Koreans worshipping God at the summit of Mount Sinai

A group of Koreans Christians sang the hymn How Great Thou Art at the summit of Mount Sinai. It's the place where Moses received the 10 commandments from God.

Text and Photo: Mikael Good

Before sunrise at Mount Sinai

Mount Sinai was the place where Moses received the ten commandments from God. This is the view he had in the mornings when he woke up. I don't usually do sunsets or take photos in colour. But I couldn't resist to capture the magnificent colours that I saw from the top of the mountain just before sunrise.

Text and Photo: Mikael Good

Moses ancestors came from Eastern Europe

The name of the young bedouin is Moses. I met him when he guided me to the top of Mount Sinai (Horeb) in Sinai, Egypt. His main occupation is to guide tourist to the top. Moses belongs to the Jebeliya Bedouin tribe (The People of the Mountains) who lives in the surroundings of St. Catherine Monastery. According to the Jebeliya they are of Romanian and Greece origin and they were brought to Sinai by the Byzantine emperor Justinian to build, protect and serve at the Monastery that was finished in 565 AD. 

There are 34 different Bedouin tribes in Sinai. 33 of them immigrated from the Arabian peninsula between the 14th and 18th centuries. Every tribe on the Sinia Peninsula has it own special dialect which differentiates them from the other tribes. There are around 300 000 bedouins on the Sinai peninsula and 4600 of them belongs to the Jebeliya tribe. During the centuries the Jebeliya tribe intermarried with Arab Bedouins and became Muslims. They have since long lost most of their old traditions and their life is now quite similar to other Bedouins in the area. But they are aware of their origin and has kept some unique features.

Text and Photo: Mikael Good

Bedouin at the summit of Mount Sinai

Saint Catherine's Monastery and mount Sinai (Horeb) are located in an area of the Sinai peninsula which is controlled by a terrorist organization that has close bonds with the Islamic state (IS). Today tourists are strongly recommended to stay out of the area since the Egyptian regime can't guarantee for their security. There's a immediate risk of being kidnapped or even worse. There's been a drastic drop of tourist in the area during the last years. Bedouins and native Egyptians that was dependent on tourism to get an income has lost that possibility. They now have to struggle hard to provide for their children.

Text and Photo: Mikael Good

Sharpness is a bourgeois concept

A Bedouin guide and me (I'm the man to the right) from my trip to Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. A retired Norwegian journalist who could not handle a range-finder camera took the picture and therefore it is not utterly sharp. But on the other hand is sharpness a bourgeois concept according to Henri Cartier-Bresson and the picture still serves as a good memory for my trip into the vaste hills of the Sinia Peninsula.

Text and photo: Mikael Good