Qira, Salfit

Qira () is a Palestinian town in the Salfit Governorate in the northern West Bank, 19 kilometers southwest of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, it had a population of approximately 1,278 in 2017.

Location

Qira is north of Salfit. It is bordered by Jamma'in and Marda to the east, Kifl Haris and Marda to the south, Kifl Haris to the west, and Zeita Jamma'in to the north.

History

Pottery sherds from the Iron Age I – II, Persian, Hellenistic/Roman have been found here,Finkelstein et al, 1997, p. 472 as has sherds from the Byzantine and Crusader/Ayyubid eras. While the majority of Iron Age pottery was unearthed at the bottom of the southern and eastern slopes, a Middle Bronze Age sherd was found near a sheikh tomb to the west.

During the Crusader period, Diya' al-Din (1173–1245) writes that there was a Muslim population in the village.Ellenblum, 2003, p
244
/ref> He also noted that followers of Ibn Qudamah lived here.

Sherds from the Mamluk era have also been found here.

Ottoman era

In 1517 the village was included in the Ottoman empire with the rest of Palestine, and it appeared in the 1596 tax-records as ''Qira'', located in the ''Nahiya'' of Jabal Qubal of the '' Liwa'' of Nablus. The population was 8 households and 1 bachelor, all Muslim. They paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, such as wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and beehives and a press for olive oil or grape syrup, in addition to occasional revenues and a fixed tax for people of Nablus area; a total of 2,000 akçe. Sherds from the early Ottoman era have been found here.

In the 18th and 19th centuries the village formed part of the highland region known as Jūrat ‘Amra or Bilād Jammā‘īn. Situated between Dayr Ghassāna in the south and the present Route 5 in the north, and between Majdal Yābā in the west and Jammā‘īn, Mardā and Kifl Ḥāris in the east, this area served, according to historian Roy Marom, "as a buffer zone between the political-economic-social units of the Jerusalem and the Nablus regions. On the political level, it suffered from instability due to the migration of the Bedouin tribes and the constant competition among local clans for the right to collect taxes on behalf of the Ottoman authorities."

In 1838 Edward Robinson noted it as a village, ''Kireh'', in the ''Jurat Merda'' district, south of Nablus.

In 1870 Victor Guérin noted ''Kireh'' on a hill partly covered with olives, and having "barely a hundred and forty inhabitants".

In 1870/1871 (1288 AH) an Ottoman census listed the village in the ''nahiya'' (sub-district) of Jamma'in al-Thani, subordinate to Nablus.

In 1882 the Palestine Exploration Fund's ''Survey of Western Palestine'' described ''Kireh'' as: "A moderate village on high ground, with a chapel venerated by the Moslems, but named after the Virgin Mary. The water supply is from a pool.

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, ''Qireh'' had a population of 87 Muslims,Barron, 1923, Table IX, Sub-district of Nablus, p
25
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 102 Muslims in 28 occupied houses.

In the 1945 statistics the population was 140 Muslims while the total land area was 2,249 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 475 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 1,145 for cereals, while 14 dunams were classified as built-up areas.

Jordanian era

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements

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