Sharafat, East Jerusalem

Coordinates: 31°44′35″N 35°11′39″E / 31.74306°N 35.19417°E / 31.74306; 35.19417
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The old part of Sharafat village

Sharafat (

Arabic: شرفات[1]) is a Palestinian Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem,[2][3] located within approximately 5 km to the south west of the Old City of Jerusalem.[4][5] It is situated close to the Palestinian town of Beit Safafa and near the Israeli settlement of Gilo in the southern portion of East Jerusalem.[6]

Sharafat is later mentioned in chronicles from the 13th and 15th centuries,

awliya (Muslim saints) to whom the village was dedicated as a waqf (Islamic trust) by the viceroy of Damascus
in the 14th century, and whose family tombs continue to be venerated to this day.

After the

Palestinian Authority (PA), established pursuant to 1993 Oslo Accords, considers Sharafat a part of its Jerusalem Governorate.[8] In 2002, the population was made up of 978 Palestinians.[3]

Geography

Map of Palestinian Arab localities and Israeli settlements east of the Green Line

Sharafat is situated on a mountain-ridge at an altitude of 764 meters (2,507 ft).

expropriated by the Israeli government in 1970 for the construction of Gilo.[13] According to Jordan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, an additional 1,350 dunams (1.35 km2) were expropriated in 1983.[14]

In 1996, the total land area of the village was 1,974 dunams (1.974 km2), with a built-up area of 285 dunams.

Cremisan
are often included in land and population surveys as part of Sharafat. In 2003, the combined land area was 8,939 dunams, housing a population of 963 in 245 dwellings.

History

Hasmonean era

The site of a prosperous Jewish village during the Hasmonean period,[6][16] archaeological excavations performed by the Israel Antiquities Authority in 2019[17] have found remains of a rural Jewish settlement from the Hasmonean period, dated to between 140 BC and 37 BC. The excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority was done prior to the construction of a school in the Sharafat neighborhood in southern Jerusalem.

In the excavation findings in the site, there was a large wine-making winepress that contained numerous fragments of jars, a large columbarium cave, an olive oil press, a large Mikveh (bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism). The highlight of the excavation is a magnificent burial estate, which included a corridor that led to a large rock-cut courtyard surrounded by a bench. As was customary in Jewish burial caves during the Second Temple period. The stone items are very rare and were usually incorporated into the magnificent buildings and burial estates of Jerusalem, such as that of the priestly family of the sons of Hazeer in Kidron and several tombs in the Sanhedria neighborhood of Jerusalem.[18]

Mamluk era

During the period of

Ottoman tax records from the 16th century, and the travel writings and ethnographies of European and American visitors to Palestine in the 19th and 20th centuries. Jerusalem chronicles from the 13th century mention the Husseini family renting the lands of Sharafat.[19] The specific branch who leased the village from a fief-holder is said to be al-Husyani al-Wafā'i, descendants of al-Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of the founder of Islam, Muhammad, and the village remained in their possession throughout the Mamluk period.[20]

The Jerusalemite chronicler

Mamluk period.[21] The Abdu l-Wafā' or the Wafā'iyya are described by him as a family of Sufi scholars and ashrāf ("honoured ones") whose origins were in 12th-century Iraq. Al-Sayyid Badr al-Dīn Muhammed (d. 1253, also known as Sheikh Badir), a renowned Sufi wāli (Muslim saint) from this family took up residence in Dayr al-Shaykh.[22] 'Abd al-Ḥafiz (d. 1296–1297), his grandson, established roots in neighbouring Sharafat when Dayr al-Shaykh had become too small to accommodate the growing population, relinquishing the revenues to the land he owned in the latter for the benefit of those remaining. Dāwūd, the son of al-Ḥafiz, established a zāwiya and tomb in Sharafat where all his descendants were buried. The most famous of these were al-Sayyid 'Alī and al-Sayyid Muhammed al-Bahā', considered "pillars" of the Holy Land and its surroundings (wa-kānā a'mida al-arḍ al-muaqaddasa wa-mā hawlahā).[4] Mujīr al-Dīn notes that the arrival of Sufis led to the departure of the Christian community, highlighting the institution's role in accelerating Islamization.[23]

The Weli of Budrieh at Sherafat, between 1900 and 1926.
The Weli of Budrieh in the old part of Sherafat, 2023.

Under Mamluk rule, the village of Sharafat was dedicated as a waqf ("Islamic trust") to the Badriyya family by the viceroy of Damascus in 1349.[5] Al-Dīn's al-Uns al-Jalīl suggests that Sharafat was named for this family of ashrāf.[4][24] The Palestine Exploration Fund notes that prior to its renaming, the village was known as Karafat (the opposite of Sharafat, which means "noble").[25] Badriyya (also called Sitt Badriyya), Sheikh Badir's daughter, was also buried in Sharafat, as was her husband, Ahmed et-Tubbar.[22][25] The simple, unadorned tomb of Sitt Badriyya overlooks a valley that is today crowded with highways, but is still venerated by area residents, who believe that she can render assistance in times of drought.[22][26]

Ottoman era

Sharafat is listed in the Daftar-i Mufassal, a book of the

Muslim families.[27] A 16th-century Ottoman map situates Sharafat in the green belt around Jerusalem.[28] In 1838 it was described as a Muslim village, located in the Beni Hasan district, west of Jerusalem.[29]

James Finn, the British consul to Jerusalem during Ottoman rule, writes of visiting Sharafat between 1853 and 1856. He describes it as a small village perched on high hill to the southwest of Jerusalem which could be seen from there. The villagers are described as "a robust and well-fed people," who expressed to him that they were happily exempt from a family feud between the Abu Ghosh and Mohammed 'Atallah that was the disturbing the peace of nearby Beit Safafa.[30] An Ottoman village list of about 1870 counted 18 houses and a population of 53, though the population count included only men.[31][32]

In 1883 the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Sherafat as a village of moderate size on a low hill. The houses were of stone, and the water-supply was from Ain Yalo, in the valley to the west.[33]

In her book,

American Colony in 1881 and 1949, writes about the grave of a female saint in the village who was venerated by Muslims and Christians alike.[34]

In 1896 the population of Scharafat was estimated to be about 125 persons.[35]

British Mandate era

In the

Hilma Natalia Granqvist, the Finnish ethnographer, when asked which villages were renowned for having more daughters than sons, Sharafat was named along with the villages of Beit Sahour and Ein Karem.[38]

In the 1931 census, the population of the village was recorded as 158 Muslims, in 32 houses.[39]

In the 1945 statistics the population of Sharafat was 210 Muslims,[40] with 1,974 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey.[41] 482 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 508 for cereals,[42] while 5 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[43]

Jordanian era

oak tree
in Alami's land in Sharafat, 2023

After the

oak tree in the village that was thought to be 1,500 years old. Shahid writes that the mukhtar's home was surrounded by Israeli forces during a raid across the armistice line in 1951. The house was blown up, and Miriam and her daughter were partially buried in the rubble for a day before being rescued. They both succumbed to their wounds in the hospital.[45]

1951 Israeli raid

On the night of February 6–7, 1951, the

Samir Rifa'i, the Prime Minister of Jordan, who had been regarded by Israel as "generally reasonable and conciliatory," described the IDF raid on Sharafat as "fiendish" and "provocative", and became convinced that Israel "did not seriously desire peace," thereby derailing American hopes for pursuing peace talks.[46] According to Benny Morris, such punitive raids constituted a prime IDF strategy between 1951 and 1953.[46]

In 1961, the population of Sharafat was 128.[47]

After 1967

Following the 1967 war, Sharafat came under Israeli occupation, and it came to form part of Israel's expanded Jerusalem municipality in the Jerusalem District.[7] Government expropriations of land east of the Green Line in the green belt around Jerusalem in 1970 enabled the creation of Jewish satellite neighbourhoods, among them Gilo, which was constructed in 1973 on land belonging to Palestinian residents of Sharafat, Beit Jala, and Beit Safafa.[48][49]

The impact of the land confiscations in Sharafat is discussed by the permanent observer of the Palestine Liberation Organization to the United Nations in a letter dated November 6, 1986. The case of Halimeh Abdal Nabi, a 70-year-old woman, whose home was demolished in 1986, is outlined therein in detail: In the early 1970s, 40 dunams of land were confiscated from the Abdal Nabi family in order to build roads for the new settlement of Gilo. The kitchen and well of the woman's house were destroyed around this time, and to accommodate Gilo's expansion in 1976, Palestinian vineyards and orchards were also destroyed and homes demolished. A wall built by the Israeli construction company, to separate Abdal Nabi's home from the settlement, blocked her access to her own staircase. Following the demolition of her home in 1986, she went to live in her neighbour's house. Though she wanted to set up a tent on her land, which The Red Cross was willing to provide, she was unable to do so after it was discovered that her land had been declared a "military zone" in 1975.[50]

Ray Hanania, a Palestinian-American journalist, notes that documents attesting to his grandmother's nephew's land ownership rights in Sharafat are at the Ministry of Interior in Jerusalem, but that he has been unable to procure them despite paying them more than two dozen visits since the lands were confiscated in 1970. Hanania describes the land of Sharafat as, "a rambling field of olive trees and small orange groves," noting that to Palestinians, "the land is everything."[51]

On January 24, 2020, Israeli settlers burned the village mosque, writing racist slogans against Arabs and Muslims on its walls. They protested against the evacuation of the Kumi Ori outpost near the Yitzhar settlement in the northern West Bank.[52][53]

Development projects

In 2010, the Latin Patriarchate launched a construction project to house dozens of Christian families, mostly young couples with children. Some 9,000 square meters of land were purchased by the families and the Jerusalem municipality granted the necessary construction permits. Eighty apartments are now under construction.[54]

Archaeology

Archaeological excavations in 2007 found a terrace compound that may have been part of the agricultural periphery of Sharafat or Beit Safafa in the last century. A quarry and winepress were ascribed to the period of Roman–Byzantine occupation. Ceramic artifacts and a

mikve) was documented near the site.[55]

References
  1. ^ meaning Battlements", according to Palmer, 1881, p. 329
  2. ^ Cohen, 1993, p. 12.
  3. ^ a b "East Jerusalem Population and Area, 2000-2002". Foundation for Middle East Peace. Archived from the original on 2008-11-18. Retrieved 2010-02-21.
  4. ^ a b c Ephrat, 2008, pp. 158–159.
  5. ^ a b Luṭfī, 1985, p. 121.
  6. ^ a b "Impressive Jewish artifacts found in Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. Retrieved 2022-08-21.
  7. ^ a b c Ma'oz and Nusseibeh, 2000, p. 62.
  8. ^ a b PASSIA. "Jerusalem" (PDF). Le Monde Diplomatique. Retrieved 2010-02-22.
  9. ^ Universiṭat Tel Aviv, 1998, p. 2.
  10. ^ "Getting to the Territorial Endgame of an Israeli-Palestinian Peace Settlement" (PDF). James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy of Rice University. 2010. Retrieved 2010-02-22.See map on page 95.
  11. Btselem
    . Summer 2006. Retrieved 2010-02-21.
  12. ^ Nadav Shragai. Jerusalem: Dangers of Division. Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. p. 16. Retrieved 2010-02-25.
  13. ^ Cohen, 1993, p. 82.
  14. ^ "Letter dated 25 May 1983 from the Permanent Representative of Jordan to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General". United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine (UNISPAL). June 2, 1983. Retrieved 2010-02-21.
  15. ^ Kark and Oren-Nordheim, 2001, p. 241.
  16. ^ "The 1% of Second Temple-era Jerusalem Were Buried as Extravagantly as They Lived". Haaretz. Retrieved 2022-08-21.
  17. ^ "Extravagant burial estate, ancient village discovered in Jerusalem".
  18. ^ "Impressive Jewish artifacts found in Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem".
  19. ^ Paul F. Horton (1989). "A Land with a People: The Political Economy of Jerusalem and Nablus in the Nineteenth Century" (PDF). Simon Fraser University. Retrieved 2010-02-21.
  20. ^ Poliak, 1977, p. 39.
  21. ^ Ephrat, 2008, p. 140.
  22. ^ a b c Benveniśtî, 2000, p. 283
  23. ISBN 978-1-107-04884-3
    . A case in point is the abu al-Wafa' family, which founded no fewer than three Sufi centers in and around Jerusalem during the Mamluk period. The family was headed by Shaykh Badr al-Din abu al-Wafa' (d. 1253), a Sufi who was held in high esteem by his peers (qutb). ... During the tenure of his grandson as head of the tariqa (order), a new lodge was constructed in the village of Sharafat, about three kilometers southwest of Jerusalem. The presence of this institution further expedited the Islamization process because the Christian community in this settlement, according to Mujir al-Din, was also forced to leave soon after the Sufis' arrival.
  24. ^ Moudjir ed-dyn, 1876, p. 164
  25. ^ a b Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), 1916, pp. 16–17.
  26. ^ Universität Wien, 2005, p. 174.
  27. ^ Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 120
  28. ^ Cohen, 1993, pp. 134–135.
  29. ^ Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p. 123
  30. ^ Finn, 1878, pp. 215-216.
  31. ^ Socin, 1879, p. 160 noted that it was located in Beni Hasan District
  32. ^ Hartmann, 1883, p. 122, also noted 18 houses
  33. ^ Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 22.
  34. ^ a b Vester, 2007, p. 313.
  35. ^ Schick, 1896, p. 125
  36. ^ Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Jerusalem, p. 14
  37. ^ Greenberg, 2010, p. 136.
  38. ^ Granqvist, 1950, p. 66.
  39. ^ Mills, 1932, p. 43
  40. ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 25
  41. ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 58
  42. ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 104
  43. ^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 154
  44. ^ Nashāshībī, 1990, p. 207.
  45. Jerusalem Quarterly
    . 37. Heinrich Böll. Spring 2009. Retrieved 2010-02-22.
  46. ^ a b c d e Morris, 1997, pp. 206-207, 439.
  47. ^ Government of Jordan, Department of Statistics, 1964, p. 23
  48. ^ Cohen, 1993, pp. 12–13, 82.
  49. ^ Prepared for, and under the guidance of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (1982). "ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS IN GAZA AND THE WEST BANK (INCLUDING JERUSALEM): Their Nature and Purpose". UNISPAL. Archived from the original on 2012-03-09. Retrieved 2010-02-25.
  50. ^ "Letter dated 12 November 1986 from the Permanent Representative of Qatar to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General". UNISPAL. November 12, 1986. Retrieved 2010-02-22.
  51. ^ Hanania, 1996, p. 156.
  52. ^ "إرهابيون يهود يحرقون مسجدا جنوب القدس ويخطون شعارات عنصرية". 2020-01-28. Archived from the original on 2020-01-28. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  53. ^ إسرائيل, طاقم تايمز أوف. "الإعتداء على مسجد في القدس في جريمة كراهية مفترضة". تايمز أوف إسرائيل. Retrieved 2020-07-10.
  54. ^ "Helping Christian families be rooted in Jerusalem". Lpj.org. Retrieved 2013-11-28.
  55. ^ D. Amit, 1994. Ritual Baths in the Hebron Hill Country: Landmarks for Reconstructing the Jewish Settlement during the Time of the Second Temple. Studies of Judea and Samaria, Proceedings of the Third Conference, pp. 161–162 [Hebrew]; A. Kloner 2000. Survey of Jerusalem: The Southern Sector, Site [105] 87) and a burial field that dated to the Early Roman period was excavated (ESI 18:94–95; Survey of Jerusalem: The Southern Sector, Site [105] 44)
  56. ^ Pappé and Ma'oz, 1997, pp. 166–167.

Bibliography

External links

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31°44′35″N 35°11′39″E / 31.74306°N 35.19417°E / 31.74306; 35.19417

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