エジプト死者の街における聖墓参詣 : 十二 - 十五世紀の参詣慣行と参詣者の意識

抄録

Toward the southwest from Cairo's citadel, there stretches a huge graveyard called "Qarafa (City of the Dead)", comprising tens of thousands holy tombs. It was a sanctuary from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, where masses of people visited to solve their difficulties and to purify their souls. On the sabbath and moonlit nights, crowds including women and children came on excursions, making it the most popular pleasure resort in Egypt. Until now Qarafa has scarcely attracted scholarly attention. After documenting the known manuscripts of pilgrimage guides, supplemented by chronicles, geographies, legal-related works, traveller's accounts and the Waqf documents pertaining to the period, the author of this paper investigates the various visitation activities and the mental structure of the visitor which have been commonly labeled as "Saint Worship" or "Popular Islam". Based mainly on the pilgrimage guides, the author undertakes to elucidate the actual conditions of visiting practices in the first part of this paper. Taking twenty provisos of visitation guidelines as an indicator, the paper details such manners and customs as rubbing the body over the grave, healing with sand from the graves, reciting the Koran, wailing, offering, and women's visitations. Furthermore, the divergence between the common practices at Qarafa and those of the idealistic learned men, especially the Hanbali scholors is illustrated. In the second part, the author considers the visitation from the persona of the pilgrim, an aspect that has never been explored before, and also analyzes the relationships of believers, saints and Allah in the context of the "Fulfillment of the Prayer (ijaba al-du'a')". The "Fulfillment of the Prayer" was of capital importance for them, and was achieved only through the saints' mediation (shafa'a) to Allah. The role of mediation within the structure of the "Fulfillment of the Prayer" is discussed and classified as well. Moreover, within a donation and exchange framework, the concept of prayer is reconsidered. The rational being that prayer is a gift from the pilgrim to the buried souls. The last chapter glances at the origin and daily occupations of the saints, looks at the miracles which led to sainthood, and finally reflects on their virtues and merits.