St Catherine's Monastery in Sinai is famed for its unique collection of manuscripts. Jill Kamil looks into the wealth of the scriptorium and the plan to update its literary wealth St Catherine's Monastery, a large, fortified structure, is built on sacred land associated with the bible. According to early Christian sources, specifically a ninth-century patriarch of Alexandria named Eutychios, the first chapel on the site was built by Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine. She travelled to Siknai and was so impressed, Eutychios claimed, with the site of the burning bush where, according to the book of Exodus, Moses heard the angel of the Lord from a "flame of fire out of the midst of a bush", that in 330 she ordered the construction of a small chapel on the site. She dedicated it to the Holy Virgin and had a fortified tower built as a refuge for the hermits. A century later, a Spanish noblewoman called Etheria made a pilgrimage to Mt Sinai and kept the first contemporary record of such a voyage; in her travel diary, the Peregrinatio, she wrote that she was shown the site of the burning bush, and that "it is alive to this day and throws out shoots". The fame brought to Sinai by subsequent aristocratic pilgrims and travellers from various parts of the Byzantine Empire also brought increased imperial attention, including donations, to the Christian communities. This wealth, as perceived by tribes of Egypt's eastern desert, caused them to raid the Christian community, and, responding to an appeal for help by the monks, Justinian gave orders in 530 for the governors of Egypt to send architects and builders to Sinai to construct a fortification. At its foundation, the monastery in the foothills of Mt Sinai did not bear the name of St Catherine, and its cathedral was called the Church of the Transfiguration. In the sixth century the monastery gained international importance when St Gregory of Tours served as a monk there. A rest house was built for travellers. It was not until the ninth century, however, that the legend of St Catherine and its associations with the monastery became more widely spread. Later, the remains of that beloved saint were transferred to Sinai and enshrined within the basilica which was consecrated to her, from which time the monastery has been known as the Monastery of St Catherine. A mosque near the belfry stands as evidence of the protection of the monastery by the sultans of Egypt, and also the monks' tolerant attitude towards Islam. It is a simple, rectangular building with two sturdy pillars upon which rest the arches of the roof. There is some archaeological evidence to suggest that it may originally have been the rest house that was converted into a mosque in the early 11th century -- a period of danger to the monks under the violent persecutions of Christian communities by the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim (996-1015). According to one popular tradition, the monks built the mosque overnight so that its minaret, rising above the surrounding walls of the monastery, would deter any would-be marauders. Another version of the traditional story tells of Al-Hakim and his troops advancing on the monastery with the intention of demolishing it, when a deputation of monks went out to meet him. The sultan was so charmed by their eloquence that he promised not to cause them any arm but, to appease the religious fervour of his troops', asked the monks to return to the monastery and erect a mosque within its walls. Inside the mosque is pulpit with a kufic text that records it was built in fulfilment of a wish of Abu Mansour Anushtakin in 1106. Today it serves the religious needs of the Muslim servants in the monastery as well as Muslim visitors.
