One of the most sacred places in the world is being transformed into mega-resort

For years, visitors would venture Mont Sinai with a Bedouin guide to look at the sunrise on the virgin and rocky landscape or do other hikes led by Bedouins.

Now, one of the most sacred places in Egypt – venerated by Jews, Christians and Muslims – is at the heart of an impious row on the plans to transform it into a new tourist mega -project.

Known locally as Jabal Musa, Mount Sinai is where Moses would have received the ten commandments. Many also believe that this is the place where, according to the Bible and the Koran, God spoke to the prophet of the bush on fire.

The 6th century St Catherine monastery, led by the Greek Orthodox church, is also there – and apparently its monks will now remain that the Egyptian authorities, under Greek pressure, have denied wanting to close it.

However, there is still a profound concern about how the location of the desert for a long time has been – a UNESCO World Heritage Site including the monastery, the city and the mountain – is being transformed. Luxury hotels, villas and bazaars of shopping are under construction.

It also houses a traditional Bedouin community, the Jebeleya tribe. Already, the tribe, known as the Guardians of St Catherine, had their houses and their tourist ecotamps demolished with little or no compensation. They were even forced to get bodies out of their graves in the local cemetery to make room for a new parking lot.

The project may have been presented as desperately necessary sustainable development which will stimulate tourism, but it was also imposed on the Bedouin against their will, explains Ben Hoffler, a British travel writer who worked in close collaboration with the Sinai tribes.

“It is not a development because the Jebeleya see it or request it, but what it looks like when imposed from top to bottom to serve the interests of foreigners on those of the local community,” he told the BBC.

“A new urban world is under construction around a Bedouin tribe of nomadic inheritance,” he added. “It is a world which they have always chosen to remain detached, to the construction of whom they have not consented, and which will change their place in their homeland forever.”

The inhabitants, who have around 4,000, do not want to talk directly about the changes.

Until now, Greece is the foreign power that has the most vocal on the Egyptian levels, due to its connection with the monastery.

The tensions between Athens and Cairo broke out after an Egyptian court ruled in May that St Catherine – the oldest Christian monastery permanently in the world – is found on the lands of the state.

After a dispute of several decades, the judges said that the monastery had only “the right to use” the land on which it is and the archaeological religious sites which dot its environment.

Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens, church of the church of Greece, was quick to denounce the decision.

“The property of the monastery is seized and expropriated. This spiritual lighthouse of orthodoxy and Hellenism is now confronted with an existential threat,” he said in a statement.

In a rare interview, the longtime arch of Catherine, Damianos, told a Greek newspaper that the decision was a “serious blow for us … and a shame”. His management of the case led to bitter divisions between the monks and his recent decision to resign.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem stressed that the sacred site – on which it has ecclesiastical jurisdiction – had obtained a letter of protection by the prophet Muhammad himself.

He said that the Byzantine monastery – which also houses a small mosque built in the Fatimid era – was “an obstacle of peace between Christians and Muslims and a refuge of hope for a world embedded by the conflict”.

While the controversial decision of the Court remains in place, a wave of diplomacy finally culminated in a joint declaration between Greece and Egypt ensuring the protection of the Greek Orthodox identity of Sainte-Catherine and the cultural heritage.

Egypt began its large transfiguration project sponsored by the state for tourists in 2021. The plan includes opening hotels, ecot-lodges and a large reception center, as well as extending the small neighboring airport and a cable car for Mont Moses.

The government promotes development as “donation from Egypt to the whole world and to all religions”.

“The project will provide all tourism and recreational services for visitors, promoted the development of the city (of Saint-Catherine) and its surrounding areas while preserving the environmental, visual and heritage nature of virgin nature, and offer accommodation for those working on St Catherine projects,” said the Minister of Housing, Sherif El-Sherbiny, last year.

Although the work seems to have blocked, at least temporarily, due to funding problems, the El -Raha plain – given the St Catherine monastery – has already been transformed. Construction continues on new roads.

This is where the followers of Moses, the Israelites, would have waited during his stay on Mount Sinai. And criticisms say that the natural characteristics of the region are in the process of destroying.

Detailing the exceptional universal value of the site, UNESCO notes how “the rugged mountainous landscape around … forms a perfect backdrop for the monastery”.

He says: “His location demonstrates a deliberate attempt to establish an intimate link between natural beauty and distance from the one hand and human spiritual commitment on the other.”

In 2023, UNESCO underlined its concerns and called on Egypt to stop developments, verify their impact and produce a conservation plan.

It did not happen.

In July, World Heritage Watch sent an open letter calling for the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to place the St Catherine area on the list of World Heritage Sites.

Activists also approached King Charles as a boss of the St Catherine Foundation, which collects funds to help preserve and study the inheritance of the monastery with his collection of precious ancient Christian manuscripts. The king described the site as “a great spiritual treasure which should be maintained for future generations”.

The mega-project is not the first in Egypt to arouse a lack of sensitivity to the unique history of the country.

But the government considers its series of grandiose regimes as essential to invigorate the trigger economy.

The formerly falsified tourism sector of Egypt had started to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic when it was struck by the brutal war in Gaza and a new wave of regional instability. The government has declared the objective of reaching 30 million visitors by 2028.

Under successive Egyptian governments, the Sinai commercial development was carried out without consulting the Aboriginal Bedouin communities.

The peninsula was captured by Israel during the Middle East war in 1967 and only returned to Egypt after the two countries signed a peace treaty in 1979. The Bedouins have since complained to be treated as second-class citizens.

The construction of popular Egyptian Red Sea destinations, including Sharm El-Sheikh, began in the south of Sinai in the 1980s. Many see similarities with what is happening at St Catherine now.

“The Bedouins were the people of the region, and they were the guides, the workers, the people to rent,” said Egyptian journalist Mohannad Sabry.

“Then, industrial tourism entered and they were pushed – not only pushed out of the business, but physically pushed the sea in the background.”

As with the locations of the Red Sea, it is expected that the Egyptians moreover in the country be brought to work on the development of the new Saint-Catherine. However, the government says that these are also Bedouin residential areas “improves”.

The monastery of St Catherine endured numerous upheavals during the last and a half millennium, but, when the oldest of the monks on the site initially moved there, it was always a distant retirement.

It started to change when the expansion of the Red Sea stations brought thousands of pilgrims during one day excursions during rush hour.

In recent years, large crowds have often been seen exceeding what would be the remains of the bush on fire or visit a museum displaying pages of the Sinaiticus codex – the oldest surviving, almost complete and handwritten copy of the New Testament.

Now, even if the monastery and the deep religious meaning of the site will remain, its environment and its lifestyles of several centuries seem irreversibly modified.