Were Abraham's People Refugees or Merchant-Rulers?

Alice C. Linsley

That is an interesting question raised by some theorists who are familiar with the pre-canonical Girgam, a chronicle of the rulers of Kano-Borno who controlled commerce along the rivers. Gir refers to these rulers are traders. Kano-Nok-Borno is the region where some of Abraham's ancestors lived. Bor-no means "Land of Noah." Kano refers to Kain (Cain) and Nok appears in the Bible as the name Ha'nock.

Girgam, also called Dīwān, was discovered in 1851 by the German traveller Heinrich Barth. The chronicle lists Adam, Seth, Noah, Shem, Kenan, Enosh, Terah and many others. Some of the names appear to have been "corrected' by Arabic scholars. However, the orthography is closer to the presumed Hebrew original than that of the Arab authors.

The prologue and first section of Girgam name biblical patriarchs, ancient Mesopotamian kings, and the last Assyrian kings. This has led to speculation that Kano-Borno was the home of refugees from the collapsing Assyrian Empire. According to this theory, the royal titles in the Girgam and the origin-chronicles indicate mass immigration of various peoples who formerly lived under Assyrian rule until that Empire collapsed in 612 BC. There is less evidence to support this view, however, than there is to support the biblical record of Kushite expansion.

Map shows Kano and Borno and related kingdoms extending to the Nile in 1750.

Another theory is that Kain and Noah were early rulers of this region and their rule is reflected in the place names Kano and Nok. According to Genesis 10, their Kushite people spread far and wide. Nimrod, the son of Kush (Gen. 10:8), controlled the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley where tablets have been found that speak of the greatness of his rule. He is known in history as Sargon the Great. Kushite rulers controlled a vast expanse from Nigeria to India, what I have termed "the Afro-Asiatic Dominion." This view is supported by the fact that girgam is a derivation of the Sumero-Akkadian term girginakku, meaning box for written tablets. Akkad was the center of Nimrod's ruler (Gen. 10:10) and Akkadian cuneiform was the script of his empire.

Abraham's father Terah was no more a refugee than Nimrod. Instead, they were Kushite kingdom builders. Terah controlled the length of the Euphrates. He was a descendant of Nimrod, the son of Kush. The authors of ancient Indian literature claimed that the Kushites ruled the archaic world for 7000 years.

Prof. Bator Vamos Toth has identified hundreds of place names that link the Sudan and Central Asia. For example, the places names Orissa and Karnak are found in Egypt and in Central Asia. The temples at Karnak in Egypt and at Karnak in Orissa, India, are Sun temples associated with the cult of Horus, who the Horite ruler-priests regarded as the "son of God", miraculously begotten according to an ancient promise. This Kushite migration has been confirmed also by DNA studies.

Clyde A. Winters has shown that the "Elamites, Dravidians, Sumerians and Manding are all of Proto-Saharan origin. In the history of mankind they were called the Kushites. Testimony of the great heritage of the Kushites, resulted from their boldness in trade and seafaring expeditions.

There appears to be a relationship between the words gir or gar and ghar or khar. Bulghar was spoken by the Asiatic Ghars (Khars) from which the territory of Bulgaria takes its name. The Bulghar language was spoken in the Onogur tribal confederation. Ono pertains to On or ancient Heliopolis, the Horite shrine city to which the great pyramids of Giza, Saqqara and Abusir are aligned.

The word ghar means house, as in royal palace or royal city and is a cognate to word khar. In ancient Egyptian, khar refers to a measure of fuel used to offer sacrifice in the temple.  The temple (wat) was in the precinct of the royal palace. Among the Guruntum-Gar, a West Chadic people, khar appears as har in last names.  An example is Andrew Haruna.  Haruna is the Chadic name for Aaron, suggesting a very ancient connection between the priesthood of Israel and their Kushite ruler-priest ancestors.

The Kushites also spread along the Shari and the Benue rivers, establishing kingdoms as far as Lagos in Nigeria and into the southern Kordafan. This explains the linguistic connections between Yoruba and Akkadian.

Related reading: The Kushite-Kushan Connection; The Nile-Japan Ainu Connection; Abraham was a Descendant of Both Cain and Seth; Biblical patriarchs from a pre-canonical source mentioned in the Diwan of Kanem-Bornu; Horite and Kushite Rulers Linked; Noah's Descendants