Kohled Nomadisms

 Dihya was born in the early 7th century and was a Amazigh Jew.  She was able to defeat as a indigenous person of Northern Africa the Arab Islamic invaders who retreated to Tripolitania. For five years she ruled a free berber state from the Aures mountains to the oasis of Gadames (695-700 AD)

Dihya succeeded Caecilius as the war leader of the Berber tribes in the 680s and opposed the encroaching Arab Islamic armies of the Umayyad Dynasty. Hasan ibn al-Nu'man marched from Egypt and captured the major Byzantine city of Carthage and other cities. Searching for another enemy to defeat, he was told that the most powerful monarch in North Africa was “the queen of the Berbers”  Dihyā, and accordingly marched into Numidia. The armies met near Meskiana in the present-day province of Oum el-Bouaghi, Algeria. She defeated Hasan so soundly that he fled Ifriqiya and holed up in Cyrenaica (Libya) for four or five years.

Khayamiya: Khedival to Contemporary, opening at Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia (IAMM) on October 2, 2015

Khayamiya’ is Egyptian Tentmaker Appliqué, a rare and spectacular Islamic art form that is rarely seen beyond Egypt. “Khayamiya: Khedival to Contemporary”, curated by Dr Sam Bowker, is the world’s first exhibition to reveal the story of the Egyptian Tentmakers from the Late Ottoman Empire to present-day Cairo.

Khayamiya is the Egyptian art of tent-making. Bright fabric pieces are cut, folded and skillfully handsewn to large canvases to create impressive tents and textile panels. These textiles are used in many Egyptian ceremonies, including weddings, funerals, street parties and religious events.

Homeward swing of a young office worker adds a fresh lilt to a time-mellowed street in Boston