The library of St. Catherine Monastery
Minister of Local Development Dr. Hisham El-Sherif inaugurated the first phase of restoration of the library of St. Catherine Monastery and its facade, and the restoration of a mosaic of the main church in the monastery. The ceremony was attended by Major General Khaled Fouda, Governor of South Sinai. .
The Library of St. Catherine's Monastery is the second largest in the world after the Library of the Vatican, in terms of the importance of its manuscripts. It is the embodiment of the historical life of the dialogue of religions, languages and civilizations. It contains 6,000 manuscripts, in addition to a thousand modern books in 13 languages representing 13 cultures and civilizations. Georgian, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopian, Slavic, Amharic, Armenian, English, French and Polish, including religion, history, geography and philosophy. "
The library contains about 3200 manuscripts, and the most important collection of the library is the Syriac Gospel and the Prophetic Document. The Syriac Bible . The manuscript is composed of two layers in writing or more. The first is the erased and oldest writing. A later history, the Bible manuscript of slavery, is the skin of goats or gazelle, dating back to the eighth or ninth century AD, and the oldest text dates back to the period between the fifth and sixth centuries AD.
As for the Prophet's document, it is the Prophet's Covenant from the Prophet Muhammad to the Christians who believe in their lives, money and churches, preserved in the library of the monastery, after Sultan Selim I took the original version in 1517 and carried it to Istana and left the monks of the monastery a certified copy of this The covenant with its translation into Turkish.