The Monastery of Mar Musa al-Habashi

ARAMAIC WATCH: SANA profiles a Syriac monastery founded in the eleventh century:

Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi, Religious Tourist Destination

Sep 08, 2011

DAMASCUS COUNTRYSIDE, (SANA) – There, in a rugged valley within al-Qalamoun Mountains, stood the Monastery of Mar Musa al-Habashi as a witness on the Syriac civilization and a tourism destination for those who seek peace, contemplation, calmness and beauty.

According to local inhabitant Abdo Khenshat, the Monastery was named after St. Moses the Abyssinian, the son of a king of Ethiopia who left his country looking for the kingdom of God. He traveled to Egypt and then to the Holy Land in Palestine before he became a monk and lived in Qara, to the north of al-Nabk region in Damascus Countryside, and then as a hermit not far from there in the valley of what is today the monastery. He was martyred by Byzantine soldiers.

The Arabic inscriptions on the Monastery walls indicated that the church was built in the Islamic year 450 (1058 AD). In the fifteenth century the monastery was partly rebuilt and enlarged, he added.

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This is late for PaleoJudaica coverage, but two points are of interest. First, there is Syriac inscribed on the walls, and I like to keep track of such things:

Great icons and images covered the church walls such as the image of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the four evangelists are painted above the four columns looking upwards to copy a heavenly page with Syriac letters, ten virgins carrying lamps, in addition to images of Jesus Christ, Virgin Mary and John the Baptist.

Then there's this:

The monastery includes a huge library rich of Arabic, Syriac and religious books, manuscripts and rare heritage books.

Tell us more.

More SANA coverage of Syrian archaeological and antiquities sites is noted here with links.