| OCR Text |
26 SHAR1A SHERIF PASHA CAIRO COM. RES. 47«6? Y 1 T t T" J *U; TEL. 76243 ( 3 LINK > ARAB NEWS AGENCY (^U r)' ^IIU« SATURDAY ' NIGHT BULLETIN DECEMBER 24,1949 Expedition to Mount Sinai - TO PHOTOGRAPH 3?000 BOOKS, 2,000 MS St Catherine's Monastery Treasures Will Throw Light on Islamic History Joint U.S.-Egyptian Effort CAIRO December 24 (A.N.A) - One outcome of a forthcoming expedition to Mount Sinai to obtain photographic copies of priceless ancient manuscripts there, will be to provide food for work for scholars throughout the world - for five centuries to come. The American Foundation for the Study of Man - a group of arcb.eological and geographical scientists - and Farouk 1 University have planned the expedition *hich is to the Monastery of St Catherine, in the Mount. There it is proposed to photograph 3?000 volumes and 2,000 rolls of manuscripts treasured at the Monastery. They are written in nine languages - Greek, Syrian, Coptic, Armenian, Slavohic, Russian, Arabic, Latin and *bys: ftian. They cover;the main branches of human knowledge ~ theology, history, geography, philosophy, philology. A.bove all they contain all the charters and firmans of the Caliphs and Sultans from the Fatimid period to the end of the Ottoman Empire. The members of the expedition are Abdel Hameed el~ ibbady Bey, Dean¥of the Faculty of trts, Farouk University: Dr Aziz Suryal fctiya, Professor of History of the Middle Ages in the same Faculty5 Professor Kenneth Clarke, of Duke University, U.S.* Mr Wallace Wade, of the Library of Congress, U.S.; and Mr William Terry, Vice-President of the American Foundation for the Study of Man. TTniaue Collection Dr ft.tiya told A.N..A.: "The unique collection treasured at St Catherines Monastery'will throw^a flood of light on many aspects of the history of the Islamic Empire across the ages. • "The Monastery authorities pride themselves on once having possessed a'covenant issued by the Prophet Mohammed himself. The original covenant was preserved in the Monastery until the Ottoman Sultan Selim 1 conquered Egypt in 1517. Among other treasures he took it to Istanbul and gave the Monastery a cortifled copy which the monks possess, at present, --.mm*™ >ne instance, however, may illustrate the immense value of this collection. The Codex Sinaiticus manuscript on parchment found its way to old St Petersburg where it was treasured by the Tzars of Russia until the Bolshevik revolution when this manuscript was sold to the British museum for £100,000 in gold, • • fSee 2/...Cont'd.) / -r* , . |
