Arraba, Jenin
Arraba, Jenin
Main page
1544033

Arraba, Jenin

logo
Community Hub0 subscribers
What are your thoughts?
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Arraba, Jenin

Arraba (Arabic: عرّابة ʻArrābah), also Arrabah, Arrabeh or Arrabet Jenin, is a Palestinian town in the northern West Bank located 12 kilometers southwest of Jenin and has an elevation of 350 meters above sea level. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) census, Arraba had a population of 11,479 in 2017.

The lands of 'Arraba include Khirbet al-Hammam and Tel el-Muhafer, either of which believed to be the site of the Israelite town Arubboth from the Books of Kings (associated with the Canaanite Rubutu in the Egyptian documents) and the Jewish city Narbata of the Roman period. Tell Dothan is located just north-east of Arraba.

Pottery remains from the late Roman, Byzantine, early Muslim and the Middle Ages have been found here.

In 1226 the geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi noted that the village had a holy place named after the prophet 'Arabil'. During the Crusader period, Arraba appears as one of the settlements marking the eastern boundary of the Caesarea district.

Arraba was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 along with the rest of Palestine. Throughout Ottoman rule, Arraba saw waves of immigration from the region, including from Hebron, Acre, and Egypt. During the 16th and 17th centuries, it was controlled by the Turabay dynasty (1517–1683), whose territory spanned a large part of northern Palestine. In the census of 1596, Arraba was administratively part of the nahiye (subdistrict) of Jabal Shami in the Nablus Sanjak. It had a population of 81 households and 31 bachelors, all Muslim. The inhabitants paid a fixed tax rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, that was 17,040 akçe on wheat, 1,500 on barley, 2,683 for summer crops, 1,500 for olive trees, 1,000 for occasional revenues, 1,000 for goats and beehives, 30 for an olive oil press, and 3,840 for adat rijaliyya, totalling 29,575 akçe. In 1648-50 the Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi noted the village contained 100 Muslim houses and that its taxes were allocated to the governor of Nablus.

In 1838 Arraba was noted as a village in the Sha'rawiya al-Sharqiya district, north of Nablus. Arraba is the origin of the Abd al-Hadi family, once a leading landowning family in the districts of Afula, Baysan, Jenin, and Nablus, and was their seat of power as a throne village (qaryat kursi). The clan was traditionally opposed to the Tuqan family of Nablus. In the 1850s the Ottoman rulers withdrew their soldiers from the district (to be used in the Crimean War), and hence open hostility ensued between the different Palestinian factions. The Abd al-Hadis sacked several villages, some of the results were shown to the British consul Rogers when he visited Arraba in 1856.

In April 1859 a coalition of Ottoman troops and local leaders opposed to the Abd al-Hadi clan, stormed Arraba. Members of the Abd al-Hadi clan either fled or were captured, while the fortifications of Arraba were razed and the place plundered. By subduing Arraba, the Ottomans had suppressed the last bastion of independent local rule in the Nablus region. French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village in 1870, and described it: "This town is situated on a plateau. [...] It is divided into three quarters, one of which was once surrounded by a wall flanked with small towers. This wall is now in great part destroyed, having been overthrown in a siege sustained some years ago during a revolt against the Caimacam of Nablus". In 1870/1871, an Ottoman census listed the village in the nahiye of al-Sha'rawiyya al-Sharqiyya.

In 1882, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Arraba as "a very large village on the south slope of a ridge, the northern houses on high ground. There is a small mosque in the centre, and one or two large buildings, including the Sheikh's house. The water supply is entirely from wells within the village, and on the road-side towards the north. There is a ridge of very barren rock between the village on the south and the plain (Merj 'Arrabeh) on the north. Scattered olives grow round the village, but the immediate neighbourhood is very bare. The villagers are turbulent and rich, owning very fine lands in the northern plain." In 1913-14 the Ottomans built a section of the Jezreel Valley railway (itself a branch of the now-defunct Hejaz railway) that passed through Arraba and ended in Nablus.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.