Lights on some Egyptian antiquities which was reused in Islamic antiquities

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Professor, Department of Tourism Guidance, Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Fayoum University (Egypt)

Abstract

This research deals with the study of the phenomenon of reusing the effects of antiquity within Islamic monuments, specifically the antiquities dating back to the period of the ancient Egyptian rule, which is known as the "Pharaonic civilization", whether they were fixed or movable monuments, so that we can stand on the extent of influence and impact, and the reasons that prompted the early Muslims to do so. And does the geographical location have a relationship as one of the multiple dimensions of the place at any time, or is it a civilized friction that carries its outward characteristics without going deep!

Because it is really interesting that we see pharaonic monuments bearing the characteristics of paganism and man-made religions, inside the corridors of Islamic civilization with its mosques and minarets, and the true divine religion it bears, without losing its intrinsic strength, or even just thinking about it, and how the essence in it is not copied but is reincarnated, But we can put it as a rule that the more Egypt changes and develops, the more its character and identity become more assertive and continuity. Even in the distant past, Egypt was Egyptianization everything new, digesting it, representing it, and making it a purely Egyptian entity in an amazing harmony without losing its identity; As Egyptianized the foreign waves and swallowed it up. Even religion, Egypt took Christianity and brought out its own Coptic version. As Wilson says about ancient Egypt: “Within Egypt, the most diverse ideas were tolerantly accepted and weaved together in what we moderns might consider as a lack of order in a philosophical conflict, but it was for the ancients integrated”. The way of the ancient Egyptian was to accept innovations and to include them in his thinking, without discarding the old and outdated and that the old and the new will lie together, or, as “Morrentz” mentions, that the Egyptian is not Egyptian unless he adheres to the old next to the new, harmonizing between them or linking one of them to the other at least.

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