An Arabic Inscription Over The Gate, In
Modern Characters, Says That Justinian Built The Convent In The
Thirtieth Year Of His Reign, As A Memorial Of Himself And His Wife
Theodora.
It is curious to find a passage of the Koran introduced into
this inscription; it was probably done by a Moslem sculptor, without the
knowledge of the monks.
A few years after the completion of the convent,
one of the monks is said to have been informed in his sleep, that the
corpse of St. Catherine, who suffered martyrdom at Alexandria, had been
transported by angels to the summit of the highest peak of the
surrounding mountains. The monks ascended the mountain in
[p.546] procession, found the bones, and deposited them in their church,
which thus acquired an additional claim to the veneration of the Greeks.
Monastic establishments seem soon after to have considerably increased
throughout the peninsula. Small convents, chapels, and hermitages, the
remains of many of which are still visible, were built in various parts
of it. The prior told me that Justinian gave the whole peninsula in
property to the convent, and that at the time of the Mohammedan
conquest, six or seven thousand monks and hermits were dispersed over
the mountains, the establishments of the peninsula of Sinai thus
resembling those which still exist on the peninsula of Mount Athos. It
is a favourite belief of the monks of Mount Sinai, that Mohammed
himself, in one of his journeys, alighted under the walls of the
convent, and that impressed with due veneration for the mountain of
Moses, he presented to the convent a Firmahn, to secure to it the
respect of all his followers. Ali is said to have written it, and
Mohammed, who could not write, to have confirmed it by impressing his
extended hand, blackened with ink, upon the parchment. This Firmahn, it
is added, remained in the convent until Selim the First conquered Egypt,
when hearing of the precious relic, he sent for it, and added it to the
other relics of Mohammed in the imperial treasury at Constantinople;
giving to the convent, in return, a copy of the original certified with
his own cipher. I have seen the latter, which is kept in the Sinai
convent at Cairo, but I do not believe it to be an authentic document.
None of the historians of Mohammed, who have recorded the transactions
of almost every day of his life, mention his having been at Mount Sinai,
neither in his earlier youth, nor after he set up as a prophet, and it
is totally contrary to history that he should have granted to any
[p.547] Christians such privileges as are mentioned in this Firmahn, one
of which is that the Moslems are bound to aid the Christian monks in
rebuilding their ruined churches. It is to be observed also that this
document states itself to have been written by Ali, not at the convent,
but in the mosque of the Prophet at Medina, in the second year of the
Hedjra, and is addressed, not to the convent of Mount Sinai in
particular, but to all the Christians and their priests.
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