Shadow puppets

Shadow puppets is one of the oldest folk arts of display and depends on projecting light on puppets that move from behind a white cloth curtain (display screen) and moved by a number of professional movers (imaginatives). This art was widely spread, but it began to disappear due to the death of a large number of its players and performers as well as the entry of modern display techniques, and one of the last players was Ahmed Al-Koumi, who died in the eighties of the last century, and was a student of Hassan Khanoufa, who died in 2004 after he trained the Wamda troupe for Shadow and Al-Aragoz shows. This art continued until now through this band. The references indicate that the Arabs knew this Art for the first time in the Abbasid era, and his coming to Egypt in the era of the Fatimids in the fifth century AH / eleventh century AD (), and some believe that he “remained imprisoned in the palaces of the Fatimids to amuse the princes and their close guests to them, and then he went out to the people to contribute to the promotion of the Fatimids”. And when Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi took matters into his own hands, the judge El Fadeel asked about him, and he replied: “I saw him a great sermon, I saw countries go and countries come” . “The sultans of Egypt had a fondness for him after that, until Sultan Shaban carried it with him when he went on pilgrimage in the year 787 AH… Also, al-Zahir Jammaq ordered in the year 855 to abolish playing with him and to burn his figures” (). Researchers have various points of views about its original home, as some see India as the first origen in which this art originated, and others link its origin to China, and others hope that the Pharaohs were the first to know this art. Most of these sayings are among the hypotheses that were not settles in reality except for its coming from the Far East. Shadow puppets shows were spread in the urban areas in the religious feastivals until very recent times with a wide audience from chidren and adults from both gender.