The Monastery of Sinai and the Bedouin

It seems that healthcare has been, from the very beginning, one major point of contact between the Monastery of Sinai and the local people, as the existence of a hospice and a nursing home inside the monastery of Sinai can be traced back to the early 600s. From the 1970s onwards, the monastery has been providing healthcare services to monks, pilgrims, and the nearby Bedouin in a much more concerted fashion. In the 1980s, the monastery’s small medical center was the sole healthcare facility anywhere in the vast area of the mountainous South Sinai, where various Bedouin tribes reside who nowadays are estimated to number between fifteen to eighteen thousand.

Out of the six large Bedouin tribes that reside in South Sinai (in an area of approximately thirty thousand square kilometers), the Gebelia tribe is the oldest resident in the area, and is thus closely linked with the monastery. The members of the Gebelia tribe are the descendants of two hundred military families that the patron of the monastery, the Emperor Justinian himself, stationed in the region to guard the monks from barbarian raids.

These military families intermarried with the few local inhabitants as well as with other Arabian tribes that settled in neighboring regions in the meantime. In the last quarter of the seventh century most of them converted to Islam. It is astonishing that they still preserve a strong sense and remembrance of their religious and ethnic ancestry, which traces back to the Eastern Roman Empire.

It is for this very reason that nowadays they still boast of being called Greek or Rum, even though they tend to identify the latter title with the inhabitants of modern day Romania. They were named Gebelia, which means “people of the mountain,” since they resided around the Mount Sinai monastery, at an altitude of between 1300 to 1800 meters.

It was of vital importance that the monastery promptly became a beacon of stability and peace among the tribes. In the cases of disagreements, enmities, or conflicts, the tribes resorted to the just judgement of the monastery, especially when it came to the territorial boundaries of each tribe. And indeed, the intervention of the monastery is well-founded, since the entire region of mountainous South Sinai fell under the spiritual jurisdiction of the monastery itself and of the Archbishopric of Sinai, Faran, and Raithou.

The actual area of the monastery of Sinai used to previously be defined as the land around the monastery that can be crossed within three days’ ride by camel. This land was the holy residence of anchorites and monks, who consigned the management of these sites to the central monastery. Soon afterwards, both the abbot along with the Holy Synaxis of the monastery made decisions to assign some of the vacant sites to the various tribes of Bedouin. The monastery occasionally would maintain only certain historic sites and edifices that usually possessed a chapel and a garden, along with a local guardian, the gafiri. All these locations constitute the current kathismata (“seats”) of the monastery.

In the past, the constant daily distribution of bread by the monks of the monastery to the poor Bedouin who were living in the area provided a useful and pleasant opportunity for the fathers to meet and get to know them. Nowadays, the financial support of the Egyptian state, and the improvement in the standard of living of the Bedouin, has made the monastery’s aid almost unnecessary. Nevertheless, the monastery of Sinai continues the tradition of supporting the Bedouin, “the children of the desert of our time,” who are considered the monastery’s own children, in a number of other ways, such as the provision of clothing, food, building materials, etc. Besides, the monastery regularly employs Bedouin, primarily in construction projects, thus offering them an opportunity to earn a decent living.

The fathers of the monastery assist the Bedouin in general and those of the neighboring Gebelia tribe in particular, in more practical matters. Most of all, they share their moments of joy and sorrow by attend- ing weddings, funerals, and other festive events, some of which sometimes appear to resemble the remnants of early Christian rites. The zouvara rite, for example, comprises the fulfillment of a pledge to prominent saints of Sinai, such as Saint Catherine, Saint George, and the Holy Arbain, who are the Holy Forty Fathers of Sinai whose dependency lies in the wadi Arbain.

The permanent employees of the monastery, of which about twenty are working inside the monastery, and twenty more serve as gafir, i.e. “guardians” in kathismata and gardens, are also members of the Gebelia tribe. Day la- borers number around twenty-five on a daily basis. Apart from the relatively standard rates that they are paid, and the insurance benefits they are offered, they are also provided with a daily food allowance. They also stand to receive various donations, “blessings,” from monks and pilgrims.

From the eighth to the middle of the twentieth century (that saw the introduction of automobiles in Sinai), the transportation of provisions for the monastery was either made from Suez or from Cairo on a ten day trip by camel caravan. Through the centuries, a special transport system was developed, in which all the tribes, even those that were further away from the monastery, would participate, thus benefiting from the collection of transport fees.

One after the other, those tribes would pass on provisions, while all tribes rotated the right to provide armed security services for the provisions, and primarily foodstuffs. It is not uncommon to hear Bedouins speak more about their rights, and much less about their obligation towards the monastery, especially given the fact that it was customary for provisions to reach the monastery somewhat “diminished.” Isn’t that what still happens in our days?

From the nineteenth century, provisions for the monastery used to be bought from the city of Suez. Then they were loaded on the steamboat Aida for a twenty-four hour journey by sea to the port of ancient Raithou, the present El-Tor, where the monastery maintained dependencies with a staff of both monks and Bedouin, and adequate storage facilities.

In Raithou, the provisions used to be loaded onto camels of the monastery of Sinai, driven by Bedouin employees and accompanied by a single monk. The route through the picturesque Isli valley lasted three days. It’s worth mentioning that, among perishable goods, sometimes fish was sent to Sinai, which had to be lightly pre-fried and salted.

The development of such benevolent relationships between the monastery and the Bedouin is undoubtedly an arrangement that is quite unlikely. The proper and discreet love of the monks towards them always succeeded wonderfully in balancing and offsetting any natural reactions that might have arisen due to the differences in religion, mentality, and culture. A perhaps extreme case of this mutual tolerance might also be the existence of a small mosque within the monastery, formed by the conversion of the old refectory during a particularly harsh historical period, in the eleventh or twelfth century.

It is, hence, not a paradox to observe Bedouin also offer moral and other support to the fathers of the monastery in times of need. I must mention here in particular the event of a serious earthquake that struck the area in the Middle Ages, causing the major collapse of the northern wall of the monastery. In our time, the incident of a great fire of the year 1971 would have had tragic consequences, if the Bedouins had not readily helped to put it out, together with the few Israeli soldiers who held the region during that time.

If I were to recount all such events, they would greatly exceed the length of any article. Fortunately, the archives of the Monastery hold the records of many more such events. I have personally been in the mon- astery of Sinai during the last fifty-eight years. Even though I have been living in direct contact with the Bedouin, who have undoubtedly been the people of both the desert and of good will, and at the same time companions of the monastery and even somehow a substantial part of our archbishopric’s spiritual flock, yet I have not yet had the chance to know all of them. AD