornu probably predated the emergence of the people who later became its principal social substratum. The Sefuwa thus functioned both as a ruling house and as the centre of a longer process of political and ethnic formation.

The dynasty’s political base included diverse nomadic and sedentary populations speaking Nilotic-Saharan or Chad languages. During the first phase, Tubu and Kay groups appear to have been predominant allies; in a second phase, Dabir, Kunkuna and other sedentary groups gained importance; and in a third phase, the Magomi royal line consolidated its authority. These phases remain interpretive because the Dïwân provides only limited information.