Photos

The Roman Catholic cathedral of Tunis & The Ibn Khaldun statue

The Cathedral of St Vincent de Paul is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Tunis. It is named in honour of Saint Vincent de Paul, a priest sold into slavery in Tunis, who after being freed took an interest in helping Christian slaves in the area. The cathedral is the headquarters of the Diocese of Tunis. It is situated in the Place de l'Indépendence in the Ville Nouvelle, a crossroads between Avenue Habib Bourguiba and Avenue de France, opposite the French embassy.
The church was built in a mixture of styles, including Moorish, Gothic, and Neo-Byzantine. Construction began in 1893 and the church was opened on Christmas 1897, albeit with temporary wooden belltowers owing to a shortage of funds.
Cardinal Lavigerie had laid the first stone for a church on 7 November, 1881 a little further down Avenue de la Marine (now Avenue Habib Bourguiba). This was a Pro-cathedral; the Catholic cathedral for Tunisia at that time being St Louis Cathedral in Carthage. The Pro-cathedral was built quickly, but its condition soon deteriorated due to the adverse ground conditions, necessitating the construction of the current cathedral.
The number of Roman Catholics in Tunisia fell rapidly following Tunisian independence from France. A modus vivendi reached between the Republic of Tunisia and the Vatican in 1964 resulted in the transfer of selected buildings to the Tunisian state for public use, including the Saint Louis Cathedral in Carthage. However, the Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul remains under the ownership and operation of the Roman Catholic Church in Tunisia.

Ibn Khaldun

Ibn Khaldūn or Ibn Khaldoun (full name, Arabic: أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي ‎, - May 27, 1332 AD/732 AH – March 19, 1406 AD/808 AH) was a North African polymath — an astronomer, economist, historian, Islamic scholar, Islamic theologian, hafiz, jurist, lawyer, mathematician, military strategist, nutritionist, philosopher, social scientist and statesman—born in North Africa in present-day Tunisia. He was of Arab or Berber descent. He is considered a forerunner of several social scientific disciplines: demography, cultural history, historiography, the philosophy of history, and sociology. He is also considered one of the forerunners of modern economics, alongside the Indian scholar-philosopher Chanakya. Ibn Khaldun is considered by many to be the father of a number of these disciplines, and of social sciences in general, for anticipating many elements of these disciplines centuries before they were founded in the West. He is best known for his Muqaddimah (known as Prolegomenon in the West), the first volume of his book on universal history, Kitab al-Ibar.

Tunis

Tunis (Arabic: تونس‎, Tūnis) is the capital of the Tunisian Republic and also the Tunis Governorate, with a population of 1,200,000 in 2008. It is Tunisia's largest city.
Situated on a large Mediterranean gulf, (the Gulf of Tunis), behind the Lake of Tunis and the port of La Goulette (Halq al Wadi), the city extends along the coastal plain and the hills that surround it. At the centre of more modern development (colonial era and post) lies the old medina. Beyond this section lie the suburbs of Carthage, La Marsa, and Sidi Bou Said.
The medina is found at the centre of the city: a dense agglomeration of alleys and covered passages, full of intense scents and colours, boisterous and active trade, a surfeit of goods on offer ranging from leather to plastic, tin to the finest filigree, tourist souvenirs to the works of tiny crafts-shops. (Source: planetware & tunisguide & wikipedia)