Umar came to power at the death of his father in 1837.[1][2] Umar did not match his father's vitality and gradually allowed the kingdom to be ruled by advisers (wazirs). Umar ruled from 1837 until November 1853 when he was deposed by his brother 'Abd ar-Rahman ibn Muhammad al-Amin who became Shehu. The latter only reigned until 1854 when Umar reconquered his throne.[3]
Umar ruled as Shehu for a second time from September 1854 to 1880. Borno began to decline, as a result of administrative disorganization, regional particularism, and attacks by the militant Ouaddai Empire to the east. The decline continued under Umar's sons, and in 1894 Rabih az-Zubayr, leading an invading army from eastern Sudan, conquered Borno.[4]
^Louis Brenner, The Shehus of Kukawa: A History of the Al-Kanemi Dynasty of Bornu, Oxford Studies in African Affairs (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1973), p.72.
^Herbert Richmond Palmer, The Bornu Sahara and Sudan (London: John Murray, 1936), p. 269.
^Louis Brenner, The Shehus of Kukawa: A History of the Al-Kanemi Dynasty of Bornu, Oxford Studies in African Affairs (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1973), pp.78-79.
^Helmolt, Hans F., ed. (1903). The history of the world; a survey of a man's record, Volume III: West Asia and Africa. New York: Dodd, Meade and Company. p. 538. OCLC1193060.
Isichei, Elizabeth, A History of African Societies to 1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 318–320, ISBN0-521-45599-5.
Lange, Dierk, 'The kingdoms and peoples of Chad', in General history of Africa, ed. by Djibril Tamsir Niane, IV (London: Unesco, Heinemann, 1984), pp. 238–265.
Last, Murray, ‘Le Califat De Sokoto Et Borno’, in Histoire Generale De l'Afrique, Rev. ed. (Paris: Presence Africaine, 1986), pp. 599–646.
