Mallaha ( ar, ملاّحة) was a
Palestinian
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
village, located northeast of
Safed, on the highway between the latter and
Tiberias
Tiberias ( ; he, טְבֶרְיָה, ; ar, طبريا, Ṭabariyyā) is an Israeli city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's F ...
.
[ 'Ain Mallaha is the local ]Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
name for a spring that served as the water source for the village inhabitants throughout the ages. It is also one of the names used in English to refer to the ancient Natufian
The Natufian culture () is a Late Epipaleolithic archaeological culture of the Levant, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introducti ...
era settlement
Settlement may refer to:
*Human settlement, a community where people live
*Settlement (structural), the distortion or disruption of parts of a building
* Closing (real estate), the final step in executing a real estate transaction
*Settlement (fin ...
at the site.
History
Prehistory
Evidence of settlement at Mallaha (or 'Ain Mallaha) dates back to the Mesolithic period circa 10,000 BCE.[Schmandt-Besserat, 2009, p]
47
/ref> The first permanent village settlement of pre-agricultural times in Palestine, Kathleen Kenyon
Dame Kathleen Mary Kenyon, (5 January 1906 – 24 August 1978) was a British archaeologist of Neolithic culture in the Fertile Crescent. She led excavations of Tell es-Sultan, the site of ancient Jericho, from 1952 to 1958, and has been called ...
describes the material remains found there as Natufian
The Natufian culture () is a Late Epipaleolithic archaeological culture of the Levant, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introducti ...
, consisting of 50 circular, semi-subterranean, one-room huts, paved with flat slabs and surrounded by stone walls up to high.[Kenyon, 1985, p. 20.][Kipfer, 2013, p]
357
/ref> The floors and walls of the homes were decorated in solid white or red, a simple and popular decorative motif in the Near East at the time.[ The inhabitants appear to have subsisted on fish from nearby ]Lake Hula
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger ...
, as well as by hunting and gathering; no evidence of animal domestication or cultivation has been found,[Edwards et al., 1970, p]
499
/ref> with the exception of dogs: the burial of a human being with a domestic dog at the site represents the earliest known archaeological evidence of dog domestication.
Crusader period
During the Crusader era, the Franks referred to Mallaha as ''Merla''.[Lyon and Jackson, 1984, p]
430
/ref> Ibn al-Qalanisi
Abū Yaʿlā Ḥamzah ibn al-Asad ibn al-Qalānisī ( ar, ابو يعلى حمزة ابن الاسد ابن القلانسي; c. 1071 – 18 March 1160) was an Arab politician and chronicler in 12th-century Damascus.
Biography
Abu Ya‘la ('fathe ...
describes a battle that took place at Mallaha in June 1157 between the Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
and Turkish forces of Nur ad-Din Zangi
Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd Zengī (; February 1118 – 15 May 1174), commonly known as Nur ad-Din (lit. "Light of the Faith" in Arabic), was a member of the Zengid dynasty, which ruled the Syrian province (''Shām'') of the Seljuk Empire. He reig ...
and those of the Crusaders
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...
under King Baldwin III
Baldwin III (1130 – 10 February 1163) was King of Jerusalem from 1143 to 1163. He was the eldest son of Melisende and Fulk of Jerusalem. He became king while still a child, and was at first overshadowed by his mother Melisende, whom he eventua ...
.[ Qalanisi writes that Nur ad-Din sent his troops to Mallaha immediately after learning via ]pigeon post
Pigeon post is the use of homing pigeons to carry messages. Pigeons are effective as messengers due to their natural homing abilities. The pigeons are transported to a destination in cages, where they are attached with messages, then the pigeo ...
that the Franks had set up an encampment there. The battle, as described by Qalanisi, was bloody and quick, resulting in decisive victory for the Muslim forces, who are reported to have lost only two men,[Gabrieli, 2009, pp]
40
41 with the king narrowly escaping with a bodyguard. The battles for control over Mallaha continued. The ''Itinerary of Richard I
Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was ...
'' notes that the army had advanced to Merla, "where the king had spent one of the previous nights."[
]
Mamluk period
Just SE of Mallaha (at grid 2071/2737), excavations have revealed structures, probably dating to thirteenth or fourteenth century, that is after the area fell to Mamluk
Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...
sultan Baybars. The structures have been assumed to belong to a sugar-producing installation.
Ottoman period
Mallaha, like most of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
in the early sixteenth century. Sufi traveller al-Bakri al-Siddiqi passed by the village in the mid-eighteenth century.
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt travelled in the region during the start of the nineteenth century, but according to Edward Robinson, who travelled there in 1838, Burckhardt mislabeled the whole S.W. coast of the lake as el-Mellahah. Robinson observed that ''Ain el-Mallaha'' lay northwest of Lake Hula, and was "a single large fountain." Nearby was "usually a large encampment of the ''Ghawarineh'' in tents and reed huts."
In 1881, the PEF's ''Survey of Western Palestine
The PEF Survey of Palestine was a series of surveys carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) between 1872 and 1877 for the Survey of Western Palestine and in 1880 for the Survey of Eastern Palestine. The survey was carried out after the ...
'' (SWP) described Ain el Mellahah as a "very large perennial spring, flowing in a long stream from the base of the mountain; at once turns a mill, and forms almost a small river."
British Mandate
During the British Mandate times, Mallaha had a roughly rectangular configuration that stretched from north to south. The population lived mostly of agriculture.[Khalidi, 1992, p]
472
/ref> In the 1922 census of Palestine, Mallaha had a population of 440, all Muslims,[Barron, 1923, Table XI, Sub-district of Safad, p]
42
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to a population of 654, still all Muslims, in 161 houses.[Mills, 1932, p]
108
/ref>
The population, combined with that of 'Arab al-Zubayd, came to 890 Muslims in the 1945 statistics, with a total of 2,168 dunams of land.[Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p]
10
/ref>[Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p]
70
/ref>[ In 1944/45 a total of 1,761 dunums were used for cereals by the villagers, while 20 dunams were classifies as built-up land.][Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. ''Village Statistics, April, 1945.'' Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p]
169
/ref>
1948 and after
On 25 May 1948 the villagers left their homes on the advice of their Jewish neighbours. This was part of a "whispering campaign" launched by the Haganah following Operation Yiftach
Operation Yiftach ( he, מבצע יפתח, ''Mivtza Yiftah'') was a Palmach offensive carried out between 28 April and 23 May 1948. The objectives were to capture Safed and to secure the eastern Galilee before the British Mandate ended on 14 May ...
.
According to the Palestinian
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
historian Walid Khalidi
Walid Khalidi ( ar, وليد خالدي, born 1925 in Jerusalem) is an Oxford University-educated Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, establish ...
, describing the remains of the village in 1992: "The sandy hill on which the village was situated is completely overgrown with tall grass, cactuses, and weeds, as well as an assortment of fig, eucalyptus, and date-palm trees. Amidst the overgrowth, stone rubble from destroyed houses can be seen. The surrounding land is cultivated by the settlement of Yesud ha-Ma'ala.[
A village history was published in Damascus in 2005. According to a commentator on Palestinian village history, Rochelle A. Davis, this history is especially notable due to the prominent role women are given in describing village life. Davis believes this might be because the villagers belonged to the ''Ghawarneh'' group, where women traditionally took more prominent roles.][Davis, 2011, p]
108
/ref>
See also
* Depopulated Palestinian locations in Israel
* Al-Mansura
* Al-Salihiyya
References
Bibliography
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External links
Welcome to Mallaha
Mallaha
Zochrot
Zochrot ( he, זוכרות; "Remembering"; ar, ذاكرات; "Memories") is an Israeli nonprofit organization founded in 2002. Based in Tel Aviv, its aim is to promote awareness of the Palestinian ''Nakba'' ("Catastrophe"), including the 1948 Pa ...
Al-Mallaha
Dr. Khalil Rizk
*Survey of Western Palestine, map 4
IAA
Wikimedia commons
from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center () is a leading Palestinian arts and culture organization that aims to create a pluralistic, critical liberating culture through research, query, and participation, and that provides an open space for the community ...
{{Authority control
Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War
District of Safad
Hula Valley