Muslim migrations to Palestine began with the Muslim conquest of the region in the 7th century and continued throughout centuries of Muslim rule, peaking in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In the early Ottoman period, around the late 16th century, the population of Palestine was estimated to be approximately 205,000 people,[1] significantly less than the region's population during the Roman and Byzantine periods, believed to be around 1,000,000 people.[2] Aware of the under-population, the Ottomans promoted a policy of settlement in sparsely inhabited regions. Zvi Ilan also notes that the Ottomans aimed to defend the ancient, international highways that crossed Palestine, including the Via Maris and the King's Highway.[3]
16th century
The Turabays, a prominent family from the Bedouin Banu Haritha tribe,[4] who claim descent from the Tayy tribe of the Arabian Desert,[4][5] assisted Ottoman Sultan Selim I in his conquest of Egypt during Ottoman–Mamluk War of 1516–1517. As a reward, they were granted control over what became the Lajjun Sanjak, covering the Jezreel Valley, northern Samaria and Lower Galilee. They also oversaw Gaza and led pilgrim caravans to Mecca. The Turabay family controlled Lajjun until the late 17th century when they were replaced by the Ottoman administration.[5]
17th-18th centuries
During the 17th and 18th centuries, Bedouin clans migrated to Palestine from Hejaz, Syria, and Transjordan. The Ottomans encouraged this migration to populate certain areas, offering land and allowing freedom of movement. While the Bedouins were taxed when possible, their mobility made taxation rare and inconsistent. Even in the late 19th century, Bedouins were not conscripted for military service.[6]
By the late 17th century, Druze settlers started establishing themselves around Banias and in Jabal al-Druze.[7]
In the 1780s, a significant number of Egyptians migrated to Palestine in response to a severe famine in Egypt. It's estimated that about one-sixth of Egypt's population emigrated during this time, with many choosing to settle in Palestine.[8] According to Walney, in January 1785, the streets of Sidon, Acre, and all the cities of Palestine—defined by him as the area governed by the governor of Gaza, from Khan Yunis to a line between the "Jaffa River" and Caesarea—were filled with Egyptian refugees.[9][10]
Egyptian migrations (1830s)
The port city of Jaffa received Egyptian migrants in the 1830s. In 1844, it was reported to have a population of Egyptians, Greeks, Armenians, Jews and Maronites
The first half of the nineteenth century saw a significant influx of Egyptian immigrants.[7] Between 1831 and 1840, during Muhammad Ali's conquests and the reign of his son Ibrahim Pasha, Egyptian settlers and discharged soldiers migrated to Palestine.[11] Ibrahim Pasha actively encouraged Egyptian immigration and facilitated the settlement of Bedouin clans in the region.[6] According to Sabri, the total number of Egyptian migrants to Palestine in this period exceeded 6,000.[12]
The Egyptian settlers predominantly established themselves in urban centers like Jaffa and Gaza, where they founded residental districts, and also integrated into nearby villages.[6][11] Others settled in the Acre region, as well as the Jordan and Hula Valleys.[6] At one time, 19 villages in the southern coastal plain were home to Egyptian families. Today, remnants of this migration can be found in the valley of Wadi Ara, Israel, where a significant population of Egyptian descent resides.[11]
The withdrawal of Egyptian forces from Palestine increased Bedouin incursions to the region.[6]
Algerian migrations (1847—1920)
Algerian refugees, commonly known as "Maghrebis," began immigrating to Palestine in the 1850s following Emir Abdelkader's surrender to French forces in 1847.[13][14] They were transferred through northern Palestine into Syria and surrounding regions. Many eventually found homes in abandoned villages in Galilee,[13] where later twelve villages were said to be populated by Algerians.[14]
Waves of migration
The migration of Algerians to the Levant occurred in four significant waves. The first wave began in 1847 when approximately 560 refugees arrived in Damascus, Ajloun, and the Hauran. The latter areas were selected due to the abundance of open land and their distance from foreign influence. Another group reached Damascus in 1853, though their exact number remains unspecified. Starting in 1855, the authorities decided to settle the Algerians in the Acre Sanjak in Galilee.[15] Small numbers of AlgerianBerber refugees also settled in Safed following Abdelkader's exile to Damascus in 1855.[11]
The second wave, occurring between 1860 and 1883, brought around 3,700 refugees who primarily settled in Tiberias and Safed. By 1881, a report from the French consulate in Damascus noted that there were 6,800 Algerians in the Acre Sanjak, indicating that the Algerian population in the region had nearly doubled in eleven years.[15]
The third wave took place between 1883 and 1900 when the French demanded the conscription of Algerians. In 1886, 37 families, totaling 169 people, arrived in Damascus and were settled in the village of Al-Husayniyya, near the Hula Lake. In 1888, 250 migrants came to Acre, with some joining earlier settlers at the ruins of Hawsha and Bir al-Maksur near Shefaram, while others settled in Ghabba in the Haifa District. More families followed in 1889. In 1892, Hawsha received 148 more migrants, most of whom were from the Awlad Sidi Ara'is tribe from Oum El Bouaghi. The village of Samakh, near the Sea of Galilee, also became a significant settlement for these refugees, becoming one of the largest Algerian concentrations in the district. The fourth wave, from 1900 to 1920, saw most Algerians settling in the Hauran and near Damascus, with only a few settling in Palestine.[15]
Colonies
In the Safed Subdistrict, five Algerian villages were established, including Dayshum, Ammuqa, Marus, al-Husayniyya and Tulayl. Ammuqa and Marus were settled by the tribe of Awlad Bu Alwarth from Dellys, Tulayl and al-Husayniyya by the tribe of Awlad Bu al-Kabir from Blida, and Dayshum by the tribe of Ayt Yahya from Tigzirt.[15]
In the Tiberias Subdistrict, four villages were established by Algerians, including Awlam, Ma'dhar, Kafr Sabt,[13] and Sha'ara.[15] An unspecified number of Algerians also settled in Samakh and Tiberias itself. The village of Ma'dhar was inhabited by the tribes of Awlad Sidi Khaled and Sidi Amr, who came from Oued El Berdi and Bouïra. Kafr Sabt was home to the tribes of Awlad Sidi 'Amr and Awlad Sidi 'Isa from the same region. Awlam was inhabited by the tribes of Awlad Sidi Yunis and Awlad Sidi 'Isa from Aïn Bessem and Bouïra. Sha'ara's inhabitants belonged to the Sidi 'Isa tribe from al-Masila.[15]
In the Haifa Subdistrict, the ruins of Hawsha-Kasayir and Bir al-Maksur were settled by the tribe of Awlad Sidi Arjis from Oum El Bouaghi. It appears that these settlers later concentrated in Hawsha.[15]
Sources
↑ Wolf-Dieter Hutteroth and Kamel Abdulfattah, pp.17-18, 43
1 2 Ehrlich, Michael (2022). The Islamization of the Holy Land, 634-1800. Medieval Islamicate world. Leeds: Arc Humanities Press. pp.6, 82. ISBN978-1-80270-031-2.
↑ Grossman, D. (1986). "Oscillations in the Rural Settlement of Samaria and Judaea in the Ottoman Period". in Shomron studies. Dar, S., Safrai, S., (eds). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House. p. 314-317, 345-385
↑ M. Volney (1787), Travels through Syria and Egypt in the Years 1783, 1784 and 1785 (translated from French), II, London, p. 193-194
↑ M. Sabri (1930), L'Empire e'gyptien sous Mohamed-Ali et la question cf Orient (1811-1849), Paris, p. 181.
1 2 3 Grossman, David (2004). Arab Demography and Early Jewish Settlement in Palestine: Distribution and Population Density during the Late Ottoman and Early Mandate Periods (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magness Press, Jerusalem. p.146. ISBN978-965-493-184-7.
1 2 Greene, Roberta R.; Hantman, Shira; Seltenreich, Yair; ʻAbbāsī, Muṣṭafá (2018). Living in Mandatory Palestine: personal narratives of resilience of the Galilee during the Mandate period 1918-1948. New York, NY: Routledge. p.11. ISBN978-1-138-06898-8. In addition, there were 12 settlements in the Galilee of Algerian immigrants, who had come to the region during the second half of the nineteenth century after their emir, Abd al-Qader al-Jazairi, surrendered to the French in 1847.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Ahmad Abbasi, Mustafa (2007). "הקהילה האלג'יראית בגליל משלהי השלטון העות'מני עד שנת 1948". אופקים בגיאוגרפיה. 68/9: 56–62.
Jenin is a city in the State of Palestine, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The city serves as the administrative center of the Jenin Governorate of Palestine and is a major center for the surrounding towns. Jenin came under Israeli occupation in 1967, and was put under the administration of the Palestinian National Authority as Area A of the West Bank in 1993.
The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and Arabian Desert but spread across the rest of the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa after the spread of Islam. The English word bedouin comes from the Arabic badawī, which means "desert-dweller", and is traditionally contrasted with ḥāḍir, the term for sedentary people. Bedouin territory stretches from the vast deserts of North Africa to the rocky ones of the Middle East. They are sometimes traditionally divided into tribes, or clans, and historically share a common culture of herding camels, sheep and goats. The vast majority of Bedouins adhere to Islam, although there are some fewer numbers of Christian Bedouins present in the Fertile Crescent.
Marus was a Palestinian village in Upper Galilee, 7 km northeast of Safad. In the Roman and medieval period it had Jewish population, and by the 16th century it became entirely Muslim. After a period of desertion, the Ottoman authorities resettled it with Algerian Arabs in the 19th century. It was depopulated in 1948 during the Operation Hiram by the Israeli attacking brigade Sheva' Brigade.
The Jezreel Valley, or Marj Ibn Amir, also known as the Valley of Megiddo, is a large fertile plain and inland valley in the Northern District of Israel. It is bordered to the north by the highlands of the Lower Galilee region, to the south by the Samarian highlands, to the west and northwest by the Mount Carmel range, and to the east by the Jordan Valley, with Mount Gilboa marking its southern extent. The largest settlement in the valley is the city of Afula, which lies near its center.
Ammuqa was a Palestinian village, located five kilometres northeast of Safed.
Lajjun was a large Palestinian Arab village located 16 kilometers (9.9 mi) northwest of Jenin and 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) south of the remains of the biblical city of Megiddo. The Israeli kibbutz of Megiddo, Israel was built 600 metres north-east of the depopulated village on the hill called Dhahrat ed Dar from 1949.
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Al-Husayniyya was a Palestinian village, depopulated in 1948.
Tulayl was a Palestinian Arab village in the Safad Subdistrict located 14.5 kilometers (9.0 mi) northeast of Safad. It was situated on a hill near Lake Hula. Together with the nearby village of al-Husayniyya, it had a population of 340 in 1945. Tulayl was depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War.
Ma'dhar was a Palestinian village in the Tiberias Subdistrict.
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Safed Sanjak was a sanjak (district) of Damascus Eyalet in 1517–1660, after which it became part of the Sidon Eyalet. The sanjak was centered in Safed and spanned the Galilee, Jabal Amil and the coastal cities of Acre and Tyre. The city of Safed was made up of Muslim and Jewish townspeople. At the same time the rest of the sanjak was populated by Sunni Muslims, Jewish peasants, Bedouin tribesmen, Shia Muslims/Mitwali, and Druze peasants.
Siege of Al-Karak was a 17-day siege imposed by Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt on the Transjordanian town of Al-Karak in 1834. The Pasha laid the siege on the town in pursuit of Qasim al-Ahmad, the leader of the Peasants' revolt in Palestine, who had fled from Nablus to take shelter in Al-Karak.
Turabay ibn Qaraja was the chieftain of the Banu Haritha tribesmen in northern Palestine and an Ottoman governor and tax farmer in the Marj Ibn Amer plain. His career began under the Mamluks in the late 15th century and continued under the Ottomans who kept him in his post as commander of the roads connecting Damascus with Cairo and Jerusalem in 1516 and soon after appointed him governor of Safad. By 1538, he had been granted tax farms in Marj Ibn Amer, Qaqun and in the Ajlun region east of the Jordan River. Turabay's descendants, the Turabay dynasty, continued to hold influence in Marj Ibn Amer as the hereditary governors of Lajjun until 1677.
The Balqa, known colloquially as the Balga, is a geographic region in central Jordan generally defined as the highlands east of the Jordan Valley in between the Zarqa River to the north and the Wadi Mujib gorge to the south.
The Turabay dynasty was a family of Bedouin emirs in northern Palestine who served as the multazims and sanjak-beys of Lajjun Sanjak during Ottoman rule in the 16th–17th centuries. The sanjak (district) spanned the towns of Lajjun, Jenin and Haifa, and the surrounding countryside. The progenitors of the family had served as chiefs of Marj Bani Amir under the Egypt-based Mamluks in the late 15th century.
The sieges of Tiberias occurred in late 1742 and the summer of 1743 when the Ottoman governor of Damascus, Sulayman Pasha al-Azm, twice attempted and failed to eliminate the increasingly powerful, Tiberias-based multazim, Zahir al-Umar, and destroy his fortifications.
The study of the origins of the Palestinians, a population encompassing the Arab inhabitants of the former Mandatory Palestine and their descendants, is a subject approached through an interdisciplinary lens, drawing from fields such as population genetics, demographic history, folklore, including oral traditions, linguistics, and other disciplines.
Lajjun Sanjak was a sanjak of Damascus Eyalet from 1559 to the mid-18th century when it and the neighboring Ajlun Sanjak were combined to form the Jenin Sanjak. The sanjak was centered in Lajjun and later Jenin. Its territory consisted of the part of northern Palestine spanning the Jezreel Valley, Mount Carmel, and the coastland between Haifa and Atlit. From its establishment through the late 17th century, it was dominated by the Turabay dynasty, whose members served as its governors for most of this period.
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