Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

A major discovery in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) confirms Christianity was flourishing in the country before the invention of Islam.

Archaeologists, led by Maria Magdalena Gajewska, made the breakthrough confirmation, calling it an “extremely exciting find”.

What they unearthed was a 7th-century cross located on an island southwest of Abu Dhabi, known as Sir Bani Yas.

Gajewska, a Polish archaeologist working for the UAE’s Islamic Department of Culture and Tourism, located the cross in February, within an area that authorities had long suspected was a Christian monastery.

The site’s ruins were discovered in 1992 during a government archaeological survey.

Gajewska’s cross now cements that theory.

Made of gypsum rock (building plaster) indigenous to the area, the cross appears to be carved, and measures 27cm long, 17cm wide and 2cm thick.

Five crosses sit inside five circles. Four rest on each point of the main cross, and one sits in the centre. Flowers reach up from its base, and a stepped pyramid appears at the bottom, representing Golgotha.

Gajewska said the cross also had a “distinct fingerprint on the back”.

“The cross, flowers, and pyramid set within a niche all find regional parallels in the Gulf and Mesopotamia,” she told The National, UAE’s public broadcaster.

“We were just digging in the right place,” Gajewska explained.

“So much of what we do is interpretation and sometimes bordering on guesswork, frankly, and this was just lying there telling us, yes, they were Christian.”

“We had settlements of Christians that were not just existing but were clearly flourishing,” she added.

Plan to Return

Talking about the state of Sir Bani Yas Island’s monastery ruins, the Polish archaeologist said they “were in surprisingly good condition.”

The quality of the ruins, Gajewska speculated, could indicate that Christians voluntarily left the site, hoping to return in the future.

Her team has yet to find any evidence of forced removal or open conflict to explain why the monastery was abandoned.

Climate, the environment, and the island’s geography were ruled out as reasons for the apparent apocalypse.

Although the UAE’s hot summers would have made living on the island a challenge, Gajewska said the buildings were “extremely well made.”

They all “feature thick walls to tackle the heat and cisterns for water”.

The team also believes residents may have farmed cattle, sheep, goats, and seafood.

Given its location to trade routes, the monastery may also have benefited from its closeness to the vibrant “trade network”, which connected Europe with China.

As for why Christians left the area, all archaeologists have for now are theories.

The running favourite is schism and a fragmentation of the community “before Islam arrived”.

New Narrative

The monastery’s demise, aligning with the invention and eventual invasion of Islam, was downplayed.

Instead, UAE authorities declared that the monastery’s confirmation is proof that Islam was good for Christianity.

Christians, the Islamic archaeologists asserted, clearly “flourished” under Islamic rule.

The cross, they claimed in an official August 19 government press release, was proof “Christians and Muslims co-existed until the eighth century” AD — up until “the Sir Bani Yas monastery was peacefully abandoned.”

In other words, Christians simply gave up and walked away.

Gajewska’s find, they further claimed, “reinforced the UAE’s legacy of coexistence, peace, and tolerance.”

Unfortunately, Gajewska’s amazing discovery is marred by censorship, contradictions, and plain old propaganda.

Particularly “coexistence” and the UAE’s claims to be a paragon of Islamic tolerance.

First, define coexistence.

Landing between Indonesia and Sri Lanka, the UAE ranked 60th in the Open Doors World Watch on Christian persecution.

While it’s true the UAE is more tolerant of Christians than other Islamic countries, it can hardly be argued that Islam and Christianity peacefully coexist.

The UAE outlaws the Great Commission. Evangelising and conversion from Islam are crimes, and churches are not allowed to publicly display crosses.

Churches within the country, Open Doors clarified, “have to be careful in their contact with the Muslim population.”

Christians are expected to “self-censor, because anything which could be construed as proselytising Muslims is strictly prohibited.”

Despite the country’s 1.2 million Christians making up 12.9% of the population, the majority are foreign-born, and ex-Muslim expats face either abuse or bullying.

Indigenous Faith

Unsurprisingly, most major news outlets in the West ignored due diligence.

They disregarded these contradictions and repeated the UAE’s Islamic coexistence narrative verbatim.

This isn’t to say the UAE isn’t trying.

To the government’s credit, they funded the dig, designated the area as a nature reserve, and are treating the Christian site with respect.

They’re also celebrating the find as much as Christians are, even if for completely different reasons.

Another positive? The UAE plans to open the monastery ruins to tourists.

Marking the significance of Gajewska’s find, persecuted Church advocates Christian Emergency Alliance rightly stated,

“The Middle East is Christianity’s native soil.”

The major discovery is “just another reminder that the Christian faith is neither alien to the region nor a western colonial project.”

___

Image courtesy of Adobe.