Ancient Monastery Has Few Visitors Amid Sinai Unrest, but Bedouin Neighbors Protect It

The Washington Post ^ | 10/4/13 | William Booth

[marshmallow]

ST. CATHERINE’S MONASTERY, Egypt — Thousands of years of tradition say the monastery built here marks the spot where Moses fell down on his knees before a burning bush and talked to God. Hidden high in the desert mountains, guarded for centuries by scholar monks and Bedouin tribesmen, this fortress sanctuary was once as remote as any place on Earth could be.

This is no longer so. The modern world arrived at St. Catherine’s Monastery in the form of paved highways and mass tourism, which once brought thousands of pilgrims a day.

But a violent insurgency and military crackdown sweeping across Egypt’s northern Sinai peninsula has brought an unwelcome quiet to the south, where the Bedouin tribes make their money from tourists.

In August, the Egyptian government closed St. Catherine’s Monastery to visitors as a precaution. It was only the third closure in 50 years. While the monastery reopened its doors again after three weeks, Egyptian security forces are now everywhere, shepherding the handful of foreigners into the area in armed convoys.

The monks at the monastery, and the Bedouin who make their living as guides here, stress that the violence is taking place 300 miles to the north.

In the northern Sinai, the restive tribes have been sabotaging natural gas pipelines, and smuggling weapons, drugs and gasoline through their network of tunnels with the Gaza Strip. In the power vacuum created by Egypt’s upheaval, the Bedouin there have raised the black flag for militant jihad, and are waging a guerrilla campaign of extortion, kidnapping and targeted assassination against the powers of the state.

Militants in the north have launched near-daily attacks on Egyptian security forces. In August, gunmen ambushed trucks carrying Egyptian police recruits and executed 25 on the side of a road near a peacekeepers’ checkpoint.

[ZULU]

At the Taba crossing between Egypt and Israel, the passport and customs halls are empty. The coast here was once a famously laid-back post-hippie haven. Now beach hotels stand as shells in the sand. Wind blows through broken glass. The decorative date palms are slumped over, brown and dead.

Funny. The same thing happened to the oases and irrigated fields the Romans created in North Africa after the Muslims took over there.

[PapaNew]

No matter - a tempest in a teapot.

We "have not come to the mount [Sinai]..." (Heb. 12:18) and the glory of the ministration of death & condemnation (2 Cor. 3:7,9) but "we have come to Mount Zion" (Heb 12:22) and as ministers of the new testament, the exceedingly greater glory of the ministration of the spirit and righteousness (2 Cor. 3:6,8-9).

[Darteaus94025]

In their museum, they have a letter from Mohammed directing all Muslims to leave the monastary and the monks alone.

Hope it works for them.

[onedoug]

A forgery to islamism.

[Biggirl]

It has his signature, a hand palm, that is Mohammed’s.