Till Death Do Us Apart

[3] 𝑲𝑶𝑰 𝑴𝑰𝑳 𝑮𝑨𝒀𝑨

[3] KOI MIL GAYA

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❝Someone better than the absence of touch, than the serenading breeze of stillness, than the notes of my thoughts in an opera of violins. Someone who when my mind lays still, it tilts towards.❞—Mahe Salihu

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IT IS OFTEN SAID THAT NO ONE KNOWS WHERE THE SHUWA ARAB CAME FROM.

Some history books say the Kanem-Bornu people woke up one morning to find caravans at the outskirts of their town; The people were mostly fair, pretty and their language was similar to Arabic (or simply a dialect of the language) which of course made people come to the conclusion that they had come from Arabia. Their prettiness earned them the nickname Shawa from the Kanuris which became the name of the tribe, Shuwa Arab.

Outcasts, refugees or simply people who were looking for greener pastures, the people of Kanem-Bornu didn't know; however, that didn't stop them from welcoming them into their town.

There is a riwaya that says that the Shuwa are what remains of Arab colonisers.

However, that version isn't very popular, but it could be true seeing as Islam was introduced in the Kanem-Bornu empire as early as the eleventh century where there is a record of the first Muslim Mai, Ume Jilmi, and the earliest records of the Shuwas in Nigeria is in the fourteenth century.

There is every chance that there was intermarriage and that some people chose to stay rather than return to Arabia. Regarding the intermarriage, research says that the intermingling of the Fulani with the Shuwa Arab brought about the Baggara Shuwa people—Nomadic, Cattle-rearing Shuwas.

Whatever the case may be, the Shuwa Arab now call North-Eastern Nigeria, Sudan, Chad, Cameroon, Niger, Central African Republic and South Sudan home. Some people say their Arabic is Sudanese Arabic, some say it's Chadian, some even speculate that it might be Egyptian Arabic since they are able to communicate perfectly with the Egyptian but most people including the tribe members simply call it Shuwa Arabic, the language of the Shuwa Arab.

Now unlike the Shuwas, the Hausa people of Nigeria have a single, unified origin story. They descended from Bayajidda.

The history books describe Bayajidda as a hero and a warrior. His actual name is Abu Yazid and he hailed from Baghdad. He married two women, one a slave and the other a Queen, Daurama. It is said that after he defeated the snake Sarki that was terrorising the people of Daura and married Daurama, he was named Bayajidda which is actually Ba ya ji da which directly translates to ‘He couldn't hear before.’ This is in reference to how he didn't understand the language of the people.

Bayajidda had two sons, one, with the slave—Ƙarɓagari and the other with the Queen—Bawo.

Bayajidda's grandsons established the seven Hausa kingdoms which is why Hausas are said to have descended from him, not because he somehow created the language. History books preferred the descendants of Bawo, which is why we have Hausa Bakwai and Banza Bakwai.

Banza Bakwai refers to the seven grandchildren of the slave. They are called Banza which means Bastard or Bogus—Bakwai means seven—due to their ancestress' slave status. These are—Zamfara, Kebbi, Nupe, Kwararafa, Gwari and Yauri.