Jabal Amil

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The village of Khiam, near the city of Nabatieh in the Jabal Amil region

Jabal Amil (

Twelver Shia Muslim inhabitants. Its precise boundaries vary, but it is generally defined as the mostly highland region on either side of the Litani River, between the Mediterranean Sea in the west and the Wadi al-Taym, Beqaa and Hula
valleys in the east.

According to local legend, the

Shia community in Jabal Amil is one of the oldest in history, second only to the Shia community of Medina, and were converted to Islam by Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and an early supporter of Ali. Although there is frequent occurrence of this account in many religious sources, it is largely dismissed in academia, and historical sources suggest Shia Islam largely developed in Jabal Amil between the mid-8th and 10th centuries (750–900).[1][2][3][4][5]

Name

The region derives its name from the

Ghassanid client kings of Byzantium and that moved into the region and neighboring Galilee after the 7th-century Muslim conquests. Although speculative, Twelver Shia tradition in southern Lebanon credits the Amila as the progenitors of the community, by having sided with the faction of Ali in the mid-7th century.[6]

Geographic definition

Early Muslim geographers' descriptions

The 10th-century

Qadas, was known as 'Jabal Siddiqa' after a holy person's tomb in the district that was visited annually by throngs of local pilgrims and Muslim officials.[10] Qadas is also mentioned by him as belonging to Jabal Amila.[11]

The

Shaqif Arnun fortress (Beaufort Castle).[10]

Modern definition

According to the historian Tamara Chalabi, defining Jabal Amil is "difficult" as the region was not generally recognized as a distinct geographic or political entity.

Bilad Bishara.[15]

According to the scholar Chibli Mallat, while the traditional definition of Jabal Amil includes the cities of Sidon and Jezzine, other, more limited definitions exclude them, defining them as separate areas. The traditional definition also includes parts of modern Israel, including the former villages of al-Bassa and al-Khalisa, and the villages of Tarbikha, Qadas, Hunin, al-Nabi Yusha', and Saliha, whose inhabitants had been Twelver Shia before their depopulation in the 1948 Palestine war.[16] In the definition of Lebanon specialist Elisabeth Picard, the northern boundary of Jabal Amil is formed by the Zahrani River, south of Sidon.[17] The historian William Harris defines it as the hills south of the Litani, which "grade into the Upper Galilee".[18] According to Stefan Winter, Jabal Amil is traditionally defined as the predominantly Twelver Shia-populated, highland region southeast of Sidon.[19] A prominent native scholar of Jabal Amil, Suleiman Dahir, defined it in 1930 as a much larger area, encompassing Jezzine in the Chouf, Baalbek in the northern Beqaa, and the Hula.[15]

History

Further information: Lebanese Shia Muslims

Notable residents

References

  1. ISBN 9786144271254
    .
  2. ISBN 9781780765648
    .
  3. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.1999.tb03666.x
    .
  4. ^ Al-Muhajir, Jaafar (1992). The Foundation of the History of the Shiites in Lebanon and Syria: The First Scholarly Study on the History of Shiites in the Region (in Arabic). Beirut: Dar al-Malak.
  5. ^ Sabrina Mervin (20 July 2005). "SHIʿITES IN LEBANON". ENCYCLOPAEDIA IRANICA. Retrieved 22 November 2014.
  6. ^ Harris 2012, pp. 32–33, 35.
  7. ^ Strange, le 1890, p. 75.
  8. ^ Strange, le 1890, p. 20.
  9. ^ Strange, le 1890, p. 383.
  10. ^ a b Strange, le 1890, p. 76.
  11. ^ Strange, le 1890, p. 468.
  12. ^ Strange, le 1890, pp. 75–76.
  13. ^ a b c d Chalabi 2006, p. 16.
  14. ^ a b Booth 2021, pp. 34–35.
  15. ^ a b Chalabi 2006, p. 12.
  16. ^ Mallat 1988, p. 1.
  17. ^ Picard 1993, p. 4.
  18. ^ Harris 2012, p. 9.
  19. ^ Winter 2010, p. 117.

Bibliography

Further reading
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