Sultan Yacoub (Sultan Yakoub, Sultan Yaakov) ( ar, سطان يعقوب) is a Lebanese village in the

West Beqaa District Western Beqaa District ( ar, قضاء البقاع الغربي) is an administrative district in the Beqaa Governorate of the Republic of Lebanon. The capital is Joub Jannine which has a population of 12,000. Main cities and towns West Beqaa ...

, about seven kilometers (four miles) from the border with

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

History

Name

The village is named after Yacoub ibn Ibrahim ibn Adham (d. 782), the son of the famous Sufi master nicknamed Sultan, and buried in nearby

Jableh ) , settlement_type = City , motto = , image_skyline = Jableh Collage.jpg , imagesize = 250px , image_caption = General view of city and port • Roman Amphitheater• Al ...

, Syria, as the inscription on the grave reads. However, a myth was perpetuated lately by journalists on Lebanese and Moroccan online media eager for click baits and shocker headlines, who confused the Yacoub in question with the Almohad ruler

Yaqub al-Mansur Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb ibn Yūsuf ibn Abd al-Muʾmin al-Manṣūr (; c. 1160 – 23 January 1199 Marrakesh), commonly known as Yaqub al-Mansur () or Moulay Yacoub (), was the third Almohad Caliph. Succeeding his father, al-Mansur reigned from 118 ...

(d. 1199). Two clerics from the region tried to write a history of their town, and they too conflated Sultan Yacoub ibn Ibrahim, with the most famous of all Almohad rulers, Yaqub al-Mansur, and they copy/pasted included several pages from

Ibn Khaldun Ibn Khaldun (; ar, أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي, ; 27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406, 732-808 AH) was an Arab The Historical Muhammad', Irving M. Zeitlin, (Polity Press, 2007), p. 21; "It is, of ...

and Ibn Adhari concerning the Almohad sultan in their editions of the history of the village, to the point where excerpts from their book having been printed and posted on the entrance of the shrine, thereby further reinforcing the myth among the unassuming locals.

Battle in the Lebanon War

The ''battle for Sultan Yacoub'', part of the Lebanon War, occurred on June 12, 1982. During the battle, a column of

Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the Israel, State of Israel. It consists of three servic ...

(IDF) armored vehicles were ambushed at a narrow pass near the

Beqaa Valley The Beqaa Valley ( ar, links=no, وادي البقاع, ', Lebanese ), also transliterated as Bekaa, Biqâ, and Becaa and known in classical antiquity as Coele-Syria, is a fertile valley in eastern Lebanon. It is Lebanon's most important ...

by the

ns. Eighteen IDF soldiers died in the battle, which was viewed as an Israeli

intelligence failure Failure in the intelligence cycle or intelligence failure, is the outcome of the inadequacies within the intelligence cycle. The intelligence cycle itself consists of six steps that are constantly in motion. The six steps are: requirements, coll ...

. Three IDF soldiers remain unaccounted for. Five soldiers were captured with two being released in subsequent exchange deals. Reports say that the remaining three were paraded through Damascus held on top of their captured tank. Time Magazine reporter Dean Brelis testified to having seen the 3 captives alive at the time. Among the three is an American Citizen named Zachary Baumel, whose remains were returned after an Israeli intelligence operation on April 3, 2019, and

Yehuda Katz Yehudah Katz (born May 10, 1951) is an American-born Israeli singer, songwriter, producer, arranger, and activist. He first rose to fame as the lead singer of seminal Jewish rock band Reva L'Sheva. As a solo artist, he has released three albums ...

and Zvi Feldman, both of whom remain missing.

Syrian influence

After the evacuation of Lebanon in April, 2005 by Syria, Sultan Yacoub remains a focal point of tension over sovereignty. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command has a base nearby the village, and dozens of PFLP-GC have been caught trying to sneak illegally across the Beqaa Valley to Sultan Yacoub.

Rocket attacks on Israel

In May, 2006, three to eight Katyusha rockets were fired at northern Israel from Lebanon. The IDF responded by with a missile strike on the PFLP base at Sultan Yacoub.

Demography

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 Sultan Yacoub's population as being predominantly

Sunni Muslim Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word ''Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagree ...

.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, 2nd appendix, p
141
/ref> Along with

Baaloul Baaloul (in Arabic بعلول, . Tr '' B'alūl '') is a town located in the western Bekaa Valley Lebanon. Geography Baaloul lies within the upper Litani river basin and is located along a mountainous area bordering Mount Lebanon. It is primarily ...

, the village was an important source for Arab immigration to Southern America, especially Brazil and Colombia where entire Arab immigrant communities are made exclusively from people originally from these two villages, such as in

Maicao Maicao (Wayuu: ) is a city and municipality in the Department of La Guajira, northern Republic of Colombia. It is located 76 km from Riohacha, the capital of the department and is the second largest urban center near the border with Venezuela ...

, Colombia.

References

Bibliography

External links

Soultan Yaaqoub
Localiban {{Western Beqaa District Populated places in Western Beqaa District