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Abwein () is a
Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...
village in the
Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate The Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate () is one of 16 governorates of Palestine. It covers a large part of the central West Bank, on the northern border of the Jerusalem Governorate. Its district capital or ''muhfaza'' (seat) is the city of ...
of the
State of Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...
, located about 37 kilometers north of
Ramallah Ramallah ( , ; ) is a Palestinians, Palestinian city in the central West Bank, that serves as the administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusalem, at an average elevation of abov ...
, in the northern
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
. According to the
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS; ) is the official statistical institution of Palestine. Its main task is to provide credible statistical figures at the national and international levels. It is a state institution that provid ...
, Abwein's population was 3,496 in 2017. Abwein's main agricultural products are olives, figs, grapes, apples, peaches, pears, and vegetables. There are three schools in the town with about 1,200 students and about 200 students are enrolled in various Palestinian universities. Abwein also has three
mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a place of worship for Muslims. The term usually refers to a covered building, but can be any place where Salah, Islamic prayers are performed; such as an outdoor courtyard. Originally, mosques were si ...
s, the largest of which is the Farouk Mosque.Abwein Municipality - Palestine
Abwein Municipal Website


Location

Abwein is located 14.3 km north of
Ramallah Ramallah ( , ; ) is a Palestinians, Palestinian city in the central West Bank, that serves as the administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusalem, at an average elevation of abov ...
. It is bordered by Jilijliya and Sinjil to the east, Ammuriya and
Al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya Al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya () is a Palestinian village in the northern West Bank, 20 kilometers south of Nablus, in the Nablus Governorate of the State of Palestine. The town has a total land area of 12,075 dunams of which 200 dunams is built-up area. ...
to the north, Bani Zeid ash Sharqiya to the west, and Atara to the south.


History

Pottery
sherd This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains. A B C D E F ...
s from Iron Age II,
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
,
Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...
,
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
, and Crusader/
Ayyubid The Ayyubid dynasty (), also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultan of Egypt, Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid Caliphate of Egyp ...
era have been found.Finkelstein and Lederman, 1997, p. 483. Reinhold Röhricht identified Abwein as the Crusader village of Casale Bubil or Casale Bubin. In the village is an old ''
maqam Maqam, makam, maqaam or maqām (plural maqāmāt) may refer to: Musical structures * Arabic maqam, melodic modes in traditional Arabic music ** Iraqi maqam, a genre of Arabic maqam music found in Iraq * Persian maqam, a notion in Persian clas ...
'' (holy man's tomb) called ash-Shaykh Ya'qub. According to Moshe Sharon, the tomb has been neglected. The tombstone was in secondary use in a
terrace Terrace may refer to: Landforms and construction * Fluvial terrace, a natural, flat surface that borders and lies above the floodplain of a stream or river * Terrace, a street suffix * Terrace, the portion of a lot between the public sidewalk a ...
. It had an inscription dating to September 1339 in
Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...
'' naskhi'' script dedicated to a Hajji Ya'qub, son of Shaikh Dawud ibn Ahmad, who died that year. It also refers to the
Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...
sultan of that time period,
al-Nasir Muhammad Al-Malik an-Nasir Nasir ad-Din Muhammad ibn Qalawun (), commonly known as an-Nasir Muhammad (), or by his kunya: Abu al-Ma'ali () or as Ibn Qalawun (1285–1341) was the ninth Mamluk sultan of the Bahri dynasty who ruled Egypt between 129 ...
. Pottery sherds from the Mamluk era and a hoard of 406 silver coins, mostly from the period of Sultan
Baibars Al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bunduqdari (; 1223/1228 – 1 July 1277), commonly known as Baibars or Baybars () and nicknamed Abu al-Futuh (, ), was the fourth Mamluk sultan of Egypt and Syria, of Turkic Kipchak origin, in the Ba ...
, have also been found.


Ottoman era

The village was incorporated into the
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
in 1517 with all of Palestine, and in 1596 it appeared in the Ottoman tax registers as being in the ''
nahiya A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, 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 divisi ...
'' (subdistrict) of Quds, part of the '' liwa'' (district) of Quds. It had a population of 53 households, all
Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
s. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on wheat, barley,
olive The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'' ("European olive"), is a species of Subtropics, subtropical evergreen tree in the Family (biology), family Oleaceae. Originating in Anatolia, Asia Minor, it is abundant throughout the Mediterranean ...
trees, vineyards, fruit trees, goats and/or beehives; a total of 8,750
akçe The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (anglicized as ''akche'', ''akcheh'' or ''aqcha''; ; , , in Europe known as '' asper'') was a silver coin mainly known for being the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. It was also used in other states includi ...
. All of the revenue went to a
Waqf A (; , plural ), also called a (, plural or ), or ''mortmain'' property, is an Alienation (property law), inalienable charitable financial endowment, endowment under Sharia, Islamic law. It typically involves donating a building, plot ...
.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 112. In 1838 it was noted as a Muslim village in the Bani Zeid administrative region.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p.
125
/ref> During this time, residents from Abwein settled in Sarafand al-Kharab near al-Ramla. In 1870
Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (; 15 September 1821 – 21 September 1890) was a French people, French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included ...
visited the village, which he called "A'youein", and estimated it to have about 300 inhabitants. He described it as having abundant water-sources, beautiful
walnut A walnut is the edible seed of any tree of the genus '' Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''. They are accessory fruit because the outer covering of the fruit is technically an i ...
trees, and gardens with figs, olives and
pomegranate The pomegranate (''Punica granatum'') is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub in the family Lythraceae, subfamily Punica, Punicoideae, that grows between tall. Rich in symbolic and mythological associations in many cultures, it is thought to have o ...
s. An Ottoman village list of about the same year, 1870, showed that Abwein had 158 houses and a population of 429, though the population count included men only. In 1882, 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 completed Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) and in 1880 for the soon abandoned Survey of Eastern Palestine. The ...
'' described Abwein as a village situated on the slope of a hill, with a
well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...
to the south, and olive trees on its lower north side. In 1896 the population of ''Abwain'' was estimated to be about 933 persons.


British Mandate era

In the
1922 census of Palestine The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922. The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divis ...
conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Abwein had a population of 543 Muslims,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramallah, p
16
increasing in the 1931 census to 695, still all Muslim, in 171 houses.Mills, 1932, p
49
In the 1945 statistics the population was 880 Muslims,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
26
/ref> while the total land area was 16,205
dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; ; ; ), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area analogous in role (but not equal) to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amo ...
s, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 1,863 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 8,296 for cereals, while 36 dunams were classified as built-up areas.


Jordanian era

In the wake of the
1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...
, and after the
1949 Armistice Agreements The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,Jordanian rule. The Jordanian census of 1961 found 1,174 inhabitants.


1967, aftermath

Since the
Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
in 1967, Abwein has been under
Israeli occupation Israel has occupied the Golan Heights of Syria and the Palestinian territories since the Six-Day War of 1967. It has previously occupied the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt and southern Lebanon as well. Prior to 1967, control of the Palestinian terr ...
. After the 1995 accords, 79.8% of village land is defined as Area A land, 9,2% as Area B, and the remainder 11% as Area C. The Sahweil Castle in Abwein was renovated in 1996. In 2005, a 13-member
municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...
was established by the
Palestinian National Authority The Palestinian Authority (PA), officially known as the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a c ...
to administer the town's civil affairs. In the December 2004 Palestinian municipal elections, 28 candidates competed for the mayoral seat and despite strong opposition from religious parties, Fatima Sahweil, a member of
Fatah Fatah ( ; ), formally the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (), is a Palestinian nationalist and Arab socialist political party. It is the largest faction of the confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and ...
and principal of a local girls' high school, won. The Fatah list won a total of 12 of Abwein Municipality's 13 seats.


Demography

Most of Abwein's current inhabitants belong to the Sahweil and Mazahim families. According to the 'Abwein Municipal Council, the town's inhabitants are descendants of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari tribe.


See also

* Bani Zeid al-Sharqiya


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


External links


Welcome To 'Abwein/'IbweinAbwein
Welcome to Palestine *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 14
IAAWikimedia commons

‘Abwein Town Profile
Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem The Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ; ) is a Palestinian NGO founded in 1990 with its main office in Bethlehem in the West Bank. ARIJ is actively working on research projects in the fields of management of natural resources, water m ...
(ARIJ)
Abwein aerial photo
ARIJ
Throne villages
with Sahweil Palace in Ibwein, RIWAQ {{Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate Villages in the West Bank Throne villages