Sidi Okba () is a commune in the

Biskra Province Biskra (, Berber: ⴱⴻⵙⴽⵔⴰ) is a province (''wilaya'') of Algeria. Its capital is Biskra. It is located on the northern edge of the Algerian Sahara, south of the Atlas Mountains. Geographically, Biskra Province is arid, but oases and ...

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

. It was named after the

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

General

Uqba ibn Nafi ʿUqba ibn Nāfiʿ ibn ʿAbd al-Qays al-Fihrī al-Qurashī (), also simply known as Uqba ibn Nafi (622 – 683), was an Arab general serving the Rashidun Caliphate since the reign of Umar and later the Umayyad Caliphate during the reigns of Mu'awi ...

who died there in 683 AD. The nearest big city is

Biskra Biskra () is the capital city of Biskra Province, Algeria. In 2007, its population was recorded as 307,987. Biskra is located in northeastern Algeria, about from Algiers, southwest of Batna, Algeria, Batna and north of Touggourt. It is nickna ...

which is located 18 km away. Sidi Okba sits on an

oasis In ecology, an oasis (; : oases ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment Baedeker Verlag Karl Baedeker, founded by Karl Baedeker on 1 July 1827, is a German publisher and pioneer in the business of worldwide travel guides. The guides, often referred to simply as "List of Baedeker Guides, Baedekers" (a term sometimes used to re ...

as "the religious center of the Zab". Baedeker stated that the town founded by

pilgrim The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as ...

s visiting the tomb of Sidi Okba who died in a nearby town called Thouda. The

Sidi Okba Mosque Sidi Okba Mosque (, ''Masjid Sīdī ʻUqbah'') is a historic mosque in Algeria, located in the village of Sidi Okba, near Biskra. The mausoleum was first established in 686 to house the remains of Uqba ibn Nafi, a Companions of the Prophet, comp ...

, which was built around Okba's tomb, is the oldest Islamic monument in the country.

References

Communes of Biskra Province {{Biskra-geo-stub

See also

References