Christian monasteries may predate Islam found in UAE

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SINIA, United Arab Emirates — An ancient Christian monastery has been discovered on an island off the coast of the United Arab Emirates that may date back to years before Islam spread across the Arabian peninsula, officials announced Thursday.

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The monastery on Siniyah Island, part of the Umm al-Quwain dune emirate, sheds new light on the history of early Christianity on the Persian Gulf coast. It marks the second such monastery to be found in the UAE, dating back 1,400 years – long before its vast desert nurtured a thriving oil industry that led to a united nation becoming the high-rises of Abu Dhabi and Dubai .

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The two monasteries disappeared into history over time, as scholars believe that Christians slowly converted to Islam as the belief became more common in the region.

Today, Christians remain a minority across the Middle East, despite Pope Francis arriving in nearby Bahrain on Thursday to promote interfaith dialogue with Muslim leaders.

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For Timothy Ball, associate professor of archaeology at the University of the United Arab Emirates, who helped investigate the newly discovered monastery, the UAE today is a “melting pot of nations.”

“The fact that something similar happened here 1,000 years ago is remarkable, and it’s a story worth telling,” he said.

The monastery is located on the island of Sinha, which protects the Khor al-Beida marshes in Umm al-Quwain, the emirate about 50 kilometers northeast of Dubai, on the coast of the Persian Gulf. The island has a series of sandbars like crooked fingers. On the one hand, in the northeastern part of the island, archaeologists discovered the monastery.

Carbon dating dates for samples found on the monastery base ranged between 534 and 656. Islam’s prophet Muhammad was born around 570 and died in 632 after conquering Mecca in present-day Saudi Arabia.

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It’s a story worth telling

Timothy Power, Associate Professor of Archaeology

Viewed from above, the plan of the monastery on the Isle of Sinia shows early Christians praying in a single-aisle chapel in the monastery. The room inside appears to have a baptismal pool, as well as an oven for baking bread or crepes for the Eucharist ceremony. A nave may also have an altar and a communion wine device.

Next to the monastery is a second building with four rooms, probably surrounding a courtyard – possibly the home of an abbot or even a bishop of the early church.

The site was visited on Thursday by Noura bint Mohammed al-Kaabi, the country’s Minister of Culture and Youth, and Sheikh Majid bin Saud Al Mualla, the emirate’s son, Chairman of the Tourism and Archaeology Department of Umm al-Quwain. ruler.

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The island remains part of the ruling family’s estate, which has been protected over the years in order to discover historical sites.

The UAE Ministry of Culture partially sponsored the excavation, which is continuing on site. Just a few hundred meters from the church), a collection of buildings that archaeologists believe belonged to a pre-Islamic village.

Elsewhere on the island, piles of beaded clams tossed aside make up huge industrial-scale hills. There is also a nearby village that became part of the so-called armistice state of the UAE’s predecessor after the British bombed the area in 1820. The destruction of that village led to the creation of the modern Umm Al-Quwain mainland settlement.

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Historians say early churches and monasteries stretched along the Persian Gulf to what is today the coast of Oman, all the way to India. Archaeologists have found other similar churches and monasteries in Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

In the early 1990s, archaeologists discovered the UAE’s first Christian monastery on Sir Baniyas Island, which is now home to a nature reserve and luxury hotel off the coast of Abu Dhabi near the Saudi border. It also dates back to the same period as the new discovery in Umm al-Quwain.

However, Bauer said evidence of early life in the Khor al-Beida marshes at Umm al-Quwain dates back to the Neolithic period — suggesting the area is at least 10,000 years old.

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Today, the area around the Everglades is known for low-cost liquor stores at the Emirate’s Barracuda Beach Resort. In recent months, authorities have dismantled a hulking Soviet-era cargo plane linked to the Russian gunman dubbed the “Death Merchant” that was building a bridge to the island of Xenia for a development worth 6.75 billion dollar real estate.

The development spurred the archaeological work that uncovered the monastery, Ball said. He said the site and others would be fenced off and protected, although it was unclear what other secrets had been hidden in the past under a thin layer of sand on the island.

“It’s a very interesting discovery because in some ways it’s hidden history — it’s not something that’s widely known,” Ball said.