IFAO

In pre-islamic times, some Muslims preferred to bury their deads at home rather than in a cemetery. This custom was widespread in Fusṭāṭ, then in Cairo where tombs spread in houses, prayer rooms and public buildings. Instead of banishing the deads to remote places, they preferred to hide them in places of transit or gathering, like reception rooms, despite the inconvenience caused to the residents. Nevertheless, these inhumations were very often temporary: after some months or years, the corpses were exhumated and transferred to the cemetery or to a new tomb.

This article deals with the prophetology of the philosopher Averroes (d. 595/1198), which appears in his Kitāb al-Kašf ʿan manāhiğ al-adilla fī ʿaqā’id al-milla (Book of the Unveiling of Methods’ Demonstration of the Dogmas of Religion). In this book, Averroes refutes the method the ancient ašʿarites used to demonstrate the existence of prophets and proposes a method he considers demonstrative. My objective in the first instance, is to bring to light the demonstration of Averroes by explaining all the steps of his reasoning, and then I analyze the premises of this demonstration in the light of elements of noetic and political philosophy emanating from other works of Averroes.

Some women have the desire to govern, despite the difficulties. Šaġab, slave for Umm al-Qāsim (Muḥammad b. Ṭāhir’s daughter), gave birth to al-Muqtadir, who took the caliphate at the age of 13 years old. His mother was dominant even in all political matters.

The essence of this article is the publication of two unpublished documents stored in a maǧmūʿ preserved in the ancient Royal Library in Rabāṭ reporting a revaluation of mudd (base unit for measuring capacity up to the prophetic period), the date of this calibration was at (839/1435), by the order of the Merinid vizier Yaḥyā al-Waṭṭāsī.

The analysis approach in this study shows the unity of the Maghreb metrology system, between its three branches (Measure capacity, weight and length measurement). It was based on the grain of barley, common unit between these different branches, like the different units of the Eastern systems, such as the Egyptian system, or the Iraqi one.

Judaism had contributed in all the Himyarite foreign relations, during the first quarter of the sixth century, especially with the christian encampment which was led by Byzantine and its religious ally kingdom of Axom which has Abyssinian origins. Both of them supported christianity at Yemen, as a way to pursue their interests in this vital region of the Arabian Peninsula, taking advantage of the large extent of weakness of the Himaritic country at the end of its era.

The efforts of the Jewish king Yūsuf Asʿar (518-525) to resist those foreign ambitions were through christian wide persecution in his country which was manifested in the famous massacre of Naǧrān.

This paper deals with the types of residential architecture’s baths (ḥammām) in Taif city by the end of the 13th/19th Century and the beginning of the 14th/20th Century. Taif city still has 13 baths in 4 palaces considered the only residential buildings that still exist from this period; all its components are almost complete and in a good condition of preservation. This study has classified the types of baths throughout their architectural plans, identified each type and determined the local architectural origin. It also highlighted the impacts of the Ottoman, especially Egyptian, models on its architectural and decorative elements. The study also zoom on the methods of supply, heating and detracting water in those baths.

The study ended with many conclusions and recommendations such as: the types included in the study are not purely local architectural heritage in Taif, but they also represent an arrival architectural style which came to Taif, and give a good example for the houses of the aristocratic class in Ḥiǧāz area at this time. We may conclude too that these baths follow two types: the first is the central plan, and the second is what we can call the consecutive plan. The study has recommended that it is necessary to maintain, conserve and restore Taif residential buildings, especially its baths, and reconstruct the missing parts. It is also recommended that recent additions must be removed because some of them have changed the original cases of the buildings.

 Publication d’une statue représentant un éphèbe diskophoros sur le chemin du gymnase ou palestre. Ce type de statue ne semble pas attesté auparavant dans l’art hellénique. Des rapprochements ont été faits avec la représentation de Daochos I et les statues « très discutées » des Tralleis Boy. Il est possible que cette iconographie ait été créée à Alexandrie vers la fin du iiie siècle av. J.-C. Le style, le traitement de surface et la finition de la statue suggèrent qu’il s’agit peut-être d’une copie ou d’une production plus tardive du modèle Alexandrin au début du ier siècle av. J.-C. Pour la première fois, est représenté en statuaire ce qui est décrit dans les papyrus et les inscriptions concernant le gymnase et l’ephebeia en Égypte ptolémaïque et Romaine. L’utilisation du granit rose témoigne de l’habilité des sculpteurs alexandrins et des copistes dans le travail des pierres dures, qui était à la mode depuis le début du iiie siècle av. J.-C.

Mots-clés : athlètes grecs – éphèbe – Diskophoros – gymnase – palestre – chlamide – Égypte gréco-romaine – art alexandrin – art ptolémaïque.

Publication of a statue depicting ephebe diskophoros on his way to the gymnasium or palaistra. This type has not been attested yet in Hellenistic art, but similarities have been done with the statue of Daochos I and the much-debated Tralleis Boy statues. This type perhaps was created in Alexandria by late 3 rd century BC. The style, surface treatment and finishing of the statue suggest that perhaps it was a copy or a successive edition of the Alexandrian model in the first century BC. For the first time a statue illustrates the descriptions in the papyri and in the inscriptions about gymnasia and ephebeia in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. The material, red granite shows the ability of Alexandrian sculptors and copyists to work hard stones, which was familiar since early 3 rd century BC.