Saint Catherine's Monastery

Founded in 565 AD and never once abandoned since, Saint Catherine's holds the second-largest collection of early codices and icons in the world after the Vatican — including icons that survived the Byzantine iconoclasm because the monastery was already under Muslim protection and outside imperial reach.

The monks maintain a bramble in the courtyard as the Burning Bush. The library holds the Codex Sinaiticus fragments, and a mosque built inside the walls in the 11th century is one reason the site has never been attacked.

Built by order of the Emperor Justinian around the chapel Helena founded in 330 AD. The monastery holds a document said to be Muhammad's own charter of protection, which is why it has stood for fifteen centuries in Muslim territory.