Geographers study places, and the geographer Joseph Hobbs has studied a place that holdssanctity in the three monotheistic religions, has been caretaken by Greek orthodox monks in theEgyptian wilderness, is replete with a microscopic landscape of holiness, and is now subjected tothousands of tourists each year. Mount Sinai, the Jebel Musa of the southern massif of thepeninsula, has attracted hermits, ascetics, and pilgrims since the earliest generations ofChristianity. Hobbs's story is a disquisition on Mount Sinai, which is, above and beyond itsdramatic physical setting and curious human characteristics, a place of no small spiritualdimensions.