Jarmaq (جرمق) is a village in the

Jezzine District The Jezzine District ( ar, قضاء جزين) is a district in the South Governorate of Lebanon. The capital is Jezzine. 76% of registered voters (59642) in the district are Christians. Of those, 60% are Maronite, 14% Greek Melkite Catholic, and ...

in southern

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

, located southeast of the capital

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

. It is situated at the lower, western ridge of

Mount Meron Mount Meron ( he, הַר מֵירוֹן, ''Har Meron''; ar, جبل الجرمق, ''Jabal al-Jarmaq'') is a mountain in the Upper Galilee region of Israel. It has special significance in Jewish religious tradition and parts of it have been decla ...

, overlooking the

Sea of Galilee The Sea of Galilee ( he, יָם כִּנֶּרֶת, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ar, بحيرة طبريا), also called Lake Tiberias, Kinneret or Kinnereth, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest ...

. It has an altitude of . Its land area is 448 hectares.

History

The Syrian geographer

Yaqut al-Hamawi Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-ʿAbdullāh al-Rūmī al-Ḥamawī (1179–1229) ( ar, ياقوت الحموي الرومي) was a Muslim scholar of Byzantine Greek ancestry active during the late Abbasid period (12th-13th centuries). He is known fo ...

(d. 1226) mentioned that Jarmaq was a district of

Safed Safed (known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as Tzfat; Sephardi Hebrew, Sephardic Hebrew & Modern Hebrew: צְפַת ''Tsfat'', Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation, Ashkenazi Hebrew: ''Tzfas'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Ṣǝp̄aṯ''; ar, صفد, ''Ṣafad''), i ...

and the site of an ancient town by the same name. Yaqut notes a Hebrew tribe was called after the town. In the 1596 tax records, it was named as a village, ''Jarman'', in the Ottoman ''

nahiya A nāḥiyah ( ar, , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level division w ...

'' (subdistrict) of

Shaqif Arnun Beaufort or Belfort Castle, known locally as Qal'at al-Shaqif ( ar, قلعة الشقيف, Qalʾāt al-Shaqīf) or Shaqif Arnun, is a Crusader fortress in Nabatieh Governorate, Southern Lebanon, about to the south-south-east of the village o ...

, part of

Safad Sanjak Safed Sanjak ( ar, سنجق صفد; tr, Safed Sancağı) was a ''sanjak'' (district) of Damascus Eyalet ( Ottoman province of Damascus) in 1517–1660, after which it became part of the Sidon Eyalet (Ottoman province of Sidon). The sanjak was cen ...

, with a population of 52 households and 6 bachelors, all

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

s. The villagers paid taxes on goats and beehives, "occasional revenues", a press for olive oil or grape syrup, "dulab", in addition to a fixed sum; a total of 5,502

akçe The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (also spelled ''akche'', ''akcheh''; ota, آقچه; ) refers to a silver coin which was the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. The word itself evolved from the word "silver or silver money", this word is deri ...

.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 185 Jarmaq was a

Druze The Druze (; ar, دَرْزِيٌّ, ' or ', , ') are an Arabic-speaking esoteric ethnoreligious group from Western Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, syncretic, and ethnic religion based on the teachings of ...

village, which began to decline in the 1830s, with Edward Robinson calling it "almost deserted". In 1877 it was described as "a small, half-ruined village of stone" with thirty Druze inhabitants. The inhabitants emigrated to the

Hauran The Hauran ( ar, حَوْرَان, ''Ḥawrān''; also spelled ''Hawran'' or ''Houran'') is a region that spans parts of southern Syria and northern Jordan. It is bound in the north by the Ghouta oasis, eastwards by the al-Safa (Syria), al-Safa ...

in the following decade. Jarmaq is the ancestral village of the eponymous Jarmaqani family resident in modern

Salkhad Salkhad ( ar, صَلْخَد, Ṣalḫad) is a Syrian city in the As-Suwayda Governorate, southern Syria. It is the capital of Salkhad District, one of the governorate's three districts. It has a population of 15,000 inhabitants. It is located a ...

al-Qurayya Al-Qurayya ( ar, القريا; also spelled al-Qrayya or Kureiyeh) is a town in southern Syria, administratively part of the al-Suwayda Governorate, located south of al-Suwayda. Nearby localities include Bosra to the southwest, Hout, Syria, Hout t ...

and Urman. Following the 1982 invasion Jarmaq became part of the Israeli Security Zone. On 5 April 1992 Israeli

soldiers A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer. Etymology The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...

shot dead two

guerillas Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactic ...

planting a roadside bomb in Jarmaq. Five Israeli soldiers had been killed in first 14 weeks of 1992.Middle East International No 423, 17 April 1992, Publishers Lord Mayhew, Dennis Walters MP; Gerald Butt p.12

References

Bibliography

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External links

Jarmaq
Localiban {{Jezzine District Populated places in Jezzine District History of the Druze