The author links an 8th-century BCE man-made platform found at a Catholic convent on a hill identified with biblical Kiriath-Jearim (Kiryat Ye’arim / Deir el-ʿAzar, by Abu Ghosh) to traditions of the Ark of the Covenant. The Hebrew Bible says the Ark stayed there about 20 years before David took it to Jerusalem (1 Chronicles 13).

The same Ark is read through the Qur’an as Tabut / Sakina (al-Baqara 2:248; also at-Taubah and al-Fath), and through Tafsir Uthmani as a chest of prophetic relics carried in war. The convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition sits on French-protected church land; the Arabic toponym is tied to Eleazar, Aaron’s successor.

The author does not treat the platform as proven to be the shrine. After the dig, the nuns may face tourism pressure. The piece proposes a shared Catholic–Islamic–Jewish Sakina/Shekinah institute of peace instead, citing Qur’an 2:177 and 5:8 and Isaiah 19:23–25.

A massive 8th century BCE man-made platform discovered at a Catholic convent in central Israel, may be an ancient shrine for the Ark of the Covenant, which is referred to three times in the Qur’an. In the Qur’an the actual Ark wherein the Covenant was found, is called ‘Tabut’ and the Covenant itself  is called ‘Sakina’, [Shekinah in Hebrew], so it is also called Tabut Sakina (the Ark of the Covenant) in (al-Baqara, v.248) and Sakina simply in (at-Taubah v. 26, 40) and (al-Fath, v.26).  

The Quran states, “And their Prophet [Samuel] said to them [the Children of Israel]: “A Sign of his [Saul/Talut]........

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