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Mount Sinai

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For other places named Mount Sinai, see: Mount Sinai (disambiguation)

View from the summit of Mount Sinai

Sinai Peninsula, showing location of Jabal Musa

Mount Sinai (Arabic: جبل موسى), also known as Mount Horeb, Mount Musa, Gebel Musa or Jabal Musa ("Moses' Mountain") by the Bedouins, is the name of a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula. At 2,285 metres high, it is the second highest mountain in the Sinai, after Mount St. Catherine,^[1] and is in a mountain range in the southern part of the peninsula. It is near a protruding lower bluff known as Ras Sasafeh (Sufsafeh), and rises almost perpendicularly from the plain. The Monastery of St. Catherine is sited at the foot of the mountain, at an elevation of around 1,200m. There are two principal routes to the summit, only one of which may be ascended at night. By the longer and less steep track known as Siket El Bashait, is possible to ascend either on foot or by camel hired from the Bedouin along the way - approximate time on foot two and a half hours. The steep, more direct route (Siket Sayidna Musa) ascends the 3,750 "steps of penitence" directly up the ravine behind the monastery and may not be ascended by night.^[2] The summit of the mountain has a mosque and a Greek Orthodox chapel (which was constructed in 1934 on the ruins of a 16th century church) neither of which are open to the public. The chapel supposedly encloses the rock from which God made the Tablets of the Law. ^[3] At the summit also is "Moses' cave" where Moses is supposed to have waited to receive the Ten Commandments.