Christian monastery, possibly without- Islamic dating, found on an island off the UAE coast | World news
An ancient Christian monastery possibly dating as far back as years before Islam spread across the Arabian Peninsula has been discovered on an island off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, officials announced Thursday.
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The monastery on Siniyah Island, part of the sand-dune Sheikhdom of Umm al-Quwain, sheds new light on the history of early Christianity along the shores of the Persian Gulf. It is the second such monastery to be found in the Emirates, dating back as long as 1,400 years – long before its desert heat gave birth to a thriving oil industry that led to a united nation building to the the tallest building in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
The two monasteries have been lost to history in the sands of time as scholars believe that Christians slowly converted to Islam as that faith grew in the region.
Today, Christians are relatively few across the wider Middle East, although Pope Francis arrived in nearby Bahrain on Wednesday to promote interfaith dialogue with Muslim leaders.
For Timothy Power, an associate professor of archeology at the United Arab Emirates University who helped research the newly discovered monastery, the UAE today is a “melting pot of nations.”
“The fact that something similar was happening here 1,000 years ago is really amazing and this is a story that deserves to be told,” he said.
The monastery sits on Siniyah Island, which protects the wetlands of Khor al-Beida in Umm al-Quwain, an emirate about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north-east of Dubai on the coast of the Persian Gulf. . The island, whose name means “ray of light” probably because of the effect of the hot sun on it, has a series of sandbars coming out of it like twisted fingers. In one, to the northeast of the island, archaeologists discovered the monastery.
Carbon dating of samples found in the monastery’s foundation dates between 534 and 656. Islam’s Prophet Muhammad was born around 570 and died in 632 after conquering Mecca in modern Saudi Arabia.
Viewed from above, the monastery on the Siniyah Island plan suggests early Christian worshipers pray within the monastery’s one-way chapel. The rooms in between appear to hold a baptismal font, as well as an oven for baking bread or pans for communion rituals. It is possible that one way also carries an altar and uses mixed wine.
Next to the monastery sits a second house with four rooms, probably around a courtyard – possibly the house of the abbot or even the bishop in the main church.
On Thursday, the site saw a visit from Noura bint Mohammed al-Kaabi, minister of culture and youth of the country, and Sheikh Majid bin Saud Al Mualla, chairman of the Department of Tourism and Archeology Umm al-Quwain and the son of a ruler of the Emirate.
The island is part of the royal family’s possessions, land protection for years to allow historical sites to see how much of the UAE has developed rapidly.
The UAE Ministry of Culture has partially sponsored the show, which continues at the site. Just hundreds of meters (yards) away from the church, a group of buildings that archaeologists believe belonged to a pre-Islamic village sat.
Elsewhere on the island, large, factory-sized mounds of shards of pearl shards have been created. Nearby also sits a village that was colonized by the British in 1820 before the area became part of what was known as the Trucial States, the predecessor of the UAE. The destruction of that village made the creature that Umm al-Quwain lives today in the tropics.
Historians say that the first churches and monasteries spread across the Persian Gulf to the shores of modern-day Oman and all the way to India. Archaeologists have found similar churches and monasteries in Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
In the early 1990s, archaeologists discovered the first Christian monastery in the UAE, on Sir Bani Yas Island, today a nature reserve and site of luxury hotels on the coast of Abu Dhabi, near the Saudi border. It also goes back to the same time as the new arrival in Umm al-Quwain.
However, evidence of early life along the Khor al-Beida drylands in Umm al-Quwain dates back as far as the Neolithic period – suggesting continuous human habitation in the area for at least 10,000 years, Power said.
Today, the area near the marshland area is better known for the small liquor store at the Emirate’s Barracuda Beach Resort. In recent months, authorities have demolished a hulking, Soviet-era cargo plane linked to a Russian bomber known as the “Death Trader” as it builds a bridge to Siniyah Island for nuclear development. -a $675 million real estate.
Power said the development spurred the excavation that discovered the monastery. That site and others will be fortified and protected, he said, although he is unclear what other ancient secrets are hidden beneath the thin layer of sand on the island.
“It’s a really fascinating discovery because in some ways it’s a hidden history – it’s not something that’s widely known,” Power said.
