Hittin

Hittin was on the northern slopes of a double hill known as the “ Hattin Horns .” Due to its location near the Hittin Plain, which extends in the east to the coastal lowlands near Lake Kinneret , and in the west to the mountain passes leading to the valleys of lower Galilee , this place was of great strategic and commercial importance. For many centuries, caravan routes , as well as the paths of military invasions, passed here ^[1] .

Prehistoric Times

During archaeological excavations at this place fragments of pottery from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic period were found ^[2] .

From the Bronze Age to the Byzantine period

An early Bronze Age wall was excavated in the village ^[2] . It is possible that an Arab village was built over the Canaanite city ​​of Siddim or Ziddim (Nav. 19:35), which in the third century BC acquired the Hebrew name Kfar Hittin (“village of grain”). In the Roman period, this settlement was known as Kfar Hittaya ^{[3] [4]} . In the IV century AD, there was a Jewish rabbinical city ^[1] .

Crusader / Ayyubid and Mamluk periods

Hittin was located near the site of the Battle of Hattin , where Saladin defeated the Crusaders in 1187 ^[5] . It is known that he was not far from the base camp of the Ayyubid army under the command of Saladin ^[6] .

According to the early Arab geographers, many prominent Islamic figures in Palestine were born or were buried in Hittin, according to the early Arab geographers such as Yakut al-Hamawi (1179-1229) and al-Ansari al-Dimashki (1256-1327), whom he himself called Sheikh Hettin. Ali al-Dawadari, writer, exegetist of the Qur'an and calligrapher , died in the village in 1302. ^[one]

Ottoman period

In 1596, Hittin became part of the Ottoman Empire, belonging to the sub-district ^{[5] of} Tiberias of the Safed area. Rural residents paid taxes on wheat, barley, olives, goats and beehives ^{[7] [8]} . In 1646, this small village was visited by Evliya ебelebi , who described it as follows: “This is a village on the territory of Safad, consisting of 200 Muslim houses. Druze do not live here. It looks like a thriving small town, teeming with vineyards, orchards and orchards. Water and air are cool and refreshing. Once a week, a large fair is held, at which ten thousand people gather from nearby places to sell and buy. The village is located in a spacious valley bordered by low cliffs on both sides. It has a mosque, a public bath and a caravanserai ” ^[9] . Celebi also said that there is a temple called Teike Mugrabi, where more than a hundred dervishes live, and where the grave of Sheikh Imad ed-din is located, from the family of the prophet Shueib, who is believed to have lived here for two hundred years.

Richard Paucock , who visited Hittin in 1727, writes that this village “is famous for its pleasant gardens with lemon and orange trees; here the Turks have a mosque that they worship, and there, as they say, the great sheikh is buried, "whom they call Seda Ishab, who, according to tradition (as a very educated Jew assured me), is Yophor, the father-in-law of Moses" ^[10] . Around the same time and until the end of the 18th century, Hittin was a small village in the independent sheikh of Zahir al-Umar al-Zeydani.In 1767, Zahir's son Said tried to control Hettin and nearby Turan , but was defeated by his father. , Zahir pardoned Saeed and presented him with both villages. ^{[11] On the} map of the Egyptian campaign of Napoleon in 1799 , a place called Hattin is marked ^[12] .

Johann Ludwig Burkhardt , a Swiss traveler to Palestine around 1817, noted Hettin as a village ^[13] while in 1838 Edward Robinson described it as a small village of stone houses ^[14] . William McClure Thomson, who visited the 1850s, discovered the “giant” hedges of cacti surrounding Hittin. He said that visiting a local shrine was considered a cure for madness ^[15] .

In 1863, Tristram wrote about the "bright faces and bright colors" that he saw there, and about the "peculiar" costumes: "long narrow dresses or robes of scarlet silk , with diagonal yellow stripes and, as a rule, bright red and blue flowers. " or a yellow jacket over them; while their cheeks were surrounded by dollars and piastres modeled on Nazareth, and some of the wealthier wore gold coins necklaces with a double pendant for the pendant in front. " ^[16] In 1875, Victor Gerin visited the village, mentioning in his writings that there is a local tradition according to which in the village one could find the tomb of Jethro ( Nebi Chagib ), the father-in-law of Moses ^[17] .

In 1881, in a West Palestine Survey of the Palestine Intelligence Fund , Hettin was described as a large, well-built stone village surrounded by fruit and olive trees. It consisted of about 400-700 villagers, all Muslims who cultivated the surrounding plain ^[18] .

A list of the population since about 1887 showed that about 1,350 people live in Hattin; 100 Jews and 1250 Muslims. ^[19] An elementary school was founded in the village around 1897. ^[one]

Conder writes in his Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1897): “This place was surrounded by olives and fruit trees, and a good spring — plentiful and fresh — flowed northwest to the Wadi Hammam Gorge.” ^[6]

At the beginning of the 20th century, some land in the eastern part of the Arbel Valley was sold to Jewish societies to buy land. In 1910, the first Jewish village of Mitzpa was founded here ^[1] .

British Mandate Period

In 1924, the second Jewish village, Kfar Hittim, Kfar Hittim ^[1] was founded on the purchased land near the village of Hattin.

According to the census conducted in 1922 by the mandatory authorities , the population of Hattin was 889 people; 880 Muslims and 9 Jews ^[20] increased during the 1931 census to 931, all Muslims, for a total of 190 houses. ^[21]

In 1932, Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam and the local Palestinian leadership associated with the Independence Party solemnly celebrated the anniversary of Saladin’s victory in Hittin. Hettin’s Day, held August 27 of that year in the courtyard of a school in Haifa, was supposed to be an anti-imperialist rally. Thousands of people from Palestine, Lebanon , Damascus and Abroad took part in it. The speeches delivered at this event were dedicated to the independence of the Arab world and the importance of unity between all Arabs, Muslims and Christians ^[22] .

In 1945, 1,190 Muslims lived in Hittin, and the total land area was 22,764 dunums (22,764 people). km ² ), of which 22,086 dunums belonged to the Arabs, and 147 dunams belonged to the Jews . The remaining 531 dunas were state-owned. ^[23] The cultivated land amounted to 12,426 dunams, and the uncultivated land to 10,268 dunums. Of the cultivated land, 1967 dunums consisted of plantations and irrigated lands, and 10,462 dunums were devoted to grain crops. ^{[24] The} built-up area of ​​the village was 70 dunams, and it was completely inhabited by Arabs. ^[25]