Brital ( ar, بريتال) is a village located in the
Baalbek District of the
Baalbek-Hermel Governorate in
Lebanon.
History
In 1838,
Eli Smith
Eli Smith (born September 13, 1801, in Northford, Connecticut, to Eli and Polly (Whitney) Smith, and died January 11, 1857, in Beirut, Lebanon) was an American Protestant missionary and scholar. He graduated from Yale College in 1821 and from Andov ...
noted Brital (under the name of ''Bereitan'') as a
Metawileh village in the
Baalbek
Baalbek (; ar, بَعْلَبَكّ, Baʿlabakk, Syriac-Aramaic: ܒܥܠܒܟ) is a city located east of the Litani River in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, about northeast of Beirut. It is the capital of Baalbek-Hermel Governorate. In Greek and Roman ...
area.
Brital has been a well known town for its rebellious people in the times before and after the creation of Lebanon in 1924. Due to the town's mountainous landscape, multiple revolutions against any occupation were born in Brital. The revolution against the French mandate was led by a prominent Britali and his local men (Melhem Kassem al-Masri), also Brital is the birthplace of the
Amal movement and
Hezbollah
Hezbollah (; ar, حزب الله ', , also transliterated Hizbullah or Hizballah, among others) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, led by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah since 1992. Hezbollah's parami ...
.
Brital is the home village of Sheikh
Subhi Tufayli
Subhi al-Tufayli ( ar, صبحي الطفيلي) (born 1948) was the first Secretary-General or leader of Hezbollah for a year. Al-Tufayli is a Shia Islamist, but is a very vocal critic of Iran and the current Hezbollah leadership. He has been an ...
one of the early leaders of
Hizbollah who was later expelled from the group and set up his own organisation, “the Hunger Revolution”.
[Middle East International No 568, 13 February 1998; Reinoud Leenders p.12]
Brital's municipal land boundaries span over vast areas of the anti-Lebanon mountains, east to Syria, south to Anjar and to Arsal in the north. Its population is made of a number of large families:Azki, Mazloum, Ismail, Saleh, Tlais, Jaafar, Masri, Afi, Ahmar, Youness and Ghadban are the main ones.
References
Bibliography
*
External links
Brital localiban
Populated places in Baalbek District
Shia Muslim communities in Lebanon
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