The Priests Of The Great Convent Of Mount Sinai Being
Informed Of The Preparations Making In Egypt To Carry These
Orders into
execution, began immediately to build a mosque within their walls,
hoping that for its sake their house would
Be spared; it is said that
their project was successful and that ever since the mosque has been
kept in repair.
This tradition, however, is contradicted by some old Arabic records kept
by the prior, in which I read a circumstantial account how, in the year
of the Hedjra 783, some straggling Turkish Hadjis, who had been cut off
from the caravan, were brought by the Bedouins to the convent; and being
found to be well educated, and originally from upper Egypt, were
retained here, and a salary settled on them and their descendants, on
condition of their becoming the servants of the mosque. The conquest of
Egypt by Selim did not take place till A.H. 895. The mosque in the
convent of Sinai appears therefore to have existed long before the time
[p.544] of Selim. The descendants of these Hadjis, now poor Bedouins,
are called Retheny [Arabic], they still continue to be the servants of
the mosque, which they clean on Thursday evenings, and light the lamps;
one of them is called the Imam. The mosque is sometimes visited by
Moslim pilgrims, but it is only upon the occasion of the presence of
some Mussulman of consequence that the call to prayers is made from the
Minaret.
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