Kafr Sabt
Kafr Sabt
كفر سبت Kafar Sabt | |
---|---|
Village | |
Etymology: "Village of Sabbath"[1] | |
Kafr Sabt (
Location, geography
Kafr Sabt was set near the eastern margin of a large plateau, just south of the ancient main road linking the coastal city of Acre with the Jordan Valley and Transjordan.[6] The road descends from the village to the Jordan Valley deep below by following Wadi Fidjdjas, a valley offering the least steep route available. Kafr Sabt benefited of the large springs from Wadi Fidjdjas.[6]
History
Roman period
During the Roman period, Kafr Sabt was known as Kafar Shabtay,[7] meaning "village of Sabbath".[8] It is mentioned in Genesis Rabbah, a midrash written between 300 and 500 CE: "Beth Ma'on, they ascend to it from Tiberias, but they go down to it from Kefar Shobtai."[9][10]
Early Muslim period
Crusader/Ayubid period
Crusader "Cafarsset"
The Crusaders called it "Cafarsset" when they conquered the Levant in the twelfth century.[7] The village belonged to the Latin abbey of Mount Tabor and one of the abbey's turcopoles originated from Cafarsset.[6]
In 1187,
Ayyubid rule
Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi passed through the village in the thirteenth century while Kafr Sabt was in Ayyubid hands.[7]
Ottoman period
Kafr Sabt was incorporated into the
A map from Napoleon's invasion of 1799 by Pierre Jacotin showed the place, named as K. el Sett.[18]
Victor Guérin visited in 1875, and noted: "Near a spring, inclosed in a small circular basin, the soil is covered with the confused debris of many overthrown houses; some still standing are inhabited. Here and there are scattered cisterns cut in the rock. On the highest point of the hill, formerly occupied by the ancient town, are observed the remains of a strong edifice built of cut stones, which seems to have been put up for military purposes; it formed a quadrilateral forty paces long. Beside a mosque may be remarked two broken capitals in debased Corinthian, as well as several columns belonging probably to an ancient church, now completely destroyed."[19]
In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described it as a stone-built village with 300 inhabitants.[20]
A population list from about 1887 showed Kefr Sabt to have about 410 inhabitants; all Muslims.[21]
British Mandate period
Under the British Mandate of Palestine from 1922 to 1948, Kafr Sabt housed members of the Bedouin tribe of 'Arab al-Mashariqa who lived in tents.[7] The village residents were described as migrants from Algeria.[22]
In the 1922 census of Palestine, the population of Kufr Sabt was 247; all Muslims,[23] increasing in the 1931 census to 340; still all Muslims, in a total of 71 houses.[24]
Agriculture was the main economic sector with the primary crops being grain and fruit orchards.[7] In the 1945 statistics, the population reached 480 Muslims,[2][3][25] and the total land area owned by Arabs was 4,295 dunams.[3] Of this, 7 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 4,258 for cereals,[26] while 30 dunams were built-up land.[27]
1948 and aftermath
During the
Piles of stone and stone terraces provide the main indications that the village once occupied the site. Cactuses and a few scattered trees grow among the rubble on the village site. The lands around the site are planted in grain, fruit trees, and almond trees.[7]
References
- ^ Palmer, 1881, p. 127
- ^ a b Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 12
- ^ a b c d Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 72
- ^ Morris, 2004, p. xvii, village #101. Also gives the cause of depopulation
- ^ Morris, 2004, p. xxii, settlement #179, 1949
- ^ a b c Benjamin Z. Kedar (1992). The Battle of Hattin Revisited. Jerusalem and London: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi / Israel Exploration Society and Variorum. p. 193.
{{cite book}}
:|work=
ignored (help) - ^ a b c d e f g Khalidi, 1992, p.526.
- ^ Palmer, 1881, p. 127
- ^ Klein, S. (1939), p. 16
- ^ Neubauer, A. (1868), p. 218
- al-Muqaddasi quoted in le Strange, 1890, p.471.
- ^ al-Muqaddasi quoted in Dabbagh, p.647. Cited in Khalidi, 1992, p.526.
- ^ Lyons, 1984, p. 256
- ^ Lyons, 1984, p. 257
- ^ Lyons, 1984, p. 259.
- ^ Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 188. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 526
- ^ Note that Rhode, 1979, p. 6 Archived 2019-04-20 at the Wayback Machine writes that the register that Hütteroth and Abdulfattah studied was not from 1595/6, but from 1548/9
- ^ Karmon, 1960, p. 166 Archived 2019-12-22 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Guérin, 1880, pp. 266-7; as given in Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. 394.
- ^ Conder and Kitchener, 1881, SWP I, p. 360. Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 526
- ^ Schumacher, 1888, p. 186
- S2CID 218992025.
as noted, the British surveyors described them as Algerian migrants
- ^ Barron, 1923, Table IX, Sub-district of Tiberias, p. 39
- ^ Mills, 1932, p. 84
- ^ Village Statistics April 1945, The Palestine Government, p. 7 Archived 2012-06-09 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 122
- ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 172
Bibliography
- Barron, J. B., ed. (1923). Palestine: Report and General Abstracts of the Census of 1922. Government of Palestine.
- Conder, C.R.; Kitchener, H.H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, and Archaeology. Vol. 1. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. (p. 367)
- Department of Statistics (1945). Village Statistics, April, 1945. Government of Palestine.
- Guérin, V. (1880). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). Vol. 3: Galilee, pt. 1. Paris: L'Imprimerie Nationale.
- Hadawi, S. (1970). Village Statistics of 1945: A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine. Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center.
- Hütteroth, Wolf-Dieter; Abdulfattah, Kamal (1977). Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century. Erlanger Geographische Arbeiten, Sonderband 5. Erlangen, Germany: Vorstand der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft. ISBN 3-920405-41-2.
- Karmon, Y. (1960). "An Analysis of Jacotin's Map of Palestine" (PDF). Israel Exploration Journal. 10 (3, 4): 155–173, 244–253. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-12-22. Retrieved 2015-04-20.
- ISBN 0-88728-224-5.
- Lyons, Malcolm Cameron (1984). Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-31739-9.
- Mills, E., ed. (1932). Census of Palestine 1931. Population of Villages, Towns and Administrative Areas. Jerusalem: Government of Palestine.
- ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6.
- Palmer, E.H. (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey by Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R. E. Transliterated and Explained by E.H. Palmer. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
- Rhode, H. (1979). Administration and Population of the Sancak of Safed in the Sixteenth Century. Columbia University. Archived from the original on 2020-03-01. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
- Schumacher, G. (1888). "Population list of the Liwa of Akka". Quarterly Statement - Palestine Exploration Fund. 20: 169–191.
- Strange, le, G. (1890). Palestine Under the Moslems: A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 to 1500. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
External links
- Welcome to Kafr Sabt
- Kafr Sabt, Zochrot
- Survey of Western Palestine, Map 6: IAA, Wikimedia commons
- Kafr Sabat, from Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center