Askinah

askinah (more rarely iskinah), the normal designation in older texts for sanctuary and used almost exclusively, for example, in the history of the patriarchs of sawirus ibn al-muqaffa‘, up to the Fatimid period. After this period, in the process of a conscious reversion within Coptic Christianity to its religious origins in Judaism, the term was gradually superseded by the expression haykal (sanctuary), which derives from the Hebrew hekal (Holy of Holies).