Manouba ( ar, منوبة ') is a city in north-eastern
Tunisia, and is part the metropolitan area of
Tunis, also called "Grand Tunis". It is located at the west of Tunis city center at around . It is the capital city of
Manouba Governorate
Manouba Governorate ( ar, ولاية منوبة ' ) is one of the twenty-four governorates (provinces) of Tunisia and is in inland, northern Tunisia. It has a population of 379,518 (as at the 2014 census),sufi
Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...
saint
In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...
Sayyida ʿĀʾisha al-Mannūbiyya
AÏsha Al-Manoubya ( ar, عائشة المنوبية, ʿĀʾisha al-Mannūbiyya), also known by the honorific ''Al-Saida'' ('saint') or ''Lella'' ('the Lady') (1199–1267 CE), is one of the most famous women in Tunisia, and a prominent figure in ...
(1199–1267 CE), and until 2012 the city contained a shrine to her, supposedly her father's house. It was customary in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for the Beys of Tunis to make a ritual circuit of city's the great shrines on the 27th day of Ramaḍān (''
laylat al-Qadr'') and visit this shrine. More recently, 'up until the
Tunisian revolution of January 2011, once a week, on Sundays or Mondays, rituals were held ... During the day, the shrines were women's space, devoted to music and trance rituals. At night, they became men's space, dedicated to Ṣūfī ceremonies (''
dhikr'' ...)'. However, on 6 October 2012, the shrine was burned down by religious extremists, thought to be young
Salafis; ʿĀʾisha's
catafalque
A catafalque is a raised bier, box, or similar platform, often movable, that is used to support the casket, coffin, or body of a dead person during a Christian funeral or memorial service. Following a Roman Catholic Requiem Mass, a catafalque ...
was entirely destroyed.
[Katia Boissevain, 'al-Mannūbiyya, Sayyida ʿĀʾisha', in ''Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE'', ed. by Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson (Leiden: Brill, 2013-), https://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_24813.]
References
Populated places in Tunisia
Communes of Tunisia
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