More crimes by Muslims against our human heritage and in this case Wadi el-Natrun and Abu Mina in Egypt

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Jul 5, 2012 at 09:54

One less known chapter in the destruction of human heritage by the followers of Islam took place in Egypt starting after the Arab invasion of Egypt in 642CE

For those of you not familiar with the history of Egypt in the late antique period: Alexandria was not just the great center of education and trade and industry but it was also the place where Christianity was defined and debated and it had and still has some of the major Christian monastic sites in the whole world and they are located just west and south of the city you will find the Abd Mina (Saint Minas) monastery (it is a world heritage site now) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastery_of_Saint_Mina and Abu Mina was the patron saint of Alexandria and also in the area of Wadi el-Natrun you wil find four major monasteries and they are Anba Makarious (also Abu Makkar) monastery, Anba Bishoy monastery, el-Deir el-Syriani (the monastery of the Syians) and Deir el-Baramous http://www.ask-aladdin.com/wadi_el_natron.htm and for those of you intersted in reading more about Christianiy in Egypt I suggest reading Otto Meinardus' 2000 years of Coptic Christianity http://www.amazon.com/Two-Thousand-Years-Coptic-Christianity/dp/9774247574

In the late antique world and following the Arab invasion of Egypt thousands of pilgrims that headed to the holy land stopped in Alexandria in-order to visit St. Minas shrine but following the Arab invasion Arabs looted and sacked these sites and monasteries not just once but many times they burned books and stole valiable items and destroyed the buildings and killed the monks and then came back for more as the stubborn monks rebuilt following each attack and with all these atrocites the pilgrimage to such sites just vanished as who would want to be attacked by the Arabs or even worse abducted and sold into slavery

What is really a great crime here is that many manuscripts in Coptic and Greek and Syriac were destroyed and were lost to humanity for ever

This horrible destruction came to an end when Muhammad Ali came to power

But again this is an example that old civilizations cannot be conjured away and should not be conjured away

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