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Saham al-Jawlan or Saham el-Golan () is a
Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
n village in the
Daraa Governorate Daraa Governorate ( / ALA-LC: ') is one of the fourteen Governorates of Syria, governorates (provinces) of Syria. It is situated in the south-west of the country and covers an area of 2594 km2. It is bordered by Jordan to the south, Quneitra G ...
, in the
Hauran The Hauran (; 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, to the northeast by the al-Safa field, to the east and south by the Harrat ...
region. It had a population of 6,572 in 2004.General Census of Population and Housing 2004
Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Daraa Governorate.
Most residents work in the cultivation of cereals, olives and vegetables.


History


Antiquity

The village has remains dating back to the 4th century. It is also believed to be the biblical city of
Golan Golan (; ) is the name of a biblical town later known from the works of Josephus (first century CE) and Eusebius (''Onomasticon'', early 4th century CE). Archaeologists localize the biblical city of Golan at Sahm el-Jaulān, a Syrian village eas ...
.


Ottoman period

In 1596 Saham al-Jawlan appeared in the Ottoman tax registers as part of 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 ...
'' of Jawlan Sharqi in the Qada of Hauran. It had a
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 ...
population consisting of 22 households and 15 bachelors. A fixed tax−rate of 25% were paid on wheat, barley, summer crops, goats and/or beehives; a total of 4,000
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 ...
. In 1884 the American archaeologist
Gottlieb Schumacher Gottlieb Schumacher (21 November 1857 – 26 November 1925) was an United States, American-born civil engineer, architecture, architect and archaeology, archaeologist of Germans, German descent, who was an important figure in the early archaeol ...
visited Saham al-Jawlan and described it as a large village of 280 people in the
Hauran The Hauran (; 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, to the northeast by the al-Safa field, to the east and south by the Harrat ...
plain, though administratively attached to the Jawlan (Golan) ''nahiya'' centered in
Quneitra Quneitra (also Al Qunaytirah, Qunaitira, or Kuneitra; , ''al-Qunayṭrah'' or ''al-Qunayṭirah'' ) is the largely destroyed and abandoned capital of the Quneitra Governorate in south-western Syria. It is situated in a high valley in the Golan ...
rather than the Hauran nahiya centered in al-Shaykh Saad. The village was divided into three detached neighborhoods. He noted Saham al-Jawlan's houses were better built than other villages in the Jawlan and were constructed of stone reused from ancient Christian dwellings, rather than the mud houses prevalent in the area. More than half of the village's dwellings had been abandoned and/or in disrepair by the time of Schumacher's visit. At least sixty or seventy were still inhabited. The streets of the village were wide and mostly straight. Most of the ancient or medieval dwellings and ruins were located in Saham al-Jawlan's northern quarter, including the home of the village
sheikh Sheikh ( , , , , ''shuyūkh'' ) is an honorific title in the Arabic language, literally meaning "elder (administrative title), elder". It commonly designates a tribal chief or a Muslim ulama, scholar. Though this title generally refers to me ...
, which had formerly been a Crusader church and remained well-preserved. It was rectangularly-shaped, built of hewn
basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
, measured and consisted of a single story with a flat roof. Many of the slabs and lintels from which the structure was built were decorated with crosses, crescents and vegetal motifs. The ancient buildings surrounding the sheikh's home were inhabited by his relatives. In the southeast corner of the village stood a -high tower locally called the or the ; it appeared similar to the towers in the Hauran villages of
Daraa Daraa (, Levantine Arabic: ) is a city in southwestern Syria, north of the border with Jordan. It is the capital of Daraa Governorate in the Hauran region. Located south of Damascus on the Damascus–Amman highway, it serves as a way sta ...
,
Tafas Tafas (, also spelled Tafs or Tuffas) is a town in southern Syria, administratively part of the Daraa Governorate, located north of Daraa. Nearby localities include al-Shaykh Saad and Nawa to the north, Da'el, Abtaa and al-Shaykh Maskin to the ...
and Nawa. Despite the village's healthy climate and productive soil, its population was in decline. The vegetable gardens and fruit trees planted along the Wadi al-Shafayl stream west of Saham al-Jawlan were also in a poor state. Schumacher attributed the village's decline to the inhabitants' heavy indebtnedness to creditors, to whom most of the village's farmlands and homes had been pledged as collateral.


Zionist activity

In 1891, the Agudat Ahim society headquartered in Yekatrinoslav,
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
, acquired 100,000 dunams of land in Saham al-Jawlan for Jewish agricultural settlement. The village lands were purchased from Muhammad Sa'id Pasha Shamdin, a Damascene military official who owned considerable tracts in the Hauran. Muhammad Sa'id had purchased the village cheaply and turned a significant profit in its sale to the Jewish colonization company. Due to the Ottoman ban on land purchase by Palestinian Jews, the permits were acquired by Baron Edmond de Rothschild. In the
Palestine Exploration Fund The Palestine Exploration Fund is a British society based in London. It was founded in 1865, shortly after the completion of the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem by Royal Engineers of the War Department. The Fund is the oldest known organization i ...
's visit to the village in 1895, the expedition noted the residents of Saham al-Jawlan protested the sale of their village to the Jewish land company and refused to leave. In 1895, the village of Tiferet Binyamin was established on the land, but the Jews were forced to leave in July 1896, when the Ottomans evicted 17 non-Ottoman families and issued an order that led to the expulsion of all East European Jews from the
Golan Heights The Golan Heights, or simply the Golan, is a basaltic plateau at the southwest corner of Syria. It is bordered by the Yarmouk River in the south, the Sea of Galilee and Hula Valley in the west, the Anti-Lebanon mountains with Mount Hermon in t ...
. A later attempt to settle the site with Syrian Jews, who were Ottoman citizens, was not successful. In 1921–1930, during the French Mandate, the
Palestine Jewish Colonization Association The Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (), commonly known by its Yiddish acronym PICA (), was established in 1924. It played a major role in purchasing land and building Jewish settlement in Palestine and later the State of Israel until t ...
(PICA) obtained the deeds to the Rothschild estate in Saham al-Jawlan and continued to manage it, collecting rent from the Arab peasants living there.


Modern era

From March 2017 to July 2018 Saham al-Jawlan was under the control of the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS occupied signi ...
(ISIL). On 26 July 2018, the
Syrian Army The Syrian Army is the land force branch of the Syrian Armed Forces. Up until the fall of the Assad regime, the Syrian Arab Army existed as a land force branch of the Syrian Arab Armed Forces, which dominanted the military service of the fo ...
's 4th Armored Division and
Tiger Forces The 25th Special Mission Forces Division, colloquially known by their former name Tiger Forces (; ''Quwwat al-Nimr''), was an elite special forces unit, that was part of the Syrian Army under the charge of the commander Major General Saleh Abdu ...
following an intense battle with the
ISIL The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS occupied signif ...
-affiliated Jaysh Khaled bin Walid forces regained control of the town Saham al-Jawlan.


See also

*
Yavne'el Yavne'el (, ) is a moshava and Local council (Israel), local council in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. Founded in 1901, it is one of the oldest rural Jewish communities in the country. According to the Israel Centra ...
, a village in the Galilee settled in 1901 by Jewish families evicted from Saham al-Jawlan who first took refuge in Metula and Rosh Pinna


References


Bibliography

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External links


Map of the town
Google Maps
Kafer el Ma-map; 21K
{{Authority control Populated places in Daraa District Jewish villages in the Ottoman Empire Historic Jewish communities in Asia