While European institutions parade as global beacons of morality and culture, their display halls and archives sit on desecrated African graves. Across France, the UK, and Germany, thousands of bodies, skulls, and human remains of our ancestors and anti-colonial fighters remain trapped abroad, cataloged as artifacts or war trophies.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, imperial forces decapitated freedom fighters, looted burial grounds, and shipped human remains to Europe. Driven by racial pseudo-science, eugenics, and trophy-hunting, European scientists measured our fallen warriors to justify white supremacy. Decades after independence, these nations still refuse to surrender our dead.

UK institutions alone hold over 11,000 African human remains in sites like Cambridge University and London's Natural History Museum. France took decades of intense pressure to return just 24 skulls of Algerian resistance fighters, while thousands more from across the continent remain locked inside Paris's Musée de l'Homme.

Ask yourself this: Has any African nation ever invaded Europe, decapitated a Western leader, and locked their corpse in a glass case in Dakar, Lagos, or Nairobi? Imagine the immediate international outrage and military threats if an African museum displayed the stolen skeleton of a French general or British prime minister.

Our ancestors are human beings whose spirits cannot rest in foreign vaults. We must stop asking politely. Every African government, organization, and citizen must demand the immediate, unconditional repatriation of every ancestral body held across Europe so they can finally receive a proper burial on African soil.

Further reading:

UK Museums Hold Over 260,000 Human Remains

France Returns Remains of Algerian Anti-Colonial Fighters

Restitution: The Returning of Africa and Europe's Ghosts

I am sick of seeing people on social media posts claiming the empirically incorrect lie of how "British left Nigeria in good condition." and that we "Africans ruined it." Some are even unironically arguing for recolonization due to modern inflation and security struggles. This creates a massive contradiction How can people romanticize a past where we couldn't read and died by age 40 just because of a more consistent inflation rate?

The truth is simple people mistake the quietness of a maximum-security prison for actual societal health. An inmate has a stable routine and clean hallways, but they are still in a prison.

Ill be Comparing the nearly 100 years of British occupation in Nigeria (1861–1960) to 65 years (1960 to today in 2026) of Nigerian independence side by side so that we can illustrate how Colonial era Nigeria is far worse than Nigeria when it got its independence/today and this isn't a discussion.

Note PLEASE FEEL FREE TO USE THE DATA ON THIS REDDIT IF ANYONE EVER TRIES TO SUGGEST SO

Lets actually look at the Data Itself

Education and Human Capital

Colonial Era:

The British built exactly ONE university institution in 99 years of rule (University College, Ibadan), and it couldn’t even award its own independent degrees until 1963.

The colonial government left schooling largely to Christian missionaries, creating an intentional skew toward the South while neglecting the North. The curriculum was designed only to produce low level clerks and translators, not highly skilled managers, scientists, or engineers. Literacy rate are an estimated 13% with some estimates as low as under 10%.

And no this simply wasn't just a "product of its time" during this period England had Over 20 universities (including Oxford, Cambridge, London, Edinburgh, Manchester, etc.) itself and had a near full literacy rate (over 90%), as was the case for Ireland which benefitted from being APART OF THE BRITISH METROPOLE (something people falsely imagine Nigeria was, which it wasn't, it was an extractive colony). Ireland itself having 2 universities at that time which considering its tiny size is impressive and didn't matter because as part of the Metropole they were legally British citizens and Sent MPs to the main Parliament in London, Nigerians weren't legal citizens and had no administrative voting power in the British colonial empire.

This was intentional. The British did not simply fail to educate Nigeria by accident. Colonial policy deliberately limited mass Western education, particularly in the North. Lord Lugard and other officials worried that Western education could produce politically conscious Africans who would challenge colonial authority. This concern was especially relevant in the South, where a larger educated population was already becoming politically assertive and demanding greater representation. In the North, missionary education was restricted in large part to preserve the emirate system and avoid creating the same kind of politically disruptive educated class. The colonial system therefore produced enough educated Nigerians to serve as clerks, teachers and administrators while keeping advanced education highly limited. Enough low level clerks to write down tax numbers, while keeping the rest of the population almost completely in the dark.

Post Colonial Era:

As of 2026, in just 65 years of independence Nigeria has 313 universities according to the National Universities Commission, to suggest that this was a ginormous leap wouldn't do this massive increase any justice. and around 70% adult literacy by 2024 the mass expansion of education was overwhelmingly a postcolonial phenomenon.

And the jump was quick, like heavy gains were made in just the first few decades of the post colonial era. This should show how much of a detriment the British extractive system was. To emphasize in nearly 100 years of colonialism at that point in 1960 the British administration established one university and that was towards the end of its colonial reign (1948) and then In 1970 in just 10 years, Nigeria had 6 universities, and by 1980, that number grew to 13 universities again these were literally just the first two decades. Nigeria went from roughly 293,000 primary pupils in 1939 and only 36,000 secondary pupils in 1957 to 13.8 million primary pupils by 1980.

And these same trends can be found in almost every aspect of development.... Such as

Macroeconomics and Industrialization

Colonial Era:

The economy remained overwhelmingly agrarian and export oriented, with colonial policy prioritizing the production and export of cash crops such as palm oil, cocoa and groundnuts, while manufactured goods were largely imported. Industrial development was limited and concentrated mainly around processing raw materials for export. Colonial policy provided little incentive for the development of a broad indigenous manufacturing sector. Interestingly Atul Kohli's Imperialism and the Developing World argues that the colonial state sometimes actively discouraged local manufacturing in order to protect British commercial interests. Local producers faced discriminatory transport costs, trade licenses and other regulations, while British goods received preferential treatment. The result was an economy heavily geared toward exporting primary commodities and importing manufactured goods, with limited indigenous industrialization, which shows how active Colonial powers were to mitigate competition from the citizens in its colonies.

Post colonial Era:

Nigeria developed a far more diversified domestic economy. Although dependence on crude oil became a major weakness and contributed to Dutch Disease, independence saw major expansion in manufacturing and especially services, including banking, telecommunications, real estate, technology and the globally influential Nollywood and Afrobeats industries.

British colonial policy oriented Nigeria toward producing and exporting primary commodities while importing manufactured goods. Industrial development was limited and largely focused on processing raw materials, leaving Nigeria with little indigenous manufacturing capacity at independence to begin with, And this completely changed. But it didn't just end there...

Infrastructure and Urbanization

Colonial Era:

Infrastructure was functional but disarticulated. Railways and roads were primarily built along routes connecting inland agricultural and mineral producing areas to coastal ports to Britain. Facilitating the extraction and export of commodities. Although these networks also connected Nigerian towns and enabled some domestic trade, they were not designed as an integrated national infrastructure system.

Colonial electricity provision was extremely limited and concentrated in major administrative, commercial and industrial centers. Power was prioritized for European residential areas, government facilities and industries such as the coal mines at Enugu and tin mining around Jos. Most (and im talking about borderline all) Nigerians, particularly in rural areas, had no access to electricity and relied on kerosene, candles and firewood.

Access to piped water, sewage and organized waste collection was also highly unequal. Colonial authorities prioritized European residential areas and major administrative centers, while most African communities relied on wells, streams, pit latrines and other basic facilities. The result was a deeply unequal standard of public infrastructure at independence.

Postcolonial Era:

Modern transportation networks were built to connect the country internally. This includes extensive interstate highway systems, major domestic airport networks, massive expansion of the electrical grid (though still facing generation deficits), and a digital communication infrastructure that provides Nigerias large tech hub.

Health and Mortality rates

Colonial Era:

towards the very end of the colonial era in the 1950s the life expectancy was around 33 years old. There was roughly one doctor for every 27,000 people, they were also mostly Christian missionaries who were independent of the British administrative empire and they possessed with dubious levels of actual skill at times. Colonial health services were concentrated in urban areas, while rural communities had little access to formal healthcare and continued to rely heavily on indigenous healers.

Post Colonial era:

Current life expectancy Nigeria are closer its to 60 years, still not great as its lower than the global average of 74, but its far better and closer to that than the average life expectancy being 30 like in the Colonial era. By just 1967, Nigeria already had 257 general hospitals and 26,557 hospital beds, alongside hundreds of health centers and over 1,300 dispensaries. The expansion continued substantially over subsequent decades.

Even the British themselves were astonished about how both little they actually did in Nigeria and how much they undermined local industry. An example can be seen in 1943 whereby a debate by British MPs ensued arguing that the United Africa Company held a virtual monopoly that disadvantaged African enterprise. The debate cited Nigerian examples such as yam flour production, coffee processing, metalworking and cloth manufacturing, illustrating how limited indigenous industrialization remained under colonial rule.

What stability the British brought (But even that has a caveat)

• Before the British took full control in the late 1800s, the region that became Nigeria was experiencing significant warfare between rivaling kingdoms and empires. The British didn't end these wars out of peace and love though they ended them because war is bad for corporate business. You cannot smoothly ship palm oil and tin out of a country if local armies are blocking the pathways. To achieve this "stability," the British used extreme, unmitigated military violence. They launched bloody punitive expeditions, Maxim-gunned local resistance, burned down cities like Benin (1897), and exiled or assassinated any traditional king (like King Jaja of Opobo) who refused to hand over his economic sovereignty. They replaced local wars with a totalitarian military dictatorship, people talk about indirect rule due to a lack of day to day European officers but in areas where they considered traditional authority inadequate, appointed or recognized local intermediaries such as Warrant Chiefs. These officials were given significant powers over taxation and administration, often with limited accountability to the communities they governed. Prior societies had established institutions that constrained rulers and provided mechanisms for collective decision-making such as the Yoruba Oyo Mesi or the councils in pre colonial Igbo societies. And in all of those societies even the highly centralized ones the priority was always the kingdom/empire itself in pre colonial times and not some far away Metropole but when leaders priorities themselves like the Oba of Benin they would strip them of their power and exile them.
• The British introduced the West African Pound, which was pegged exactly 1:1 with the British Pound. This eliminated the fluctuation of traditional currencies (like cowries) and brought long-term price stability. Unfortunately though this stability was a trap. The currency was stable because it was backed by the entire British Empire, but the British used this currency as a weapon of coercion. By mandating that taxes could only be paid in British coin, they legally coerced self-sufficient African farmers to stop growing food for their communities and start growing cash crops for British factories. The stability only benefited British accountants for Nigerians, it was a system of forced economic dependency.

So Upon all of this there will still be those trying to move the goalpost and try and be apologists for the empires exploitation of Nigeria. So lets analyze some common talking points briefly

"Natives in the region of Nigeria was never urbanized, it always had terrible sanitation and was backwards compared to Europeans"

This is directly contradicted by Europeans themselves centuries before Colonialism

Lourenço Pinto a Portuguese observer/traveler associated with the Portuguese presence on the West African coast. in 1691, who wrote:

“Great Benin, where the king resides, is larger than Lisbon; all the streets run straight and as far as the eye can see.”

“The houses are large, especially that of the king, which is richly decorated and has fine columns.”

“The city is wealthy and industrious.”

“It is so well governed that theft is unknown and the people live in such security that they have no doors to their houses.”

Earlier Portuguese account: Duarte Pacheco Pereira, c.1505–1508

Pereira was much more matter-of-fact rather than openly praising the city. But he still described Benin as:

“the great city of Benin”

“large, very wide and deep, which suffices for its defence.”

Olfert Dapper, 1668 (Dutch account based on reports about Benin)

“Houses are built alongside the streets in good order, the one close to the other."

“They are usually broad with long galleries inside.”

“every house is provided with a well for the supply of fresh water.”

“The walls [are] as shiny and smooth by washing and rubbing as any wall in Holland can be made with chalk, and they are like mirrors.”

These quotes were Hundreds upon Hundreds of years before Colonialism. And Benin was just one of the many great civilizations in Nigeria, there was many great that preceded it (Nok Culture being an example or how Nigeria had the first proper Boat in the world or achieved the iron age independently unlike other parts of the world such as Europe and even being one of the few places that developed and sold glass such as Ife) and proceeded it like Sokoto, Oyo etc.

"Colonialism with all its negatives needed to happen in order to bring X,Y,Z technology or writing or whatever"

These quotes were Hundreds upon Hundreds of years before Colonialism. And Benin was just one of the many great civilizations in Nigeria, there was many great that preceded it (Nok Culture being an example or how Nigeria had the first proper Boat in the world or achieved the iron age independently unlike other parts of the world such as Europe and even being one of the few places that developed and sold glass such as Ife) and proceeded it like Sokoto, Oyo etc.

"Colonialism with all its negatives needed to happen in order to bring X,Y,Z technology or writing or whatever"

Beyond the fact that Nigeria already had writing centuries prior to colonialism such as the Ajami (Northern Nigeria) and Anjemi (Yoruba) which were adopted in the twelfth century CE (500 years before colonialism) and even earlier 800 to 1,500 years prior to colonialism indigenous logographic and ideographic script like the Igbo Nsibidi, the people groups occupying the region of Nigeria were already connected to both the transaharn trade routes for over 1000 years and even the Atlantic trade which began in 1480 began with trade of cloth and (primarily the Kingdom of Benin) sold Benin pepper, ivory, and locally woven cotton textiles. In exchange they got Manillas, mirrors, firearms, Coral Beads and European Textiles. Nigeria was not some isolated place and neither was most of Africa. The way ancient Civilizations developed was through trade because different geographies provided different benefits, Colonialism directly undermined and impeded the progress of Nigeria by restricting and monopolizing trade and orienting the new economy around extraction and not development.

"Nigeria Has tons of Ethnic Conflict Now and Stuff"

Once again this brings me back to the point at hand Nigeria was a forced amalgamation not by Nigerians themselves but by the British. People who use this argument blame the symptom not the cause. But it doesn't just end with The British stripping people groups of their autonomy through war and subjugation, when territories did try and break away the British would prevent it from happening even during post independence. As an example The Biafra War (also known as the Nigerian Civil War) took place entirely after Nigeria gained its independence in 1960. the war took place from July 1967 to January 1970, during the war the British actively supported the Federal Government during the war by providing weapons and manipulating the narrative this was discussed by Frederick Forsyth in his article titled Buried for 50 years: Britain’s shameful role in the Biafran war . The Cause? Historian Chibuike Uche's research using British archival records argues that British oil interests were a major factor. Shell-BP had enormous investments in Nigeria, particularly in the eastern region where much of the oil was located. British officials were concerned that Biafran independence could jeopardize those interests and Britain's wider trade relationship with a united Nigeria. To repeat because of an oil company even after forcing the different people groups to create the Nigerian project, the British still didn't want Nigerian groups to have their own autonomy and aided in the death of millions of lives due to them wanting to secure revenue for their oil company (Shell BP).... And this is the Body that people are choosing to defend?

And this hasn't even fully ended yet, to this day Nigeria loses significantly more money through corporate financial misconduct and commercial practices than through direct fraud or stealing by politicians. Look Political stealing is flashy politicians buy luxury properties and private jets, which makes headlines. However, according to the African Union's ⁠Mbeki Panel Report, this direct public corruption accounts for only about 5% of illicit leakages. Commercial tax fraud accounts for 70% and the majority of fake invoices/ilicit flows are done by none Nigerian Multi national corporations.

I made this post to illustrate the point that the path forward for Africans is to not romanticize a past that never existed whether that comes from Elders, western propogandists (regardless of what they look like) or those simply just looking for attention. To suggest Nigeria was better off during colonialism is not only ahistorical but also just anti-intellectual when presented with the data and general information we have and in fact not only does show the opposite one can say Nigeria is actively trying to recover from the issues (Almost all of which) can be traced back to colonialism. Nigeria has developed far more since colonialism not because of it but in spite of it. The path forward isn't to lie and create a version of reality that doesn't exist to run away to but its to understand the progress and actively hold everyone accountable including ourselves for the development of our nations but that also includes those who want to exploit us and that also includes the liars. So we can look at things pragmatically to build a better future for everyone.

Bibliography

(No Url)

African Union and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (2015) Illicit Financial Flows: Report of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa.

Ahizechukwu, O.U. (2023) ‘The Development of Transport Infrastructure and Nigeria’s Colonial Economy, 1892–1960’, Wukari International Studies Journal, 7(1), p. 297.

Aminu, M.D. (2018) ‘Why Northern Nigeria is Educationally Disadvantaged’, Premium Times, 11 January.

Arise News (2024) ‘GFI: Nigeria lost $77.7bn to trade-related illicit financial flows in 10 years’, Arise News.

Awofeso, N. et al. (2022) ‘The Lancet Nigeria Commission: investing in health and the future of the nation’, The Lancet, 399(10330), pp. 1155–1200.

Boadu, Y. (n.d.) ‘The Economic and Geopolitical History of [title unavailable from source page]’, Substack.

Encyclopaedia Africana (n.d.) ‘Nigeria: Nsibidi’, Encyclopaedia Africana.

Encyclopaedia Britannica (n.d.) ‘Ovonramwen’, Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Encyclopaedia Britannica (n.d.) ‘Oyo Empire’, Britannica Kids.

Forsyth, F. (2020) ‘Buried for 50 years: Britain’s shameful role in the Biafran war’, The Guardian, 21 January.

Gulliver-Needham, E. (2018) ‘Ireland and Africa: Surprisingly, not the same place’, Medium, 30 August.

Kamow001 (n.d.) ‘Economies & Trade’, Pre-Colonial Africa.

Kohli, A. (2020) Imperialism and the Developing World: How Britain and the United States Shaped the Global Periphery. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Koutonin, M. (2016) ‘Story of cities #5: Benin City, the mighty medieval capital now lost without trace’, The Guardian, 18 March.

Library of Congress (1991) ‘Education’, Nigeria: A Country Study.

Macrotrends (n.d.) Nigeria Life Expectancy.

Macrotrends (n.d.) Nigeria Literacy Rate.

Oduwobi, T. (2006) ‘Politics in Colonial Ijebu, 1921–51: The Role and Challenge of the Educated Elite’. University of Lagos Institutional Repository.

Ryder, A.F.C. (1969) Benin and the Europeans, 1485–1897. London: Longman.

Rodney, W. (2020) ‘Colonialism as a System for Underdeveloping Africa’, Verso Books, 18 February.

UK Parliament (1943) ‘Colonial Affairs’, Hansard, 13 July.

UK Parliament (1960) ‘Illiteracy’, Hansard, 9 May.

World Bank (1989) Nigeria: Primary Education Subsector Study. Report No. 7389-UNI. Washington, DC: World Bank.

World Bank (n.d.) [Publication title unavailable from source page]. World Bank Open Knowledge Repository.

World Health Organization (1961) Official Records of the World Health Organization.

World Health Organization (1969) The Fourth Report on the World Health Situation.

Winter, M. (2022) ‘Hausa Language’, EBSCO Research Starters.

Yusuf, M.A., Ladan, B., Idris, U.A. and Halilu, A. (2013) ‘Comparative study of the state of literacy in Nigeria and Cuba’, European Scientific Journal, 9(19), pp. 34–44.

Nigeria Education Since 1960 (n.d.) Academia.edu.

I’ll be blunt the Bantu expansion “genocide” and “Colonialism” myth is Objectively incorrect (and nonsensical Propaganda)

This is a revisionist historical lie running rampant through right-wing online echo chambers and bad-faith political debates. The claim that the ancient Bantu expansion was an act of "the black people” vs “the real indigenous Africans“ which led to colonialism and a genocide against indigenous populations is historically illiterate and relies on complete pseudo-history and a complete lack of understanding of archeology and population genetics.

As South African heritage activist and author Patric Tariq Mellet brilliantly exposes in his groundbreaking work  the lie of 1652, these claims are a direct resurrection of colonial myths designed to strip Black Africans of their land rights.

The actual scientific, genetic, and historical truth debunks this narrative entirely. I’ll break it down step by step Hopefully leaving little doubt towards the end as to the reality of the situation.

(NOTE PLEASE Don’t BE INTIMIDATED BY THE FACT THAT THIS POST HAS MANY WORDS, takes points at your own time.)

1. What the Bantu Expansion Actually Was (And Wasn't)

To be objective Yes, there was a massive demographic movement. Beginning roughly 3,500 to 4,000 years ago, Bantu-speaking peoples began migrating out of their original homeland in modern day eastern Nigeria and western Cameroon. They carried distinct agricultural technologies, iron-working skills, and a specific genetic blueprint most notably the E1b1a haplogroup, which is highly reflective of West African and Bantu lineages.

Linguistically, Bantu is firmly rooted in the Niger-Congo language family, making it a sibling to other major West and Central African languages like Yoruba, Igbo, Fulani, Bambara, Twi/Akan, and Edo.

But it was not a genocide. It was a slow, multi-millennium migration of Stone Age and Iron Age farmers moving a few kilometres per generation. Far from a violent slaughter, it actually stimulated regional population growth among the indigenous people they met. Bantu farmers introduced iron tools, yam cultivation, and new fishing techniques to Central African rainforest foragers, and hardy cereal crops and pottery to groups further south. By introducing stable food systems and trading resources, the arrival of these bands actually helped localized populations grow and stabilize.

To be clear there is no such thing as a single “Bantu ethnic group” there is no Bantu Kingdom instead there was the Kingdom of Ndongo, Great Zimbabwe, Kingdom of Kongo, the Swahili states etc all of which had nothing to do with each other and in many cases were competing against one another. There is no “Bantu”look”/apperance an eastern African Bantu speaking person who likely intermarried with Cushitic, Nilotic or Near eastern populations may look very different than someone from Southern Africa who may have more Khoi-Khoi/San related ancestry and different adaptations due to their distinct geographies over the thousands of years. There is no single Bantu language and most are completely unintelligible from one another, there is Bantu lifestyle goal. Anymore so than INDO EUROPEAN is not a single kingdom has the exact same clothes or the exact same “Look” or the exact same ethos or “objective” Hindi the most spoken language in India is a “Indo European language” , Armenian is a “Indo European language”, Persian is an “Indo Europea language“ IRISH Is an “Indo European language”, Italian is a “Indo European language“ Punjab “Indo European language“ for crying out loud. Do Indians, Irish people, Iranians, Russians, Armenians, Italians have the same culture? Do they look the same? Do they have a set goal to exterminate the none “Indo Europeans“ to perserve their tribe? Do they even live next to each other? Using a more decisive example, Coptic Egeyptians are “Afro-Asiatic” Jewish Hebrew is “Afro-Asiatic”, Somalia are “Afro asiatic”, Arabic is “Afro Asistif” Hausa the largest ethnic group in NIGERIA are “Afro Asiatic”. Similarly do thexs people belong to the same ethnicity? the same kingdom? have a goal to purposely wipe out the none Afro Asiatics?

But for some reason nuanced is lost when the subject that he consists of mostly black people.

2. The Ridiculous Population Expectation: Foragers vs. Iron Age Farmers

The core argument used by revisionists is incredibly silly. They look at modern demographics, see that Bantu populations vastly outnumber Khoisan or Pygmy groups, and declare, "See! The Bantus must have slaughtered them all to get those numbers!"

This shows a complete ignorance of basic human ecology. It is completely ridiculous to expect nomadic hunter-gatherers like the San, the Hadza, or Central African rainforest foragers to ever have populations as large as sedentary, Iron-Age farmers. there is a very obvious reason as to why people in mainland India for example have a far higher population than the Andaman islands or why there’s far more

• The Forager Model: Hunting and gathering requires massive, wide-open tracts of land just to sustain a single, small family band. Forager populations naturally stay small and stable to avoid depleting their environment.
• The Farming Model: Agriculture allows a society to grow thousands of calories on a tiny fraction of that land. A farming community can sustain hundreds of people in the same space a single forager band needs to survive.

Over thousands of years, the farming populations naturally multiplied, expanded, and demographically outpaced the hunter-gatherers. It wasn't a military conquest it was basic math and biology. And this happens everywhere on the planet. This is typically never brought up because it would assume that Bantus were iron and technology and farming thousands of years ago which would burst the racist bubble of ”they were all just in the Stone Age”

3. The Selective Blindness Regarding Cushitic and Nilotic Populations

Racist revisionists love to ignore East Africa because it completely ruins their "Bantu slaughter" talking point.

During the expansion, Bantu farmers encountered pre-existing, non-Bantu pastoralist and agricultural populations specifically Cushitic and Nilotic peoples (and arguably interacted with them more than they did the Khoi-Khoi/San and the Pgmy Central African forager groups in terms of sheer numbers). Why weren't they "genocided" or wiped off the map?

Because the Cushitic and Nilotic populations already possessed farming and livestock technologies. Because they had the economic means to sustain large populations of their own, they didn't get demographically overwhelmed. Instead, they stood on equal footing with the incoming Bantu bands, leading to a long history of balanced interaction, trade, and cultural sharing.

4. Ultimate Proof: Deep Assimilation, Borrowed Culture, and Genetic Blending

If the Bantu expansion had been a genocide, we would see total genetic eradication. Instead, we see the absolute opposite: a massive history of intimate integration.

• The Click Consonants and Ancestry: In Southern Africa, the Nguni (such as Xhosa and Zulu) and Sotho-Tswana groups do not just share land with Khoisan descendants they are biologically and culturally part of them. Modern Nguni and Sotho-Tswana groups carry significant Khoisan genetic ancestry. Culturally, they absorbed the complex click consonants of Khoisan languages directly into their own Bantu speech. Linguists know this only happens through centuries of peaceful, deeply intimate cohabitation and intermarriage in what anthropologists call a matrilocal language shift.
• Technological Syncretism: In East Africa, groups like the Kikuyu and the Tutsi display massive cultural blending. They adopted specialized livestock pastoralism and dryland cultivation techniques directly from their Cushitic neighbors. In fact, the Tutsi (historically considered to have distinct pastoral roots) speak Kinyarwanda a Bantu language and were the esteemed warrior class of Kinrwanda and Burundi kingdoms and ruled it alongside less mixed groups like the Hutu. This is absolute proof of deep, historical cultural assimilation, not annihilation. Bantu speaking Groups in Uganda and Kenya like the Buganda, Azande and Luo also have significant Nilotic ancestry
• Rainforest Synergy: In Central Africa, Bantu agriculturalists picked up vital forest survival strategies, deep medicinal plant knowledge, and specialized hunting techniques from rainforest foragers (Pygmies), completely refuting the narrative of total dominance or erasure. And thus ancestry is deeply imbedded in hroups like the Fang/Ekang, Tsogo and Kongo groups in Gabon, Equitorial Guinea and Congo In many places in Central Africa.

Europeans however rarely if ever intermarried and adopted the cultures from the people they colonised in a cooperative way.

ironically nobody ever says there was a “Nilotic expansion” despite the fact that Nilotic groups like the Massai have significant Cushitic and Bantu ancestry same with the Luo

Nobody ever says the people living in the omo valley relative to the kingdom of Askum or the kingdom of Kush example of the “Horn of Africa Cushitic expansion” as is with tribes like the Rendile in Tanzania expanding out of the Horn of Africa proper. Or the Khoi Khoi having Cushitic ancestry through a Cushitic East African nomadic pastoralist (which also brought pastoralist culture to the Khoi Khoi). Because these places (Horn of Africa and South Sudan) are not places that Europeans settled in like in South Africa they are rarely ever brought up as an example of “expansion” even though they have more overt examples like the Jareer or Gosha populations in Somalia.

5. Real Genocides: The Devastation of European Colonialism

Under international law, genocide is defined as specific violent acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

If you want to talk about actual, deliberate, state-backed genocides, look at what European colonizers did to Africa’s indigenous populations, look at how European expansion undermined, suppressed and eliminated Africans way that has permanently changed the continent

• In South Africa: The Dutch Cape authorities and British colonizers organized state-backed commandos with explicit orders to hunt down and exterminate the Cape San hunter-gatherers, burning their camps and capturing survivors into forced labor.
• The Smallpox and Servitude against the Khoi: The Khoisan had zero natural immunity to European pathogens. Catastrophic smallpox epidemics introduced by European ships most notably in 1713, 1755, and 1767 decimated up to 90% of the coastal Khoikhoi populations, causing an absolute collapse of their traditional clan structures. But it didn’t end there By violently seizing Khoisan grazing lands and water sources, Europeans forced the surviving Khoisan into a system of coerced indentured labor and permanent debt bondage. They were legally barred from leaving settler farms, functioning effectively as generational slave labor which acted as a loophole in their VOC slavery loophole. On these farms, Khoisan servants performed the exact same grueling agricultural tasks, lived in the exact same quarters, and faced the exact same violence as the chattel slaves imported from Madagascar, Mozambique, India, and the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). This forced proximity broke down social barriers. Over generations, this mixing caused a profound cultural shift. Stripped of their original land, the descendants of these mixed unions eventually lost their distinct Khoisan clan identities and native languages, replacing them with Dutch (which evolved into Afrikaans). Something the Bantu speaking Nguni and Sotho Tswana maintained (such as the click constants that Afrikaans amongst coloureds typically lack because they mixed more peacefully with the Khoisan and weren’t forced to loose it).
• In the Congo Basin: King Leopold II of Belgium turned the rainforests into an industrial-scale mass murder camp to extract rubber. Millions of Central African foragers and Bantu residents were slaughtered, starved, or mutilated by the Force Publique.
• Human Zoos: Europeans literally captured indigenous Central African foragers and Khoisan individuals (like Saartjie Baartman) and shipped them to Europe to be locked in cages and put on display in "human zoos" for white entertainment. Famous examples of people in these zoos include the famous example of Ota Benga and the countless Pgmys taken as animals to be watched by a countless people during Leopolds reign. Bantu speaking people didn’t practice “human zoos” because they did not view different people groups in that type of way pseudoscientific way, race is a social construct and these institutions were  uniquely created by Western European and North American societies.
• The Herero and Nama Genocide (1904): When the Herero (Bantu speaking group) and Nama (Khoi/San people group) resisted German land theft in modern day Namibia, General Lothar von Trotha issued an explicit extermination order (Vernichtungsbefehl). German forces drove men, women, and children into the Omaheke Desert to starve, poisoned their water wells, and put survivors into industrialized concentration camps (like Shark Island). Over 80% of the Herero and 50% of the Nama were systematically wiped out in a matter of years.
• The Invention of the Racial Hierarchy: Europeans introduced a rigid, pseudo scientific racial hierarchy that placed white Europeans at the absolute top, groups perceived to be more similar physically to them in the middle, and other groups who did not fit their colonial standards at the bottom. This toxic framework was codified into law (such as South Africa's Apartheid or the colonial identity cards in Rwanda) and deliberately engineered the deep ethnic divisions and traumas that African nations are still healing from today. Quite literally unlike Bantu’s who didn’t care much about “physical similarities“ (in that way) European actively try to suppress people who are not like them and they put themselves at the top systematically
• European expansion was inherently eliminationist, unleashing targeted, industrialized violence to crush and subjugate Nilotic, Cushitic, and forager societies while violently fracturing the continent. In 1905, British forces executed the Sotik Massacre in Kenya, using machine guns to slaughter 1,850 Nilotic Kipsigis pastoralists and stealing 20,000 cattle to break their economic independence. In the Horn of Africa, European powers launched brutal military expeditions to halt indigenous migrations and violently slice Cushitic territory into British, French, and Italian Somaliland, using scorched-earth tactics, poisoned wells, and later aerial bombardment to force total submission. Meanwhile, in the Central African rainforests, Belgian mercenaries ran brutal hostage camps—kidnapping indigenous forager (Pygmy) women and children to force the men to harvest rubber, and executing or mutilating anyone who resisted. And the countless other atrocities from the European expeditions all across Africa

And thus permeates every aspect of life, Today, the primary languages of government, law, education, and business across Africa are English, French, and Portuguese the languages of said violent expansionists. While the Bantu expansion resulted in the preservation and blending of indigenous cultures (like Bantu speakers adopting Khoisan clicks), European colonialism sought to completely overwrite African languages and cultures, rendering them "inferior." Europeans enforced their way of life on everybody even practices such as hitting your children with a belt was something adopted by Europeans

6. Who Did the Bantus Actually Fight? (Other Bantus)

When large-scale warfare, conquest, and empire-building did erupt among Bantu-speaking societies, the targets weren't scattered bands of hunter-gatherers. Bantu kingdoms fought other Bantu kingdoms.

They were competing for the exact same resources high-quality grazing land for cattle, fertile agricultural soil, and centralized political power.

• The Mfecane: The Zulu Kingdom’s expansion under Shaka Zulu in the 19th century triggered massive, bloody displacements, but it was a conflict fought almost exclusively between rival Nguni and Sotho-Tswana Bantu chiefdoms and later under Cetshwayo it was against Europeans.
• The Interlacustrine Kingdoms: Look at the Great Lakes region. The Kingdom of Rwanda and the Kingdom of Burundi fought brutal, territorial wars against each other for centuries, Tutsi vs Tutsi and hutu vs Hutu long before the modern, colonial engineered Hutu and Tutsi conflicts.

Racists never mention this because it ruins their narrative. They want you to believe Bantu speakers are inherently predatory invaders who swept down just to slaughter the Khoisan. Interestingly aswell Khoikhoi and the San did have conflict but just amongst themselves according to archeological and oral records over livestock raiding. While localized resource friction undoubtedly occurred over thousands of years there’s very little evidence of mass widespread conflicts because they just didn’t really for much because they had very different societies.

7. The Ultimate Hypocrisy: An Archeological Look at Eurasia

To see how completely nonsensical this "Bantu Genocide" talking point is, let's apply this exact same broken logic to European history.

Around 7,000 to 8,000 years ago, Early European Farmers from Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) migrated into Europe. Because they brought agriculture and domesticated animals, their populations exploded. Within a few thousand years, they saw a 70% to 100% population and genetic turnover, completely absorbing and demographically replacing the indigenous Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG) of Europe.

Does any credible historian call the Anatolian farming expansion a "Turkish genocide of white Europeans"? No. Because it was an agricultural demographic shift, not a military conquest. Yet, when the exact same demographic shift happens in Africa via the Bantu expansion, racists scream "genocide."

As Patric Tariq Mellet notes, this entire talking point is directly tethered to the hypocritical "Empty Land Myth". Colonial and Apartheid historians fabricated the lie that Bantu farmers crossed the Limpopo River into South Africa at the exact same moment Jan van Riebeeck stepped off his ship in Cape Town in 1652. They use this false moral equivalence to say, "Everyone colonizes, so you can't blame Europeans."

It is pure psychological projection. European empires who actually mastered the art of global genocide, systemic chattel slavery, racial segregation, and total land theft try to project their own historical atrocities onto a 3,000-year-old agricultural migration. As they do with many things “Thetes a white genocide in South Africa” even though there’s absolutely no sign of it and in fact, white South Africans make up over 60% of all board rooms own over 70% of private farmland and make about four times more than black and coloured African populations and in fact Black and Colourds are far more likely to fall victim to homicide due to the effects of a apartheid, land grabbing and centuries of subjugation prior via violent European expansionism. When Trump stated this lie along with Elon Musk it wasnt just a lie in isolation it is a part of a trend of fabrication that people have been using against Africans for generations that distort the truth and hide reality, but now we’re brining reality forward and fighting for a better future…

References

Mellet, P.T. (2020) The Lie of 1652: A Decolonised History of Land. Cape Town: Tafelberg.

Alves, I., Fortes-Lima, C., Schlebusch, C.M. and Sjödin, P. (2023) ‘The genetic legacy of the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples in Africa’, Nature, 624(7991), pp. 115–122.

Pickrell, J.K., Patterson, N., Loh, P.R., Lipson, M., Berger, B., Stoneking, M., Pakendorf, B. and Reich, D.(2012) ‘The genetic prehistory of southern Africa’, Nature Communications, 3(1), pp. 1194–1204.

Bostoen, K. and de Schryver, G.M. (2015) ‘Linguistic innovation, language contact and the Bantu expansion’, in The Oxford Handbook of African Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Schmitz, R. (2021) Germany Officially Recognizes It Committed Genocide In Present-Day Namibia, NPR. Available at: npr(Accessed: 23 August 2026).

Abdi, A. (2015) 'The Savanna Pastoral Neolithic: A Cushitic Culture that genetically influenced various Southern Africans', Anthromadness, 4 July.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (n.d.) What is Genocide?.

South African History Online (SAHO). (2011) ‘The Dutch and the Khoisan’, South African History Online.

Hochschild, A. (1998) King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Boston: Mariner Books.

Bradford, P.V. and Blume, H. (1992) Ota Benga: The Pygmy in the Zoo. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Richerson, P.J., Boyd, R. and Bettinger, R.L. (2001) ‘Was agriculture an impossible invention during the Pleistocene but mandatory during the Holocene? A revolutionary theory’, American Antiquity, 66(3), pp. 387–411.

Van Wyk, A. and Chifamba, J. (2019) ‘ANALYSIS: Hitting children is not an African Tradition’, Premium Times Nigeria.

Reuters. (2025) ‘A check of Trump's false claims about white genocide in South Africa’, Reuters.

South African Government. (2018) Land Audit Report 2017, Department of Rural Development and Land Reform. Pretoria: Government Printer.

Commission for Employment Equity (CEE). (2025) 25th Annual Report on Employment Equity, Department of Employment and Labour. Pretoria: Government Printer.

The late 19th century had produced extraordinary histories of displacement, survival, and transformation. So, while the Atlantic slave trade dominates much of the historical narrative, systems of enslavement along the Indian Ocean and Red Sea remained active in the same era. It was the interception of slave trade by the British Royal Navy that set in motion an unexpected connection between the Horn of Africa and the landscape of South Africa that had been defined by a journey of 64 children who came to be known as the “Children of Hope”.

Their story began in the Oromo-inhabited regions of Ethiopia during a period of intense political upheaval and territorial expansion. Oromo communities were subjected to violent slave raids, in which children were among those captured and forcibly transported toward the Red Sea for sale in Arabian markets. In September 1888, the British Royal Navy vessel HMS Osprey intercepted several vessels carrying enslaved Oromo children and liberated them. The children were taken to Aden in Yemen, where they were placed under missionary care. Unfortunately, diseases and the harsh conditions of the region claimed many of their lives. Seeking a healthier environment in which the survivors could be educated and cared for, missionaries eventually arranged for the remaining 64 children to be sent to the Free Church of Scotland's Lovedale Institution in the Eastern Cape region of South Africa.

In August 1890, after a long journey from Aden around the African coast - including a stop at Port Louis in Mauritius - the children arrived in South Africa. They were admitted into an institution whose student population was predominantly Xhosa-speaking and which combined academic education with Christian instruction and industrial training. The young men were trained in trades such as carpentry, printing, and masonry, while the young women received training that included teaching. Remarkably, many of the Oromo students performed exceptionally well in their academics, demonstrating the resilience and intellectual capacity that would become characteristic of their subsequent lives.

However, perhaps the most valuable legacy of the group lies in the testimonies they left behind. Several of the children recorded accounts of their first passage: their individual lives in Oromo communities, their capture, their journeys through enslavement, and their experiences before reaching South Africa. These accounts provide rare first-person evidence of the 19th century slave trade in the Horn of Africa. Their histories have been substantially recounted in Sandra Rowoldt Shell's Children of Hope: The Odyssey of the Oromo Slaves from Ethiopia to South Africa (picture 12 and 13), which draws upon the children's testimonies alongside Lovedale records, correspondence, photographs and other archival material. The book therefore serves as an important source for understanding not only how the children reached South Africa, but also the lives that they built afterwards. Although the testimonies were recorded within a missionary setting and require careful historical interpretation, they provide a profound record of the experiences of enslaved Oromo children from their own perspectives.

Their presence in South Africa also produced an important linguistic legacy. Despite being immersed in an English-and-Xhosa speaking environment, the Oromo language was preserved through the missionary press. In the 1890s, Lovedale published Oromo-language religious texts, including a Roman-script translation of the Gospel of Mark and Galla Hymns. These publications are noted to represent an important early chapter in the development of Oromo language print culture and demonstrate that the children's displacement did not entirely erase the connection to their linguistic heritage.

As the children reached adulthood, their lives followed different paths. Some remained in South Africa - becoming teachers, artisans and even assimilated into the local cultures in which they established new lives. Others retained a powerful attachment to their original homeland and eventually returned to Ethiopia, where several pursued a future with the education and skills they had acquired at the Lovedale Institution. By 1910, approximately one-third of the original group had died, one-third had settled in South Africa, and another third had returned to Ethiopia.

Among those who returned was Gutama Tarafo, whose experience at Lovedale left an especially revealing record of this enduring connection. In 1897, he presented a four-page essay, “My Essay Is Upon Gallaland,” to the Lovedale Literary Society, describing the landscape, customs, food, social life and traditions of his Oromo identity. The essay, later preserved by Sandra Rowoldt Shell in her book, provides a glimpse into how a young man reconstructed memories of a homeland he had left as a child. Its evident sense of nostalgia also prompted Shell to trace his later life, and eventually establishing that Gutama returned to Ethiopia with fellow Oromo student by the name of Dinkitu Boensa in 1909.

Some of the others who remained to forge lives in South Africa include Bisho Jarsa (picture 5), who was one of the 64 Oromo children. She grew up to become a teacher and later married a South African man by the name of Frederick Scheepers who worked as a minister. Their family would eventually produce one of South Africa's most important anti-apartheid intellectuals known as Dr. Neville Alexander (picture 11), Bisho's grandson, who became a scholar, linguist, revolutionary activist and spent ten years imprisoned on Robben Island alongside Nelson Mandela.

The story of the Children of Hope therefore extends far beyond their refuge as their lives connected the Horn of Africa, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and Southern Africa, revealing a much more interconnected history than boundaries would suggest. They arrived in South Africa as children violently displaced from their own homeland, yet prevailed as contributors to a new society.

Their story is ultimately one of memory, identity and the different ways displaced people attempt to reconstruct a sense of home. The photogaphs above are some of the Oromo children at the Lovedale Institution in Eastern Cape, South Africa.

Abdullah Ibrahim was born Adolph Johannes Brand on 9 October 1934 in Cape Town. He was a celebrated pianist, composer and bandleader whose music blended traditional Cape Malay music, Christian gospel, spirituals, and American jazz. Renowned for his distinctive piano style and deeply spiritual compositions, he became one of the most influential jazz musicians of his generation by using music to express cultural identity, resilience and the human experience.

He began learning music at the age of seven, influenced by his grandmother, who played a piano in church, and his mother, who led a choir. By his early teenage years, he was already performing professionally. Affectionately known as Dollar Brand, he formed the Dollar Brand Trio in 1958 and later joined Jazz Epistles, a groundbreaking group that included fellow musician Hugh Masekela. In 1960, the group recorded Jazz Epistle Verse 1, a landmark recording recognised as the first jazz album by South African musicians. However, unfortunate conditions of apartheid restricted opportunities for Black and Coloured musicians, prompting him to leave in 1962 and pursue his career abroad.

His international career flourished during his years in exile, particularly in Europe and the United States of America. A significant turning point came when he met the legendary jazz pianist Duke Ellington in Switzerland. Duke's support helped introduce Abdullah's music to wider international audiences as he went on to perform at prestigious venues, including the Carnegie Hall, and also collaborate with prominent musicians. In 1968, he had converted to Islam, which led to adopting the name Abdullah Ibrahim, marking an important spiritual transformation that would continue to influence his music and artistic philosophy.

One of his most enduring contributions was Mannenberg – Is Where It’s Happening, recorded in 1974. The composition became an unofficial anthem of resistance during apartheid, resonating particularly with communities affected by forced removals and racial segregation. Its infectious rhythms and memorable melodies captured a spirit of defiance, dignity and hope. More than a jazz composition, Mannenberg became a cultural expression of collective identity and resistance, demonstrating how music could preserve people's experiences and provide inspiration during periods of political oppression.

Following the release of Nelson Mandela and the transition towards democracy, he returned to his homeland and performed at Nelson Mandela's renowned presidential inauguration in 1994. He continued composing and performing internationally, while exploring the relationship between music, spirituality, history and cultural identity. His achievements were also recognised through numerous honours, including South Africa's Order of Ikhamanga in Silver and his designation as a Jazz Master by the United States National Endowment for the Arts in 2019.

Beyond his musical achievements, Abdullah's family life was also closely connected to the arts. He married jazz singer and composer Sathima Bea Benjamin in 1965, and together they had two children: their daughter, Tsidi, better known as Jean Grae, a respected hip-hop artist, and their son, Tsakwe, who is also a musician. Sathima was an accomplished artist in her own right, and the couple shared a deep connection through music and their years living abroad. Their marriage eventually ended in divorce, and she had passed away in 2013. In his later years, Abdullah lived in Bavaria, Germany, with his new partner, Marina Umari. His family’s artistic contributions reflect the musical influence that extended across generations.

Sadly, Abdullah Ibrahim died in Germany on 15 June 2026, at the age of 91, and was laid to rest a week later, on 22 June, in Bavaria. Although his life and career took him far from Cape Town, his music remained deeply connected to the history, culture and struggles of his homeland. Through compositions such as Mannenberg, he demonstrated that music could serve as a form of cultural preservation, political expression and spiritual reflection.

By bringing the sounds and traditions of Cape Town to international audiences, he helped establish South African jazz as an important part of the global musical landscape. His influence continues to inspire musicians and listeners around the world, securing his place as one of the most significant figures in the history of jazz.

I know that Africa is the birthplace of our species, but Africa is a large region. I wonder which country in Africa did our species originate in. Also, I think the idea that homo sapiens just originated in Africa and not in a specific African country probably comes from a misconception that Africa is a single country.

The very concept of "Africa" is a foreign invention, born as a Roman administrative label for a conquered province and later used to corral thousands of distinct cultures into manageable pens for European resource extraction.

True liberation requires rejecting both the post-colonial state and forced continental unity, returning instead to the radical sovereignty of our immediate tribes and cultural heritage.

Edit:

What are your thoughts? Can true indigenous sovereignty ever be achieved within artificial, colonial borders, or do we need to radically rethink how we organize ourselves outside of the "continental" identity?

The division of the Maghreb into three broad regions, the Maghreb al-Adna, al-Awsat and al-Aqsa, has a much older geographical background than the Islamic period. These divisions were always somewhat more coastal-oriented, since the Mediterranean littoral contained the densest concentration of cities and political institutions, while the interior was considerably more fluid, with shifting tribal, pastoral and trans-Saharan networks connecting it to the coastal regions.

Before the Roman conquest, North Africa west of Egypt can already be broadly understood through three major political regions. In the west was Mauretania, the land of the Mauri, with Volubilis as an important western royal center. In the center was Numidia, which was initially divided between the Masaesylian kingdom of Syphax, centered at Siga, and the Massylian kingdom, centered at Cirta. In the east was Carthage and the territory of the Afri, which formed the core of what would become Roman Africa Proconsularis. These were not the later three Maghrebs as formal administrative units, but they already corresponded broadly to the same west, center and east geography.

The Roman conquest reorganized these regions into provinces, although the boundaries changed several times. Following the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, its territory became the Roman province of Africa, later known as Africa Proconsularis, with Carthage as its principal center. Numidia remained a client kingdom until the death of Juba I in 46 BC, after which eastern Numidia was incorporated into the Roman province of Africa Nova and subsequently reorganized within Roman Africa. The western part of Numidia, meanwhile, became increasingly connected to Mauretania. This is where Iol becomes important: originally a Numidian center, it passed into the Mauretanian kingdom and eventually became the main center of the eastern part of Mauretania. Under Juba II, beginning in 25 BC, Iol was transformed into Caesarea, and following the annexation of Mauretania in 40 to 44 AD, Caesarea became the capital of Mauretania Caesariensis. To the west, Volubilis remained the principal regional center of the western Mauretanian territory, while Tingis became the formal capital of Mauretania Tingitana after the Roman annexation. Thus the Roman period gives us three major administrative regions across the Maghreb: Africa Proconsularis in the east, Mauretania Caesariensis in the center, and Mauretania Tingitana in the west, although the exact boundaries and internal divisions changed over time.

After the Islamic conquest in the 7th century, we again find the Maghreb being divided geographically into three regions: al-Maghrib al-Adna, al-Maghrib al-Awsat and al-Maghrib al-Aqsa. The boundaries were not fixed and did not simply reproduce the Roman provinces, but the same broad geographical distinction remained. The Adna corresponded roughly to Ifriqiya and the eastern Maghreb, the Awsat to the central Maghreb, and the Aqsa to the western Maghreb. What is particularly interesting is that each of these regions developed its own succession of political centers, which allows us to follow the three regions independently even when they were incorporated into larger empires.

al-Maghrib al-Adna — Eastern Maghreb

The eastern Maghreb was dominated in antiquity by Carthage, which remained the major center of the region through the Carthaginian and Roman periods. During the Vandal kingdom from 439 to 534, Carthage remained the political center of the region and the capital of the Vandal kingdom. Following the Byzantine reconquest in 533 to 534, Carthage again became the center of Byzantine Africa and the seat of the Exarchate of Africa, established in the late 6th century. After the Arab conquest of Ifriqiya in the 7th century, the political center moved inland to Kairouan, founded in 670, which became the principal center of Ifriqiya under the Umayyads and Abbasids and then the capital of the Aghlabids from 800 to 909. The Fatimids established Mahdia as their capital in 921, while the Zirids, who governed Ifriqiya from 972, initially restored Kairouan as their main political center before the Hilalian invasions of the 11th century weakened the city and shifted political importance back toward the coast. Under the Almohads from 1160, Tunis became the main political center of Ifriqiya within the wider Almohad Empire, before becoming the capital of the Hafsid state from 1229. Tunis remained the center of the region under the Ottoman Regency of Tunis from 1574, the French Protectorate from 1881, and modern Tunisia from 1956. In this sense, the political center of the eastern Maghreb developed from the ancient dominance of Carthage, through Kairouan under the early Islamic dynasties, to Mahdia under the Fatimids and finally Tunis under the Almohads, Hafsids and the later Ottoman, French and Tunisian states.

al-Maghrib al-Awsat — Central Maghreb

The Central Maghreb has a more complicated history because its ancient political center shifted as the balance between the Numidian and Mauretanian kingdoms changed. The earliest major centers were Siga and Cirta, corresponding to the two Numidian kingdoms of the Masaesylians and Massylians. With the unification of Numidia under Massinissa in 203 BC, Cirta became the principal royal center. As Numidian territory expanded westward, Iol became an important western center alongside Cirta. When this western territory passed into Mauretanian hands during the 1st century BC, Iol became increasingly important and eventually became Caesarea, the capital of Mauretania Caesariensis (corresponding roughly to kingdom of the Masaesylians) from the Roman annexation in 40 to 44 AD. The remaining part which corresponded to the kingdom of Massylians would be organized as province of Numidia centered on Cirta (intially grouped under Africa). During the Vandal period from 439 to 534, the Vandals did not exercise the same degree of direct administrative control over Mauretania that they exercised in Africa Proconsularis. Nevertheless, Caesarea and Sitifis continued to function as important urban and regional centers within the surviving Romano-Mauritanian political landscape. After the Byzantine reconquest, both remained important centers within the reorganized western provinces, although Byzantine control became increasingly uneven toward the interior and farther west.

After the Islamic conquest, the political center had earlier moved through Tahert under the Rustamids from 761 to 909, Achir under the Fatimids and early Zirids from the 10th to early 11th century, Qalʿat Banī Ḥammād and Béjaïa under the Hammadids from 1014 to 1152.

Under the Almohads, Béjaïa and Tlemcen became important regional centers within the Central Maghreb at different stages of Almohad rule. After the rise of the Zayyanids in 1236, Tlemcen became the principal political center of the Central Maghreb.

Algiers became the principal political and military center of the Central Maghreb as the Regency of Algiers developed from 1516, and it continued as the capital of French Algeria from 1830 and independent Algeria from 1962.

al-Maghrib al-Aqsa — Western Maghreb

The western Maghreb developed around the Mauretanian kingdom and its western centers, with Volubilis remaining the principal center of the region through the ancient period. This remained the case even when the wider Mauretanian kingdom had more than one royal center. During the division of Mauretania between Bocchus II and Bogud from 49 BC, Iol served as the eastern royal center while Volubilis remained the western royal center under Bogud. The existence of two royal centers therefore did not make Iol the center of the western Maghreb; Volubilis continued to serve as the regional center of the west. When Mauretania was reunited around 38 BC and Juba II established Caesarea as his principal royal capital in 25 BC, Volubilis continued to function as an important royal and regional center in the west. Under Rome, Tingis became the formal provincial capital of Mauretania Tingitana following the annexation of the Mauretanian kingdom in 40 to 44 AD, while Volubilis remained the major inland center of the western region. During the Vandal period from 439 to 534, the western Maghreb was largely outside the effective administration of the Vandal kingdom, with local Mauro-Roman polities continuing to operate in the region. Following the Byzantine reconquest, the remaining Roman territories in the far west were reorganized under Mauretania Secunda, centered on Septem, although Volubilis continued to be an important western settlement. After the Islamic conquest, Volubilis, or Walīla, became an important center of the early Idrisid state in the late 8th century, before Fez emerged as its principal political center under the Idrisids. Under the Almoravids from 1062, and subsequently the Almohads from 1147, the imperial capital moved to Marrakech, which remained the principal political center of the western Maghreb during the Almohad period. The Marinids then returned the political center to Fez after 1269. Marrakech again became an important royal center under the Saadians from the 16th century, while the ʿAlawi sultans alternated between Fez and Marrakech from the 17th century before Rabat was established as the modern capital in 1912. Rabat then remained the administrative center under the French Protectorate and became the capital of modern Morocco following independence in 1956.

Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan

Libya is somewhat different because its three historical regions do not all belong to the same geographical tradition. Tripolitania, centered on Tripoli, was historically connected to the eastern Maghreb and the wider Ifriqiyan world. Cyrenaica, or Barqa, was more separate eastern Mediterranean region and was often politically connected to Egypt, particularly under the Ptolemies and in several later Islamic periods. Fezzan formed the Saharan interior between them. The three regions were first brought together under a single Ottoman administrative framework with the creation of the Eyalet of Tripoli in 1551, following the Ottoman conquest of Tripoli. The Ottoman province gradually encompassed Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan, providing the first sustained political framework that united the three traditional regions of what would become modern Libya. This distinction continued through the later Ottoman administration and the Italian period before the three regions were incorporated into the unified Kingdom of Libya in 1951 and subsequently the Libyan Republic. Libya therefore sits at the eastern edge of the Maghreb: Tripolitania belongs more naturally to the Maghrebi and Ifriqiyan sphere, while Cyrenaica has historically been much more closely connected to Egypt.

There is also an interesting difference in the names of the modern Maghrebi republics. Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco all derive their modern names from the names of their principal historic cities: Tunis, Algiers and Marrakech or Morocco, respectively, reflecting the importance of these cities as political centers. Libya is different, since its name derives from the ancient Libu people and is not derived from the name of its capital, Tripoli, though in the past it was generally known as Tripolitania.

Taken together, the history shows a recurring three-part geographical structure across the Maghreb, despite constantly changing political boundaries. In the Eastern Maghreb, the four longest-standing political centers were Carthage (c. 814 BC–698 AD, with interruptions), Kairouan (670–909), Mahdia (921–1160), and Tunis (1160–present, with interruptions). In the Central Maghreb, they were Cirta (c. 300–46 BC), Caesarea (25 BC–3rd century AD), Tlemcen (1236–1550), and Algiers (1516–present). In the Western Maghreb, they were Volubilis (c. 3rd century BC–late 8th century), Fez (789–1062, 1269–16th century), Marrakech (1062–1269, 16th–17th century and later royal periods), and Rabat (1912–present). The exact dates vary depending on whether we mean formal capital, royal residence or principal regional center, but the persistence of these three broad geographical axes is remarkable.

Reference

Abun-Nasr, Jamil M. North Africa: A History from Antiquity to the Present. 2nd ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987. ISBN 978-0-292-76191-9; 978-0-292-76190-2.

The story begins, as Arab historians tell it, from the moment when the Nile or the Red Sea swallowed the Pharaoh of Egypt, who was one of the Amalekites (and some Arab historians believe that the Amalekites are the Hyksos, or are descended from the Hyksos!). That tyrannical king who acted arrogantly on earth and claimed divinity, and whom the Egyptians called "Talma ibn Qumus". Arab historians said his name was "Al-Walid ibn Mus‘ab" (and this is an Arabic name, because Arab historians believe that the peoples of Amalek are among the Bedouins who inhabit the Arabian and Levant deserts and roam through them!).

After the ten plagues (though according to Arab historians they are not ten, and the tenth plague of the firstborn is not among them), he set out after the Prophet Moses and the Prophet Aaron, with the Children of Israel with them. Then the sea closed over him, and there drowned with him the nobles of Egypt, its grandees, the prominent men of its people, its magicians, and its soldiers, until no men remained on the land of Egypt except slaves and hired laborers, and of women only those who had not taken part in that accursed pursuit.

Ibn Abd al-Hakim describes this scene in his book "Futuh Misr wa al-Maghrib" (The Conquest of Egypt and the Maghreb), saying that after their drowning there remained in Egypt “not one of the nobles of its people; there remained in it only slaves, hired laborers, and women.” Egypt had emptied of men.

It had become a land without protectors, a kingdom without an army, women without husbands, and a throne without a king. This power vacuum was an easy prey for the covetous kings of the earth, from Syria and the Maghreb, who, as soon as they learned that Egypt was empty of its men, began to cast their eyes toward it and plot to invade it.

In the midst of this despair and resounding void, the noblewomen remaining in Egypt—the greatest of those left of its people—gathered, and they resolved upon a grave matter. Finding no man worthy to assume rule, they decided to appoint one of their women, a woman in whom intellect, knowledge, and experience had come together, and who held a high standing among them. Their choice fell upon “Daluka bint Zaba.”

Daluka was not a young girl, nor a woman in the prime of her youth, but an aged woman who had reached the age of one hundred and sixty years, as most sources mention. Her long life was evidence of her experience, wisdom, and deep trials, and perhaps it was a symbol of the continuity of Egypt itself, which, despite all that had befallen it, was still capable of birth and giving. So the women of Egypt made Daluka queen over them, and she became queen of the country. Women occupied all the other positions surrounding the queen, and matters remained so for a period of time.

But fear continued to dominate the hearts of the “women of rule”—fear that the kings of the earth might discover the secret of Egypt’s weakness and rush upon it as invaders and occupiers. For Egypt, without men, without an army, and without magicians, was an easy morsel for any covetous power. Here appears the genius of Daluka—or rather her legendary trick—which would protect Egypt from the greed of invaders. After gathering the noblewomen, she delivered an eloquent sermon, warning that our country “no one used to covet, nor cast an eye toward it, but our grandees and nobles have perished, and the magicians by whom we were strong have gone.” Then she proposed to them a solution both radical and practical: to build a great fortress enclosing all the land of Egypt, with guard posts placed upon it from every side, because they “did not feel safe that people would covet them.”

And so, by order of the old queen, work began on one of the greatest defensive projects in the history of ancient Egypt, if not the greatest of them all. Arab sources say that she built “a wall with which she enclosed all the land of Egypt—farms, cities, and villages—and before it she made a canal through which water flowed, and she erected bridges and canals.” This wall, later known as the “Wall of the Old Woman,” extended from Aswan in the south to al-Arish in the north, enclosing all Egypt—a wall surrounding all its land and country.

She placed guard posts and garrisons every three miles, and between them small guard posts every mile. She placed men in every guard post, assigned them provisions, and ordered them to guard their land by night and day.

The greatest part of this defensive system was the communication and early-warning system that Daluka invented. She ordered the men of the guard posts to use bells. If one of them saw an enemy creeping toward Egypt, or sensed approaching danger, they would strike their bells, and the news would pass from post to post, from tower to tower, through a connected chain of sounds, until news of the invasion reached the heart of Egypt, to the city of Memphis, “in one hour,” and everyone would prepare to face the enemy.

Arab sources mention that the building of this great wall took only six months! Thus, thanks to this wall and the bell system, Daluka protected Egypt from its enemies, thwarted the schemes of the covetous, and Egypt remained immune from the enemy throughout her lifetime.

Arab historians say that the trace of this wall remained until their own days, known as the “Wall of the Old Woman,” and many of its remains survived in Upper Egypt. But Daluka’s story does not stop at this point of military brilliance; it extends into a more mysterious and exciting world—the world of magic, the barabi and images. Daluka was not an ordinary queen, but a great sorceress, or at least she used great magic to protect Egypt.

Sources mention that Daluka adopted “the barabi and images” in Egypt and perfected the instruments of magic. The "barabi" are the temples or strange buildings she built in the city of Memphis, with four doors in its four directions, and she decorated their walls with strange and wondrous images. In them she drew images of men, horses, mules, donkeys, ships, and boats; she depicted whoever came from every direction and their mounts, whether camels or horses; and she also depicted whoever came by sea in boats from the sea of the Maghreb and Syria.

The strange thing is that these images were not merely decorative carvings, but effective magical tools. Daluka gathered in these "barabi" “the secrets of nature and the properties of stones, plants, and animals, and placed that at times of celestial movements and their connection to heavenly influences.” This means that she linked the earthly world with the heavenly world, and the properties of materials with the properties of the planets, to create a magical defensive system no less complex than the bell system.

Arab sources describe the mechanism of these magical images, saying that “if an army came to them from…” a certain direction, the images in that direction would move, as if warning them of the place of danger. More wondrous still, what they did to these images—tearing or destroying them—would strike the invading army itself in reality. If they cut off the head of an image, the head of the enemy commander would be cut off; if they gouged out its eye, the eye of the invading army would be gouged out; and if they slit open its belly, the bellies of the soldiers would be slit open.

These "barabi" were stronger than any army and deadlier than any weapon, and no king of the earth was able to defeat Egypt throughout Daluka’s reign because of them. Sources mention that Daluka enlisted in building these "barabi" a great sorceress named “Tadura” or “Tadhura,” whom the sorcerers revered and gave precedence in magic. She came to them and made for them this stone house in the middle of the city of Memphis.

It is said that when Daluka built these "barabi", she stipulated to the sorceress that she make for her magic that would prevent enemies. The sorceress agreed, but on the condition that women marry their slaves and hired laborers, and that they not cut off offspring, so that Egypt would not become extinct and be emptied of men forever. Thus magic mixed with life, and defense with reproduction, and the marriage of women to slaves and hired laborers became an existential necessity, not merely a temporary social solution.

The Egyptian woman would free her slave and marry him, and another would marry her hired laborer. But the ladies of Egypt stipulated upon these “second-class” husbands that they not undertake any matter except with their permission, nor make any decision except after returning to them—otherwise, woe, ruin, and great calamities upon the men.

Ibn Abd al-Hakim says that the Copts remained like that until his day—that is, until his era in the third century After Hijrah. —following those who had passed before them. None of them would sell or buy without saying: “I shall consult my wife” (meaning that Egyptian society at that time was a purely matriarchal society!).

Queen Daluka did not stop at that; she also built the Lighthouse of Alexandria and made it a lookout for any enemy coming toward their land.

Yaqut al-Hamawi says in "Mu‘jam al-Buldan" (Lexicon of Countries): “It was said that the first to build the lighthouse was a woman called Daluka bint Rayya.” Al-Mas‘udi mentions "that most Egyptians and Alexandrians believe that Alexander son of Philip the Macedonian was the one who built it, “and some of them held that Queen Daluka built it and made it a lookout for any enemy coming into their land.”

For Alexander, as al-Mas‘udi observes, “no enemy ever attacked him in this sea, nor did he fear a king who might come to him in his land… so that he would be the one who made it a lookout,” whereas Daluka, who ruled Egypt after it had been emptied of men, was in dire need of a lookout to guard her from enemies. Logic, then, stands on Daluka’s side, even if written history stands on Alexander’s side!

Imam Al-Suyuti says in "Husn al-Muhadara" (the Agreeable Discussion) that its height was a thousand cubits, “and at its top were brass statues, among them a statue that pointed with the index finger of its right hand toward the sun wherever it was in the heavens, turning with it wherever it turned.”

Al-Mas‘udi relates that the Byzantine emperor "Justinian II", in the era of the Umayyad caliph "al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik", sent a cunning servant, who came seeking safe conduct from al-Walid and told him that beneath the Lighthouse of Alexandria were wealth and treasures. He enticed the caliph with this, until he ordered the lighthouse to be demolished and the treasure to be sought !

But how long did this old queen rule? Here the Arab sources differ greatly. Some sources mention that she ruled for twenty years, which is the period mentioned by Ibn Abd al-Hakim, where he says that Daluka “ruled them for twenty years, managing their affairs in Egypt, until a boy from the sons of their grandees and nobles, called "Darkun ibn Balutus", reached maturity, and they made him king over them.” This means that her rule was temporary, merely a transitional period until one of the sons of the nobles who had drowned with Pharaoh grew up, so that rule would return to men once again.

Other sources mention that she ruled for thirty years, which is what Ibn Taghribirdi mentions in his book "al-Nujum al-Zahira" (The Shining Stars). There are sources that go far beyond that, saying that “Daluka remained over the kingship of Egypt for about one hundred and thirty years, and Egypt continued immune from the enemy throughout her lifetime.” Some sources say that when she perished, there assumed rule over Egypt after her a person from the children of the Copts called Darkun ibn Baltus, or Darkun ibn Nakutus, and they made him king over them, and Egypt returned to the rule of men.

It must be noted that Daluka is not entirely unknown in ancient Egyptian history. There is a striking similarity between her and a real historical queen, Queen “Nitocris,” who ruled Egypt at the end of the Sixth Dynasty, in the twenty-second century BCE.

Greek sources, especially Herodotus, mention that Nitocris was an Egyptian queen, that she built a great dam or wall, and that she avenged the murder of her brother and husband by killing his killers, then committed suicide or disappeared.

It seems that the Arabic story of Daluka became mixed with the Greek story of Nitocris, and perhaps Daluka is the Arabic translation or alteration of the name Nitocris. Some go even further, considering that Daluka is Nitocris herself, and that the name changed through translation and oral transmission between Arabs and Greeks over the centuries.

----------------------------------

The End ..

I hope you liked this post, My sincere regards from Egypt ..

In April 1861, when cannons were fired at the Battle of Fort Sumter, the leaders of the American South were sure of an inevitable victory. They believed in 'King Cotton,' and thought that their monopoly on this white commodity would force Britain and France to side with them. 

They thought that if the European textile mills stopped working, the whole world would be forced to save them.

But while cotton ginning machines were rusting on the docks of the besieged Confederate ports (Anaconda plan), Egypt's Viceroy, Sa'id Pasha, and after him Khedive Ismael Pasha, were turning large areas of the fertile delta lands to grow Egyptian long-staple cotton.

Washington was not unaware of this change; it sent an envoy to Cairo to urge the Egyptians to double production, thinking that every bale of cotton shipped from Alexandria's port was a painful blow to the Southern rebellion.

And the miracle that the Southerners did not expect happened: Egypt's cotton exports jumped from 7 million dollars in 1861 to 77 million just four years later. On the other hand, Southern exports fell by more than 50%, so British mills found a closer and cheaper alternative than the Confederate ports.

When London and Paris realized that they could manage their needs from Egyptian cotton, their desire to take the risk of recognizing the Confederacy and sending fleets to break the blockade faded away.

Egypt was contributing to choking the Southern war economy, which eventually led to General Robert E. Lee's surrender in April 1865 and the end of the Civil War.

Sources:

- Edward Mead Earle, "Egyptian Cotton and the American Civil War", Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 4 (December 1926), pp. 520-545.

- U.S. Department of State, "Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs" (1863): Contains the official dispatch dated December 15, 1862, where Secretary of State William H. Seward explicitly notes that the expansion of cotton cultivation in Egypt is "of immense importance" to the United States and serves as a warning to the Confederacy that their prosperity is "dissipated" as the world turns to alternative suppliers.

Tomorrow Sept 27, Ethiopian Orthodox Christians celebrate Meskel (a transliteration of the Ge’ez word for ‘Cross’), the Holiday commemorating the finding of the True Cross.

In the early 4th century AD, Queen Helena (Eleni in Ge’ez), mother of Emperor Constantin I of Rome, found the True Cross after digging under a hill/mound in Jerusalem. She went on to later construct the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on the same site.

In the 14th century, a piece of the Cross was sent to Ethiopian Emperor Dawit, but only arrived to Ethiopia in the 15th century under Emperor Zera Yaqob. The Emperor then buried the piece of the Cross into the foundations of the church at the current monastery of Gishen Mariam.

According to Ethiopian Orthodox traditions, the Demera (a transliteration of the word for bonfire in Ge’ez) is light the day before the holiday. Queen Helena used the smoke from a bonfire to identify which mound to dig under (considered a miracle).

These images are from the Meskel Square Demera (many other Demeras are lit in people’s homes and neighborhoods too). Meskel Square is the central square in Addis Ababa, getting its name from its use as the location for the church to celebrate the Holiday.

(Photo Credit: Tikvah Ethiopia)

I hope you like this post, my sincere regards from Egypt ...

----------------------------

This list presents the pharaohs and queens of Ancient Egypt as preserved in medieval Arabian and Coptic literature. It is a composite of Manetho transmitted through Christian chronographers, Qur’anic and Biblical sacred history, Coptic folklore, and popular legend.

It reflects a long chain of translation and linguistic mediation: from ancient Egyptian into Greek, then into Coptic during Greco-Roman period in Egypt, and finally into Arabic in the medieval period.

The list does not claim complete historical authenticity; it is just an attempt to show how ancient Egyptian rulers were transformed into legendary and religious names in Coptic Arabic memory.

----------------------------

Arabian sources:

1. Futuh Misr wa al-Maghrib (The Conquest of Egypt and the Maghreb)

— Ibn Abd al-Hakam (c. 801–871 CE)

1. Muruj al-Dhahab wa Kitab Al-Tarikh (Meadows of Gold and Book of History)

— Al-Masudi (Herodotus of Arabs) (c. 896–956 CE)

1. Mujam al-Buldan (Lexicon of Countries)

— Yaqut al-Hamawi (c. 1179–1229 CE)

1. Al-Nujum al-Zahira fi Muluk Misr wa al-Qahira (The Shining Stars Concerning the Kings of Egypt and Cairo)

— Ibn Taghribirdi (c. 1411–1470 CE)

1. Husn al-Muhadara fi Tarikh Misr wa al-Qahira (The Agreeable Discussion of the History of Egypt and Cairo)

— Al-Suyuti (c. 1445–1505 CE)

----------------------------

The Arabic name Misr - Masr (مصر)

Misr is an ancient Semitic name, not originally Egyptian: it appears in Akkadian as Musur and Hebrew as Mizraim or Mitsrayim, likely meaning "settled land" or "protected borderland." Pre-Islamic Arabs used it, and it became the standard Arabic name for Egypt, while the ancient Egyptians called their land Kemet ("Black Land"). In religious tradition, the name is linked to Misrayim, son of Ham son of Noah, the biblical ancestor of the Egyptians.

----------------------------

The Antediluvian Pyramid Builders (Before biblical flood)

Khaslim (خصليم)

Khaslim is an early legendary king of Egypt credited with building a Nilometer. He placed two bronze eagles—male and female—at the site. Priests read incantations; if the male eagle whistled, the Nile flood would be good and high, but if the female whistled, the flood would be disastrous and drought would follow.

Etymology and reasoning: The name Khaslim may be an alteration of Khasekhemwy (Egyptian Ḫʿsḫmwy). The reasoning is phonetic but weak: the consonantal skeleton kh-s-kh-m could be reduced and reshaped in Coptic/Arabic transmission as kh-s-l-m, with l replacing the second kh. The identification is supported mainly by narrative structure: Khasekhemwy was an early Memphite ruler associated with unification and control of the Nile, and Arabic tradition assigns Nilometers and waterworks to early kings.

--------------------------------------

Surid ibn Salhuq (سوريد بن سلهوق)

In Arabian literature, Surid is the great antediluvian king of Egypt who foresaw the Flood in a dream and ordered the building of the Pyramids of Giza to preserve knowledge and serve as his tomb. He is often linked with Idris/Enoch or Hermes Trismegistus.

Historical identification: Khufu (Cheops), builder of the Great Pyramid.

Etymology and reasoning: The identification is phonetic. Surid maybe was derived from Souphis, which is the name the Egyptian historan Manetho gave for Khufu.

-------------------

Hujib (هوجيب)

In the same tradition, Hujib is the brother of Surid and is said to be buried in the second, western pyramid at Giza.

Historical identification: Khafre (Chephren), builder of the second pyramid.

Etymology and reasoning: The identification rests mainly on structural mapping. Arabic tradition assigns the three Giza pyramids to a father/brother/son sequence.

Historically, the second pyramid belongs to Khafre, a son of Khufu. The name Hujib is maybe altered from Hotep, but its narrative role as second pyramid builder and royal relative fixes the identification with Khafre.

-------------------

Karuras (كروراس)

In Arabian literature, Karuras is the son of Hujib and is buried in the third, smaller pyramid at Giza, often called the “Colored Pyramid.”

Historical identification: Menkaure (Mycerinus), builder of the third pyramid at Giza.

Etymology and reasoning: The structural reason is decisive: Arabic tradition makes the third pyramid belong to the son of the second pyramid’s builder. Historically, the third pyramid belongs to Menkaure, son of Khafre (Hujib) and grandson of Khufu (Surid).

Manetho’s form was Menkheres. In the long oral and written transmission, the initial Men- was lost or weakened, and the remaining consonants (kheres / kherres) were reshaped in Arabic as Karuras.

-------------------------------------

After the Flood

Tutis (طوطيس)

The first of the Pharaohs of Egypt and the Pharaoh of Abraham. He tried to seduce Sarah, Abraham's wife; his hand withered when he reached for her, and after repenting he returned her and gave her Hagar as a maidservant who bore him Ishmael, the father of Arabs. Some versions say he embraced Abraham's faith.

Historical identification: Proposed candidates include Sanakht (Third Dynasty) and Nebkaure Khety IV (Tenth Dynasty), but he appears in no ancient Egyptian king-list.

Etymology and reasoning: The name has been linked to the Egyptian Taautos or Tet/Teta, and to a suggested Semitic root meaning "to light" or "set on fire." The reasoning is phonetic and comparative, not a direct derivation. The tradition also explains the title "Pharaoh" itself: Ṭūṭīs was the first called Pharaoh because he was cruel and bloody. 

-------------------------------

Joryaq (جورياق)

According to Arab historian al-Maqrizi, Joryaq was the daughter of the first Pharaoh, Tutis, and seized the throne after killing her father Tutis. She is described as a powerful ruler who promoted priests and magicians. Joryaq ruled Egypt after her father Toutis, and in her reign, the Amalekite king of Syria sent an army against Egypt led by Jirun, but in the (alternative) version, it is more likely that the Amalekite "Al-Walid bin Dum'a" was the one who invaded Egypt.

Historical identification: No single historical counterpart. She may be a legendary composite drawing on memory of figures such as Nitocris or Sobekneferu.

Etymology and reasoning: The name does not correspond to any known Egyptian queen’s name and appears to be a literary invention within the Arabic legendary cycle.

----------------------

The Amalekite / Hyksos Dynasty

Al-Walid ibn Duma' (الوليد بن دومع)

In Arabic chronicles, al-Walid ibn Duma' is the first of five Amalekite kings who ruled Egypt after its native rulers weakened. He is described as a Syrian conqueror who ruled for about a hundred years before being killed by a wild beast.

Historical identification: No direct Egyptian counterpart. He is best understood as a legendary refraction of the Hyksos period, when foreign rulers from the Levant controlled Egypt.

Etymology and reasoning: The name Duma' has no Egyptian etymological root. Arabic tradition remembers a Syrian conqueror founding a foreign dynasty, which mirrors the Hyksos takeover. The name itself is likely derived from a real Hyksos pharaoh name. especially since Arabs thought that Amalekites were the Hyksos and thought of them as one of the "The Extinct Arabs". So it is not strange that he got an Arabic name

-----------------------------

Al-Rayyan ibn al-Walid (الريان بن الوليد) sometimes called Nahraus (نهراوس)

Al-Rayyan succeeds his father and is remembered as the Pharaoh of Joseph. He is presented as a just ruler who appointed Joseph over the granaries and eventually embraced his monotheistic faith.

Historical identification: Apepi (Apophis) or Khyan, a Hyksos kings.

Etymology and reasoning: The name al-Rayyan has a strong, monumentally attested phonetic link to the name Ra-i-a-n associated with the Hyksos king Apepi. The alternative name Nahraus has been linked, on phonetic grounds, to the Hyksos king Khyan according to the modern Egyptian scholar Ahmad Kamal. Kamal read the cartouche of the Hyksos king Khyan as Ne Re Ous and argued this is the origin of Arabic Nahraus.

The Hyksos-era setting also fits the prophet Joseph story.

The Wadi Al-Rayyan nature reserve in Fayoum is said to be named after Al-Rayyan ibn al-Walid, based on a legend where the king and his army sat down there to rest.

--------------------------

Darim ibn al-Rayyan (دارم بن الريان)

Darim succeeds his father al-Rayyan. Arabic sources say prophet Joseph died during his reign.

Historical identification: No direct historical counterpart (Maybe unknown Hyksos king)

Etymology and reasoning: The name Darim has no known Egyptian royal root. It appears to be a literary/genealogical invention bridging Pharaoh al-Rayyan and the later Pharaoh of Moses.

-----------------------------

Kaimis ibn Ma'dan (كامس بن معدان)

Kaimis is the fourth Amalekite king in this sequence, ruling after Darim and before the Pharaoh of Moses.

Historical identification: No direct historical counterpart.

Etymology and reasoning: Like Darim, the name has no Egyptian etymological root. It functions as a narrative placeholder in the Arabic king-list.

----------------------

Al-Walid ibn Mus'ab (الوليد بن مصعب)

This is the name most commonly given to the Pharaoh of Moses, the archetypal tyrant who opposed prophets Moses and Aaron, and oppressed the Israelites and was drowned in the Red Sea during his chasing of them with his counselors and army.

Historical identification: Most widespread identification is Ramesses II, though Merneptah and Thutmose III are also mentioned. But some say that the Pharaoh of Moses was a Hyksos or Amalekite.

Etymology and reasoning: The reasoning is not etymological, since the name is Arabic. It rests on narrative convergence: Arabic tradition places the Exodus in a period of monumental building and imperial power, matching the Ramesside era. The Qur’anic phrase "dhu al-awtad" (“possessor of the stakes”) has been linked by some to obelisks and massive constructions of Ramesses II. also in the Bible in Exodus 1:11, which states: "So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh."

---------------------------

Queen Figures Around the Exodus

Assiya (آسية)

Assiya in Islamic tradition is the righteous wife of Pharaoh who secretly believes in God, rescues the infant Moses from the Nile, and is venerated as one of the four perfect women. She is a figure of faith and moral resistance within Pharaoh’s household.

Historical identification: She is a theological and literary archetype, not a specific historical queen.

Etymology and reasoning: The name Asiya is Arabic and serves a moral and salvific purpose in the Qur’anic story. No etymological link to a historical Egyptian queen is intended.

----------------------

Daluka (دلوكة)

Daluka is a legendary warrior-queen who rules Egypt after the drowning of the Pharaoh of Moses. She is credited with building a massive wall around Egypt, the “Wall of the Old Woman,” and with constructing the Lighthouse of Alexandria and a Nilometer at Memphis.

Historical identification: Tausret (Tawosret), last ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty.

Etymology and reasoning: The reasoning is literary preservation of memory. Tausret’s reign was remembered into the tenth century CE in Egyptian tradition, and in Arabic chronicles she appears as Daluqa. The name Daluka is a transformation of Tausret through oral and written transmission. The legendary elaboration is secondary; the core identification rests on continuity of a female royal memory from the New Kingdom into Islamic-era literature.

-----------------------

Al-Maqrizi’s Later Dynastic List

Al-Maqrizi preserves twenty-seven “Coptic kings” said to have reigned after Daluka. Their names are altered transmissions of Manetho’s list. Examples include Sumanas (possibly Sneferu), Sesunakhosis (Senusret), and Uafris (Apries).

--------------------------

The End ...

The name Amalekites in Arabian and Islamic heritage refers to a group of Semitic peoples who settled in scattered regions of the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, and Egypt. They are mostly traced back to Amaliq or Amalayq, who was among the children of Laudh ibn Sam ibn Noah, according to what a number of genealogists and Arab historians have mentioned.

They were mentioned in Islamic and Arab sources as belonging to the "Arabized Arabs" or the "extinct Arabs," a designation referring to the ancient Arab peoples who perished before Islam. Genealogists agree that Amaliq ibn Laudh is the father of the Amalekites, the Pharaohs, and the tyrants in Egypt and the Levant, and that his descendants dispersed throughout the lands, so that among them were the people of Oman, the Hejaz, the Levant, and Egypt.

Some modern historians believe that the Amalekites who ruled Egypt are the same as the Hyksos, the shepherd kings who invaded Egypt and ruled it for centuries, while others distinguish between them and the Hyksos, considering the Amalekites to have been an earlier Semitic wave or contemporary with the Hyksos in the rule of the Nile Valley. Jurji Zaydan mentions that historians mean by the Amalekites the ancient Arabs, especially the people of northern Hijaz adjacent to the Sinai Peninsula, who conquered Egypt under the name "Shasu" (the Bedouin shepherds), whom the Greeks call "Hyksos." Arab historians relied in drawing the picture of Amalekite rule in Egypt on a group of diverse sources, some derived from the Torah and Isra'iliyyat (Talmudic and Folkloric tales) and some derived from folkloric Egyptian Coptic narratives.

Among the most prominent who devoted wide space to this topic in their books are: Al-Masudi (Herodotus of Arabs) in "Meadows of Gold" and "Akhbar al-Zaman," Al-Maqrizi in "Al-Khitat" (Exhortations and Consideration), Ibn Taghribirdi in "The Brilliant Stars," ," Ibn Kathir in "The Beginning and the End," Al-Tabari in "The History of Nations and Kings".

All these sources agree that Amalekite rule in Egypt was a decisive period in the history of the Nile Valley, combining military conquest, settlement, interaction with the prophets, and gradual integration into the Egyptian fabric, until their state ended at the hand of the Pharaoh of Moses, so that their memory became part of the Arab historical memory of ancient Egypt.

Ibn Taghribirdi mentioned in "The Brilliant Stars" that those who ruled Egypt, according to the agreement of many historians despite differences among them, from the Pharaohs and others: thirty-two Pharaohs; from the kings of Babylon who ruled Egypt: five; from the Amalekites, who came to it from the Levant: four; from the Romans: seven; and from the Greeks: ten. Al-Masudi mentions that the duration of rule over Egypt by the Pharaohs, Persians, Romans, Amalekites, and Greeks reached one thousand three hundred years.

------------------------------

Al-Walid ibn Dum'a - Founder of Amalekite Rule in Egypt

Traditional narratives agree that Amalekite rule in Egypt began with an invasion coming from the Levant, at the hand of their king Al-Walid ibn Dum'a (also written "Al-Walid ibn Darma'a" or "Al-Walid ibn Dumgh"), who is described in the sources as "severe in might" and possessing a dense army, so he overcame the kingdom of Egypt after the Coptic state weakened following the rule of the two queens Huriyya and Zalifa. Several narratives mention that Al-Walid ibn Dum'a had set out with a great army moving through countries and subjugating their kings. When he reached the Levant, he sent a slave of his named "Awn" to Egypt, and he conquered it. Then he himself came afterward, ravaged the people of Egypt, took their wealth, and killed a group of their priests.

Sources differ regarding his lineage. It was said he was Al-Walid ibn Amr ibn Arasha, and it was said Al-Walid ibn Dum'a ibn Laudh. Some say that he was among the Amalekites who trace back to Amaliq ibn Laudh ibn Sam ibn Noah.

His rule lasted one hundred and twenty years, according to what Ibn Taghribirdi mentioned in "The Brilliant Stars" and Al-Maqrizi in "Al-Khitat." Among the strangest things traditional sources narrate about Al-Walid ibn Dum'a is that after his rule in Egypt became established, he set out on a military campaign to explore the sources of the Nile and learn what peoples were along its banks. He traveled until he reached "Mount Qamar" (the Mountain of the Moon), from beneath which the Nile is said to emerge, and reached "the Temple of the Sun" and "the Land of Gold" that grows rods of gold. Narratives mention that his absence from Egypt lasted seventy years. During his absence, his slave Awn claimed kingship for himself, denied that he was Al-Walid's slave, claimed he was his brother from Dum'a, and rose against the people, overpowering them by magic. He ravaged the people of Egypt and ruled them for one hundred and twenty years until he perished.

Sources differ regarding the end of Al-Walid ibn Dum'a. It was said that one day he rode a horse and went out hunting, and his horse threw him into a hollow, so he perished. It was also said that a wild beast attacked him and ate his flesh. Al-Maqrizi mentions in "Al-Khitat" that Ain Shams - Heliopolis was built by Al-Walid ibn Dum'a, one of the Amalekite kings; it was also said that Al-Rabban ibn Al-Walid built it, and it was his royal seat.

--------------------

Al-Rayyan ibn Al-Walid - The Pharaoh of Joseph

Al-Walid ibn Dum'a was succeeded in the rule of Egypt by his son Al-Rayyan ibn Al-Walid, who is known in Arab and Coptic sources as "Nahraws" or "Naqraws" or "Nabraush." He is described as having been "the strongest of the people of the earth in his time and the greatest of them in kingship."

Arab historians agree that Al-Rayyan ibn Al-Walid is the Pharaoh of Joseph, peace be upon him, that is, the king who lived in the time of the Prophet Joseph and met him in Egypt, who ultimately believed in him and appointed him over the treasuries of Egypt. Ibn Taghribirdi mentions in "The Brilliant Stars": "Then after him ruled Al-Rayyan ibn Al-Walid the Amalekite, and he is the Pharaoh of Joseph, peace be upon him."

Al-Masudi mentions in "Meadows of Gold" that Al-Rayyan ibn Al-Walid "settled in the city of Ain Shams upon his accession to rule, after the kings before him had settled in the city of Memphis." It is narrated that he remitted taxes from the people for three years, opened the treasuries of wealth, and distributed them to the weak, so the people loved him and thanked him. His rule also lasted one hundred and twenty years, which corresponds to what was mentioned about the age of Joseph, peace be upon him, who died at the age of one hundred and twenty.

Sources mention that Al-Rayyan ibn Al-Walid was great in stature, handsome of face, wise, a leader of the people, and majestic, and that he took interest in building the Fortress of Babylon (Qasr al-Sham'), the fortress whose name later became associated with the Islamic conquest of Egypt. Al-Maqrizi mentions that the lighthouse of Alexandria was built in his time or in the time of one after him.

The story of Al-Rayyan ibn Al-Walid in Islamic sources is closely connected to the story of the Prophet Joseph, peace be upon him. It is mentioned that when Joseph reached Egypt and was bought by the Aziz - courtier "Qutfir" ("Potiphar"), Al-Rayyan was the king.

The Aziz was a man of reason, sound judgment, and upright soul, inclined to justice, and he is the one God Almighty mentioned in the Noble Qur'an in the story of Joseph. Ibn Ishaq mentions that the name of the Aziz was Atfir ibn Rajib (and it was said Qutfir), and he was over the treasuries of Egypt, and the king at that time was Al-Rayyan ibn Al-Walid ibn Dumgh.

The famous attempted seduction occurred between Joseph and the Aziz's wife, whose name is disputed: it was said Ra'il bint Ra'il, and it was said Zulaykha. Then Joseph was imprisoned for seven years. When Al-Rayyan saw his famous dream — seven fat cows eaten by seven lean ones, and seven green ears of grain and others dry — he gathered the priests, magicians, and wise men, but they could not interpret it.

Joseph was brought out of prison after he interpreted the dream, and the king was impressed by his interpretation. He appointed him over the treasuries of Egypt and made him the successor to the Aziz after his death. Ibn Khaldun mentions that the king "employed him as the king of Egypt, when he feared years of drought and high prices, over the granaries of crops throughout his kingdom, to estimate their collection and distribution of provisions from them, and gave him free rein in that in all his affairs. He put his ring on him and mounted him on his vehicle, and Joseph at that time was thirty years old."

Among the most prominent features of the story of Al-Rayyan ibn Al-Walid in Arab heritage is that he believed in Joseph and converted to Monotheism at his hands. Ibn Kathir in "The Beginning and the End" and Al-Hanbali in "The Pleasant Companion" mention that Joseph, peace be upon him, "called Al-Rayyan, Pharaoh of Egypt, to faith, and he believed in him."

Ibn Kathir confirms this report in his exegesis, saying: "The king became Monotheist at the hands of Joseph, peace be upon him." This point is central to distinguishing between Al-Rayyan ibn Al-Walid and the Pharaoh of Moses, since the majority of historians and exegetes hold that Al-Rayyan ibn Al-Walid died a believer, while the Pharaoh of Moses was among the most tyrannical disbelievers.

Among the most prominent projects associated with the era of Al-Rayyan ibn Al-Walid was the project of reclaiming the land of Faiyum, supervised by the Prophet Joseph, peace be upon him. Sources narrate that Joseph "worked the Faiyum" in Al-Rayyan's time, and that the people of Egypt complained about him to the king, saying: "He has grown old and his benefit has decreased." The king was informed of that, and he said to him: "I have granted this district to my daughter," and it was a place of water pools. Joseph managed it: he removed its obstacles, led the channel, built the Lahun, and made the water in it measured and weighed, and he finished all of that in four months, and they marveled at Joseph's wisdom.

-----------------------------

Darim ibn Al-Rayyan - The Fourth Pharaoh

After the death of Al-Rayyan ibn Al-Walid, his son Darim ibn Al-Rayyan (called in some sources Drimus) ruled Egypt. He is the fourth Pharaoh according to the Copts, in the classification of Arab historians. Ibn Taghribirdi mentions in "The Brilliant Stars": "Then after him ruled Darim ibn Al-Rayyan the Amalekite." In Darim's time, Joseph the truthful one, peace be upon him, died. Darim became tyrannical and his disbelief intensified, and he departed from the way of his father. Joseph, peace be upon him, was his deputy as he had been with his father, by the command of Al-Rayyan, and Joseph would guide him, so sometimes he accepted from him and sometimes he opposed him.

In his time, a silver mine appeared three days from the Nile, and he extracted from it something immense. He made from it an idol in the name of the moon, because its ascendant was in Cancer. He erected it on the marble palace that his father had built on the east bank of the Nile, and he set around it idols all of silver, clothed them in red silk, and made for them a festival every year.

Then Darim increased in tyranny until he took away every beautiful woman in the city of Memphis from her family; no beautiful woman was heard of in any district but she was brought to him. That spread throughout the kingdom, and the people were disturbed by his deed, until they gathered to depose him.

Some narratives mention that he rode on the Nile, and God sent upon him a violent wind that drowned him near Helwan. Darim appointed after Joseph, Balatis ibn Mansa the priest as vizier, and Balatis permitted him what Joseph had prevented him from, and incited him to harm people and take their wealth.

-----------------------------

Kames ibn Ma'dan - The Fifth Pharaoh

Then after him ruled Kames ibn Ma'dan the Amalekite (also called Aqsamas ibn Ma'dan), and he is the fifth Pharaoh according to the Copts. Ibn Taghribirdi mentions: "Then after him ruled Kames ibn Ma'dan the Amalekite." Kames attempted to demolish the two pyramids, but the wise men of Egypt said to him that the revenue of Egypt would not suffice for their blood, and that they were the tombs of two great prophets, so he refrained from demolishing them.

His rule lasted thirty-one years, according to what Al-Qalqashandi mentioned in "Subh al-A'sha." It is narrated that the lighthouse of Alexandria was built in his time or in the time of one after him. It is also mentioned that the Amalekites continued to rule Egypt for about one hundred years, until their state ended at the hand of Al-Walid ibn Mus'ab, who is the Pharaoh of Moses, peace be upon him.

-----------------------------

Al-Walid ibn Mus'ab - The Pharaoh of Moses and the End of Amalekite Rule

Al-Walid ibn Mus'ab is considered the last of the Amalekite kings in Egypt, and he is the Pharaoh of Moses, whom is mentioned in the Noble Qur'an.

Sources differ greatly regarding his personality. Some sources mention that he was one of the Amalekites themselves, and that he was from the descendants of Al-Rayyan ibn Al-Walid, while other sources assert that he was one of the Copts, and that in the beginning he was the chief of police for Kames the Amalekite.

When the Copts increased, they made him king after Kames, and from that time the Amalekite state in Egypt ended. 

Al-Nuwayri mentions in "The Ultimate Ambition" that the Pharaoh of Moses was "Al-Walid ibn Mus'ab ibn Ashmeer ibn Al-Hawn ibn Amaliq ibn Laudh ibn Sam," which makes him an Amalekite by lineage.

Al-Walid ibn Mus'ab is described in traditional books as having been lame, short in stature, blind in the left eye, with a long beard. He was originally a man from Greater Khorasan or from the city of Balkh, working as a perfumer, then he migrated to Egypt after debts accumulated upon him. It is mentioned that he claimed divinity and said to the Egyptians, "I am your most high lord," so Moses and Aaron, peace be upon them, warned him, but he resisted and pursued them and the Israelites, so he and his army drowned in the sea, as stated in the Noble Qur'an.

Sources narrate that the Pharaoh of Moses was a rebellious tyrant, and that every rebellious tyrant is called a Pharaoh. Qatada mentions that the Pharaohs were three: the first was Sinan ibn Al-Ashl, the companion of Sarah (the wife of Abraham), who was in Egypt in the time of Al-Khalil; and the third was Al-Walid ibn Mus'ab, who is the Pharaoh of Moses. It is mentioned that Mus'ab ibn Nasim (the father of Pharaoh) was in Egypt herding cattle for his people, and he had a wife called Ra'unah. The Pharaoh of Moses was born in mysterious circumstances and was raised in a strange upbringing, until he reached kingship.

It is mentioned that the Pharaoh of Moses lived four hundred years, and was the harshest and most cruel of the Pharaohs toward the Children of Israel, and no one had a longer reign than him. He claimed divinity and said, "I am your most high lord," so Moses and Aaron warned him, but he was arrogant and obstinate, so God drowned Pharaoh and his soldiers in the sea, and with his death the matter of the Amalekites in Egypt came to an end.

-------------------------

The End of Amalekite Rule and the Reign of Daluka bint Zaba

After the drowning of Pharaoh and those soldiers who were with him, those remaining in the land of Egypt, the offspring, women, boys, and slaves — feared that the kings of the Levant and the Maghreb would invade them. So they made a woman of opinion and resolve called Daluka king over them. She built around Egypt a wall surrounding all its land and cities to protect it from invasion, This wall was called "Ha'it-el-Agouz" (Wall of the Old Woman) and extended from Aswan in the south to al-Arish in the north and a channel was dug behind it.

She placed guard posts and garrisons every three miles, and between them small guard posts every mile. She placed men in every guard post, assigned them provisions, and ordered them to guard their land by night and day. She ordered the men of the guard posts to use bells.

If one of them saw an enemy creeping toward Egypt, or sensed approaching danger, they would strike their bells, and the news would pass from post to post, from tower to tower, through a connected chain of sounds, until news of the invasion reached the heart of Egypt, to the city of Memphis, “in one hour,” and everyone would prepare to face the enemy. Daluka was also said to have built a nilometer at Memphis and at least one pyramid in Egypt.

The trace of this wall remains to this day, and it is known as "the Wall of the Old Woman." Daluka ruled them for thirty years. She established in Egypt the temples and images, mastered the instruments of magic, and placed in the temples images of whoever came from every direction and their animals. She also depicted in them whoever came by sea in ships, and she gathered in these great temples the secrets of nature and the properties of stones, plants, and animals.

if an army came to them from a certain direction, the images in that direction would move, as if warning them of the place of danger. More wondrous still, what they did to these images -tearing or destroying them- would strike the invading army itself in reality. If they cut off the head of an image, the head of the enemy commander would be cut off; if they gouged out its eye, the eye of the invading army would be gouged out; and if they slit open its belly, the bellies of the soldiers would be slit open.

These "barabi" were stronger than any army and deadlier than any weapon, and no king of the earth was able to defeat Egypt throughout Daluka’s reign because of them. Sources mention that Daluka enlisted in building these "barabi" a great sorceress named “Tadura” or “Tadhura,” whom the sorcerers revered and gave precedence in magic. She came to them and made for them this stone house in the middle of the city of Memphis.

After Daluka’s death, a young man from the noble Coptic families named Darkun ibn Baltus was made king over Egypt, and he ruled with her counsel for a long period. When Darkun died, his son Buds succeeded him, and after Buds passed away, his brother Laqas took the throne but died only three years later without leaving an heir. Laqas was followed by his brother Marina, who ruled and was then succeeded by his son Istimaris, a king who became so tyrannical and corrupt that the people rose against him, deposed him, and killed him.

After Istimaris, the sources mention a series of Coptic rulers whose names varied in the traditions, including Baltus ibn Mikakil, then Bawla, and later a king known as the Lame Pharaoh who was eventually defeated by Nebuchadnezzar.

Thus the Amalekite line was already extinguished, and Egypt passed into the hands of Coptic kings whose reigns were marked by internal strife and external threats until the country fell under foreign domination (Persian Achaemenid rule).

----------------

The End ..

After the Anglo-Boer War, a group of Boer families made the journey north and settled in Kenya's Rift Valley. They became known as "Kaburu", the Swahili adaptation of "Boer" ,and transformed the agricultural landscape of the region.

I've just published a comprehensive history on this community: Afrikaners in Kenya 1900-2025: Kaburu – The Boer Legacy in Kenya.

The book covers:

• The pioneering families who made the journey
• Their impact on farming in the Rift Valley
• The complex history of integration into an independent Kenya
• Genealogical records of families still present today

If you're interested in East African history, migration stories, or the diverse communities that shaped Kenya, this might be for you.

📖 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H6T82F1F

I hope you like this post, My sincere regards from Egypt ..

----------------------------

Saurid ibn Salhouq سوريد بن سلهوق (also known as Saurit) is a folkloric king from Coptic and Arabian medieval heritage. It is said he lived 300 years before the biblical Flood. He is often confused with or identified as the biblical prophet Enoch, the Islamic prophet Idris, and Hermes Trismegistus. He is known as Saurid ibn Salhouq ibn Shiryaq, one of the kings of Egypt before the Flood (The Titans) who lived in the city of Ashmunein - Hermopolis, in Egypt. It is also said his full name was Saurid ibn Salhouq ibn Shiryaq ibn Tumaydun ibn Tadrasan ibn Hoshal.

The reason for building the pyramids was that 300 years before the Flood, Saurid saw in a dream that the earth was overturned with its people. He saw people fleeing, and the stars falling and hitting each other with loud sounds.

This distressed him, and he kept it hidden. Then he saw in another dream that the fixed stars came down to earth in the form of white birds. They seemed to snatch people and throw them between two great mountains. The two mountains closed on them, and the bright stars became dark.

The king woke up terrified. He gathered the chief priests from all parts of Egypt. They were 130 priests. They told him about the Flood.

It is said the king told Philemon, the chief priest, what he had seen. He ordered them to look at the stars to see what events they pointed to in the world. They studied carefully at the time he asked them.

They found a sign would come down from the sky and come out from the earth. It would cover most of the earth. It was a great flood that would leave nothing alive. Then they looked to see if life, kingship, and everything would return as before. They knew it would.

So the king ordered the building of the pyramids. He filled them with talismans, wonders, money, and treasures. He collected in them what the wise men said, all hidden sciences, names of drugs, their benefits and harms, the science of talismans, arithmetic, geometry, and medicine.

All this was explained for those who know their writing and languages. He brought rocks from the area of Aswan. He made their doors 40 cubits under the ground. When he finished them, he covered them with colored brocade from top to bottom. He made a feast for them, attended by all the people of his kingdom.

In the western pyramid, he made 30 storerooms filled with huge amounts of money, tools, and statues made of precious jewels. He put in fine iron tools, weapons that do not rust, glass that folds and does not break, strange talismans, simple and compound drugs, deadly poisons, and other things.

In the eastern pyramid, he made types of astronomical domes and stars, and statues of his ancestors. In the colored pyramid, he placed records of the priests in black granite sarcophagi. With each priest was his scroll. In it were the wonders of his craft, his wisdom, his life story, what he did in his time, and what was and will be from the beginning of time to its end.

He placed on the walls on each side idols that work with their hands all crafts at their levels and amounts. He wrote the description of every craft, its treatment, and what suits it. He did not leave any science without writing and drawing it in the pyramid. He placed in it the money of the planets that were offered to them, and the money of the priests. It was a great thing beyond counting.

The Copts mentioned in their books that on the pyramids there is an inscription. Its translation in English is: "I am Saurid the King. I built these pyramids at such and such time, and I completed their building in six years. Whoever comes after me and claims he is a king like me, let him demolish them in 600 years. He knows that demolition is easier than building. I covered them with brocade when I finished. Let him cover them with mats." In another version: "I am Saurid the King, the King. I built these pyramids at such a time. I completed their building in six years. Whoever comes after me and claims he is a king like me, let him demolish them in 60 years. He knows that demolition is easier than building. I covered them with brocade. Let whoever comes after me cover them with straw mats."

He made a guardian for each pyramid. The guardian of the western pyramid was an idol of veined granite. It was standing, holding something like a spear. On its head was a snake. It would circle, then go to the neck and kill him, then return to its place.

The guardian of the eastern pyramid was an idol of black and white onyx. It had open, shining eyes. It was sitting on a chair, holding a spear. If anyone looked at it, he would hear a sound from it, fall on his face, and not leave until he died.

The guardian of the colored pyramid was a small idol of bahat stone on a base, standing. Whoever looked at it would be pulled to the idol until he stuck to it. He would never leave it until he died.

When he finished all that, he fortified the pyramids with spiritual beings. He sacrificed offerings to them so they would prevent those who wanted them, except one who did works to reach them.

The Copts said in their books that the spirit of the northern pyramid is a beardless boy, pale in color, naked, with large fangs in his mouth. The spirit of the southern pyramid is a naked woman, showing her private part, with large fangs in her mouth.

She seduces a man when she sees him and laughs at him until he comes near her. Then she takes away his mind.

The spirit of the colored pyramid is an old man with a censer from church censers, censing with it. Some people saw him many times walking around the pyramids at noon and at sunset.

When Saurid died, he was buried in the pyramid with his money and treasures. It is said he was buried in the eastern pyramid.

His brother Huraib was buried in the western pyramid. His brother's son, named Karuras, was buried in the last pyramid.

These figures can be analyzed as: Saurid is Soufis, which was the name of King Khufu in the late period. Karuras is Mykerinos, that is Menkaure in Greek. Amsus is only an alteration of the name of the capital, Memphis.

The medieval Egyptian historian Al-Maqrizi in his book "The Plans and Monuments of Maqrizi" and Imam Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti in his book "the Agreeable Discussion of the History of Egypt and Cairo" agreed that the builder of the pyramids is Saurid ibn Salhouq ibn Shariq, king of Egypt. That was 300 years before the Flood.

Al-Mas'udi (Herodotus of the Arabs) in his book "The Book of History" gave more details. He said Saurid was king of Egypt 300 years before the Flood. When he saw the dream, he entered the temple of the sun. He began to supplicate there, rub his cheeks in the dust, and weep.

--------------------

The End ...