Kairouan

Infobox World Heritage Site
WHS = Kairouan


State Party = TUN
Type = Cultural
Criteria = i, ii, iii, v, vi
ID = 499
Region = Arab States
Year = 1988
Session = 12th
Link = http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/499

Kairouan (Arabic القيروان) (also known as Kirwan, Al Qayrawan) is a Muslim holy city which ranks after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem as a place of pilgrimage. [cite book
title = Hutchinson Encyclopedia 1996 Edition
publisher = Helicon Publishing Ltd, Oxford
date = 1996
pages = pg.572
doi =
isbn = 1-85986-107-5] Located in Tunisia, about 160 kilometres south of Tunis, it is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate. It was founded by the Arabs in around 670 and the original name was derived from Arabic "kairuwân", from Persian "Kâravân"Fact|date=June 2007, meaning "camp", "caravan", or "resting place" (see caravanserai) Fact|date=March 2007. In 2003 the city had about 150,000 inhabitants.

History

Kairouan was founded in about the year 670 when the Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi selected a site in the middle of a dense forest, then infested with wild beasts and reptiles, as the location of a military post for the conquest of the West. It was located far from the sea where it was safe from continued attacks of the Berbers who have fiercely resisted the Arab invasion. Berber resistance continued, led first by Kusaila whose troops killed Uqba at Biskra about fifteen years after the military post was established, and then by a Berber woman called Al-Kahina who was killed and her army defeated in 702. Subsequently, there was a mass conversion of the Berbers to Islam, but they were for all that treated as second-class citizens in their native land. This consequent dissatisfaction led to their secession as Kharijites or Islamic ‘outsiders’ which formed an egalitarian and puritanical sect still present on the island of Jerba. In 745 Kharijite Berbers captured Kairouan, which was already at that time a developed city with luxuriant gardens and olive groves.

Power struggles remained until Kairouan was recaptured by Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab at the end of the 8th century. In 800 Ibrahim was confirmed Emir and hereditary ruler of Ifriqiya by Caliph Harun ar-Rashid in Baghdad. Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab founded the Aghlabite dynasty that ruled Ifriqiya between 800 and 909. The new Emirs embellished Kairouan and made it their capital which soon became famous for its wealth and prosperity reaching the levels of Basra and Kufa and giving Tunisia one of its golden ages long sought after the glorious days of Carthage.

The Aghlabites built the great mosque and established in it a university that was a centre of education both in Islamic thought and in the secular sciences. Its role can be compared to that of the University of Paris in the Middle Ages. In the 9th century the city became a brilliant focus of Arab and Islamic cultures attracting scholars from all over the Islamic World. In that period Imam Sahnun and Asad ibn al-Furat made of Kairouan a temple of knowledge and a magnificent center of diffusion of Islamic sciences. The Aghlabites also built palaces, fortifications and fine waterworks of which only the pools remain. From Kairouan envoys from Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire returned with glowing reports of the Aghlabites palaces, libraries and gardens – and from the crippling taxation imposed to pay for their drunkenness and sundry debaucheries. The Aghlabite also pacified the country and conquered Sicily in 827.

In 893, through the mission of Ubaydalla Said, the Kutama Berbers from the west of the country started the movement of the Shiite Fatimids. The year 909 saw the overthrow of the Sunni Aghlabite that ruled Ifriqiya and the creation of the Shiite Fatimid dynasty. During the reign of the Fatimids, Kairouan was neglected and lost its importance as the new rulers resided first in Raqqada but soon moved their capital to the newly built Al Mahdiyah on the coast of modern Tunisia. After succeeding in extending their rule over all of central Maghreb, an area consisting of the modern countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, they eventually moved west to Egypt to found Cairo making it the capital of their vast Califate and leaving the Zirids as their vassals in Ifriqiya. Governing again from Kairouan, the Zirids led the country through another artistic, commercial and agricultural heyday. Schools and universities flourished, overseas trade in local manufactures and farm produce ran high and the courts of the Zirids rulers were centers of refinement that eclipsed those of their European contemporaries.

When the Zirids declared their independence from Cairo and their conversion to Sunni Islam in 1045 by giving allegiance to Baghdad, the Fatimid Caliph Ma'ad al-Mustansir Billah sent as punishment hordes of troublesome Arab tribes (Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym) to invade Ifriqiya. These invaders so utterly destroyed Kairouan in 1057 that it never regained its former importance and their influx was a major factor in the spread of nomadism in areas where agriculture had previously been dominant. Some 1700 years of intermittent but continual progress was undone within a decade as in most part of the country the land was laid to waste for nearly two centuries. In the 13th century under the prosperous Hafsids dynasty that ruled Ifriqiya, the city started to emerge from its ruins. It is only under the Husainid Dynasty that Kairouan started to find an honorable place in the country and throughout the Islamic world. In 1881, Kairouan was taken by the French, after which non-Muslims were allowed access to the city. Recently Kairouan was proclaimed as Capital of Islamic Culture for 2009.

Religion

There are many mosques in the city, among which the great mosque. After its establishment, Kairouan became an Islamic and Qur'anic learning center in North Africa. An article titled "Towards a Strategic Geopolitic Vision of Afro-Arab Relations" [This was originally a paper submitted to the African Union (AU) Experts’ Meeting on a Strategic Geopolitic Vision of Afro-Arab Relations. AU Headquarters, Addis Ababa, 11-12 May, 2004 [http://www.hollerafrica.com/showArticle.php?artId=164&catId=1] .] by Professor Kwesi Prah [Director, Centre for Advanced Study of African Societies, Cape Town, South Africa] states "By 670, the Arabs had taken Tunisia, and by 675, they had completed construction of Kairouan, the city that would become the premier Arab base in North Africa. Kairouan was later to become the third holiest city in Islam in the medieval period, after Mecca and Medina, because of its importance as the centre of the Islamic faith in the Maghrib".

Judaism, no longer prevalent in the city, has an illustrious history in Kairouan, particularly in the early Middle Ages. Rabbeinu Chananel was from Kairouan and many other important rabbis, including Rabbi Isaac Alfasi studied there with him.

Tourism

The souk (market place) of Kairouan is in the Medina quarter, which is surrounded by walls, from which the entrance gates can be seen in the distance. Products that are sold in the souk include carpets, vases and goods made of leather. As with merchants in most major Tunisian cities, Kairouan merchants rely on tourism for much of their income.

The city's other main site is the Great Mosque of Sidi-Uqba, which is said to largely consist of its original building materials. In fact most of the column stems and capitals were taken from ruins of earlier-period buildings, while others were produced locally. There are 414 columns in the mosque. Almost all were taken from the ruins of Carthage. Previously, it was forbidden to count them, on pain of blinding. [cite book | last = Mooney | first = Julie | title = Ripley's Believe It or Not! Encyclopedia of the Bizarre: Amazing, Strange, Inexplicable, Weird and All True! | publisher = Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers | location = New York | year = 2004 | isbn = 1579123996 | page = 47]

Among Tunisians, Kairouan is known for its pastries (e.g., zlebia and makroudh).

In "Raiders of the Lost Ark", the street scenes in "Cairo" were filmed in Kairouan.

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.kairouan.org Official website]
* [http://www.tourismtunisia.com/togo/kairouan/kairouan.html Kairouan] , tourismtunisia.com
* [http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=499 Kairouan World heritage Site] , whc.unesco.org
* [http://www.flshk.rnu.tn/ Kairouan University]
* [http://www.tunisia.com/Tunisia/Travel/Tunisia-Travel-Guides/Northern-Tunisia/Kairouan Kairouan travel guide]
* [http://www.muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=324 Al-Qayrawan] , muslimheritage.com
* [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=33&letter=K#82 Kairwan] , jewishencyclopedia.com
* [http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Tunisia.html WorldStatesmen-Tunisia]