According to tradition, Shem'un had a dream in which an Angel commanded him to build a House of Prayer in a location marked with three large stone blocks.

[6] The monastery is an important center for the Syriac-Orthodox Christians of Tur Abdin with around fifteen nuns and two monks occupying separate wings, as well as a fluctuating number of local lay workers and guests from overseas.

Dayro d-Mor Gabriel is a working community set amongst gardens and orchards, and somewhat disfigured by 1960s residential accommodation.

The monastery's primary purpose is to keep Syriac Orthodox Christianity alive in the land of its birth by providing schooling, ordination of native-born monks.

Between 2008 and 2018, the monastery was involved in a land dispute with the Turkish government and Kurdish village leaders, particularly those linked to the Çelebi tribe,[7] backed by local representatives of the ruling Justice and Development Party.

[8] In 2008 the villages of Eğlence, Çandarlı and Yayvantepe as well as the Turkish Land Registry and the Forestry Ministry filed legal proceeding disputing the territory of the monastery.

[12] Then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced on 30 September 2013 that the land would be returned to the Syriac community in Turkey.

[14] A news report in June 2018 stated that the Turkish Parliament had passed an omnibus bill which was then signed into law by the president to return historic Syriac properties.