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Mount Sinai
 
 
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For other places named Mount Sinai, see: Mount Sinai (disambiguation)
Mount Sinai (disambiguation)

Mount Sinai may refer to*Mount Sinai, Egypt*Mount Sinai, Singapore*Biblical Mount Sinai, where, according to the Bible, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments...


Mount Sinai (Arabic: ??? ????? , Hebrew: ?? ????), also known as Mount Horeb, Mount Musa, Gebel Musa or Jabal Musa ("Moses' Mountain") by the Bedouin
Bedouin

The Bedouin, , are predominantly Muslim, desert-dwelling Arab nomadic pastoralist, or previously nomadic group, found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via the Western Desert , Sinai Peninsula, and Negev to the Arabian Desert....
, is the name of a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula
Sinai Peninsula

The Sinai Peninsula or Sinai is a triangular peninsula in Egypt. It lies between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, forming a land bridge between Africa and Southwest Asia....
.






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For other places named Mount Sinai, see: Mount Sinai (disambiguation)
Mount Sinai (disambiguation)

Mount Sinai may refer to*Mount Sinai, Egypt*Mount Sinai, Singapore*Biblical Mount Sinai, where, according to the Bible, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments...


Jabal Musa Location
Mount Sinai (Arabic: ??? ????? , Hebrew: ?? ????), also known as Mount Horeb, Mount Musa, Gebel Musa or Jabal Musa ("Moses' Mountain") by the Bedouin
Bedouin

The Bedouin, , are predominantly Muslim, desert-dwelling Arab nomadic pastoralist, or previously nomadic group, found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via the Western Desert , Sinai Peninsula, and Negev to the Arabian Desert....
, is the name of a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula
Sinai Peninsula

The Sinai Peninsula or Sinai is a triangular peninsula in Egypt. It lies between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, forming a land bridge between Africa and Southwest Asia....
. It is the traditional location of the Biblical Mount Sinai
Biblical Mount Sinai

The Biblical Mount Sinai is an ambiguously located mountain at which the Hebrew Bible states that the Ten Commandments were given to Moses by Tetragrammaton....
.

Geography

Mount Sinai is a 2285 m-high mountain in the Sinai region. It is next to Mount St. Catherine (at 2,629 m, the tallest peak on the Sinai peninsula
Peninsula

A peninsula is a piece of Landform that is nearly surrounded by water but connected to mainland via an isthmus. Word origin: Latin paeninsula : paene, almost + insula, island....
). It is surrounded on all sides by higher peaks of the mountain range.

Geology

Mount Sinai rocks were formed in the late stage of the Arabian-Nubian Shield
Arabian-Nubian Shield

The Arabian-Nubian Shield is an exposure of Precambrian crystalline rocks on the flanks of the Red Sea. The crystalline rocks are mostly Neoproterozoic in age....
's (ANS) evolution. Mount Sinai displays a ring complex that consists of alkaline granites intruded into diverse rock types, including volcanics. The granites range in composition from syenogranite
Syenogranite

Syenogranite is a fine to coarse grained intrusive igneous rock of the same general composition as granite. They are characteristically felsic....
 to alkali feldspar granite. The volcanic rocks are alkaline to peralkaline and they are represented by subaerial flows and eruptions and subvolcanic porphyry
Porphyry

Porphyry may refer to:*Porphyry , a plutonic rock with large crystals in a fine-grained matrix*Porphyry , a Neoplatonic philosopher*Porphyrio, also known as Pomponius Porphyrio, a Latin grammarian, fl....
. Generally, the nature of the exposed rocks in Mount Sinai indicates that they originated from different depths. (M. G. Shahien, Geol. Dept., Beni Suef
Beni Suef

Beni Suef, also spelled Bani Suwayf, Beni Sueif, Beni Swaif, Beni Sweif, and Beni Suaif is the capital city of the Beni Suef Governorate, Egypt....
, Egypt
Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
)

Monastery

The Monastery of St. Catherine
Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai

Saint Catherine's Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula, at the mouth of an inaccessible gorge at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt. The monastery is Greek Orthodox Church and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site....
 is sited at the foot of the adjacent mountain - Mount Catherine
Mount Catherine

Mount Catherine also known as Gebel Kather?na is the highest mountain in Egypt, located in the southern Sinai Peninsula....
 - at an elevation of around 1260 m.

Religious Significance


According to Bedouin
Bedouin

The Bedouin, , are predominantly Muslim, desert-dwelling Arab nomadic pastoralist, or previously nomadic group, found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via the Western Desert , Sinai Peninsula, and Negev to the Arabian Desert....
 tradition, this is the mountain where God
Tetragrammaton

Tetragrammaton The letters, properly read from right to left , are:|-! Hebrew !! Letter name !! Pronunciation|-valign=top| ?'...
 gave laws to the Israelites. However, the earliest Christian traditions place this event at the nearby Mount Serbal
Mount Serbal

Mount Serbal is a mountain located in southern Sinai, sometimes identified in texts as Gebel Serbal. At 2070 metres high, it is the fifth highest mountain in Egypt....
, and a monastery was founded at its base in the 4th century; it was only in the 6th century that the monastery moved to the foot of Mount Catherine
Mount Catherine

Mount Catherine also known as Gebel Kather?na is the highest mountain in Egypt, located in the southern Sinai Peninsula....
, following the guidance of Josephus
Josephus

Josephus , also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu and, after he became a Roman citizenship, as Titus Flavius Josephus, was a first-century Jewish historian and apologist of priestly and royal ancestry who survived and recorded the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70....
's earlier claim that Sinai was the highest mountain in the area. Jebel Musa, which is adjacent to Mount Catherine, was only equated with Sinai, by Christians, after the 15th century. Also, for Muslims, there is a chapter named after this mountain in the Quran, entitled, Surah-Tin; surah/chapter 95, in which God promises by the fig, the olive, by Mount Sinai and the city of Makkah. Orthodoxies settled upon this mountain in the third century, Georgians moved to Sinai in the fifth century, although a Georgian colony was formed in the ninth century. Georgians erected their own temples in this area. The construction of one such temple was connected with the name of David The Builder, who contributed to the erecting of temples in Georgia and abroad as well. There were political, cultural and religious motives for locating the temple on Mount Sinai. Georgian monks living there were deeply connected with their motherland. The temple had its own plots in Kartli. Some of the Georgian manuscripts of Sinai remain there, but others are kept in Tbilisi, St. Petersburg, Prague, New York, Paris and in private collections. Many modern biblical scholars now believe that the Israelites would have crossed the Sinai peninsula in a straight line, rather than detouring to the southern tip (assuming that they did not cross the eastern branch of the Red Sea/Reed Sea in boats or on a sandbar), and therefore look for Mount Sinai elsewhere.

The Song of Deborah, which textual scholars
Textual criticism

Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the Writing of manuscripts....
 consider to be one of the oldest parts of the bible, suggests that Yahweh dwelt at Mount Seir
Mount Seir

Mount Seir formed the south-east border of Edom and Judah, it may also echo the older historical border of Egypt and Canaan. It was the mountainous region allotted to the descendants of Esau, the Edomites....
, so many scholars favour a location in Nabatea (modern Arabia). Alternatively, the biblical descriptions of Sinai can be interpreted as describing a volcano
Volcano

A volcano is an opening, or rupture, in a planet's surface or Crust , which allows hot, molten rock, ash, and gases to escape from below the surface....
, and so a small number of scholars have considered equating Sinai with locations in northwestern Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, KSA , is an Arab country and the largest country of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Jordan on the northwest, Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south....
; there are no volcanoes in the Sinai Peninsula.

Ascent

There are two principal routes to the summit. The longer and shallower route, Siket El Bashait, takes about 2.5 hours on foot, though camel
Camel

Camels are even-toed ungulates within the genus Camelus. The dromedary, one-humped or Arabian camel has a single hump and is well known for its healthy low fat milk, and the Bactrian camel has two humps....
s can be used. The steeper, more direct route (Siket Sayidna Musa) is up the 3,750 "steps of penitence" in the ravine behind the monastery.

Summit

The summit of the mountain has a mosque
Mosque

A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. Muslims often refer to the mosque by its Arabic name, masjid, ? . The word "mosque" in English refers to all types of buildings dedicated for Islamic worship, although there is a distinction in Arabic between the smaller, privately owned mosque and the larger, "collective" mosque ,...
 and a Greek Orthodox chapel (which was constructed in 1934 on the ruins of a 16th century church) neither of which are open to the public. The chapel supposedly encloses the rock from which God made the Tablets of the Law. At the summit also is "Moses' cave" where Moses waited to receive the Ten Commandments
Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, are a list of religious and moral imperatives that, according to Judeo-Christian tradition, were authored by God and given to Moses on the mountain referred to as "Biblical Mount Sinai" or "Mount Horeb" in the form of two stone tablets....
.

See also

  • Archaeology
    Archaeology

    Archaeology, archeology, or arch?ology is the science that studies Homo cultures through the recovery, documentation, analysis, and interpretation of material remains and environmental data, including architecture, Artifact , features, Biofact s, and cultural landscape....
  • Mount Gerizim
    Mount Gerizim

    Mount Gerizim is one of the two mountains in the immediate vicinity of the West Bank city of Nablus , and forms the southern side of the valley in which Nablus is situated, the northern side being formed by Mount Ebal....
  • Jebel Musa, Morocco
    Jebel Musa, Morocco

    Jebel Musa is the name given to a mountain located in the northernmost part of Morocco on the African side of the Straits of Gibraltar. Together with the Rock of Gibraltar to the north, it is known as one of the Pillars of Hercules ....
    , a similarly-named mountain in Morocco
    Morocco

    Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 34 million and an area just under 447,000 km2....
  • Jabal al-Lawz
    Jabal al-Lawz

    Jabal al-Lawz is a mountain located in northwest Saudi Arabia, 28 degrees 41 minutes north, 35 degrees 18 minutes east, 2580 metres feet tall. The name means mountain of almonds....


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